Blockchain to the moon! Crypto Companies’ Space Plans Are Less Silly Than You Think

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In March, a crypto company announced a Bitcoin treasure chest hunting space. The firm, LunarCrush, plans to send a rover more than 200,000 miles to the moon this year with a private key engraved on the device. Whoever finds the rover first can use the private key to collect 62 Bitcoins worth around $2 million at today’s prices.

As the celestial contest smells of yet another crypto-related publicity stunt, artist Jeff Koons plans to place an NFT-related sculpture on the moon, a growing number of crypto companies are dealing with the intersection of digital assets and space as a serious long-term business opportunity.

At the end of June, crypto startup Cryptosat announced that it was working on a space wallet designed to secure crypto in space. And a number of other companies, like Blockstream, SpaceChain, and Filecoin, have plans to integrate blockchains with space technology or to use very remote spaces to secure decentralized ledgers.

Space for Blockchain

Yan Michalevsky, one of the co-founders of Cryptosat, says that blockchain can intersect with the cosmos in two ways: blockchain for space, or using blockchains to enhance and enhance existing space technology, and the space for blockchain, or the use of cosmic technology to improve blockchains themselves. .

Cryptosat falls into the latter camp. Founded by Michalevsky and Yonatan Winetraub, who are pursuing doctoral studies at Stanford, the startup sent two satellites the size of coffee cups into space. Both are equipped with small computers capable of performing simple calculations such as saving cryptographic caches.

Since they are not physically accessible, Michalevsky told Fortune, this can protect against very sophisticated attacks that become relevant, especially in the blockchain and Web3 space.

The Cryptosats plans are a spatial variant of the crypto industry’s ongoing quest to help owners take drastic measures to secure their assets. To a layman, the idea of ​​using the remoteness of space to secure crypto might seem like a stretch, but it could provide additional peace of mind for financial institutions or privacy-focused developers.

SpaceChain, another crypto startup co-founded by former Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik, also has nodes, or small computers, roaming the cosmos. They attached seven to existing satellites and three to the International Space Station, according to CEO Cliff Beek.

A blockchain node or any other node in space that sits outside of terrestrial infrastructure creates air space for unauthorized access, he told Fortune, noting how it would be difficult for a hacker to gain access to a computer racing above the Earth at about 17,000 miles per hour. A SpaceChain node weighs 100 grams and measures about eight inches by eight inches, according to Beek.

SpaceChain has launched seven nodes, or small computers, into space so far.

Courtesy of SpaceChain

Then there’s Blockstream, a Bitcoin-focused company founded by Adam Back, an early member of the cypherpunks who corresponded with Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto, who also does space-related investments.

The company, which raised $125 million in January to expand its Bitcoin mining operations, is leasing four satellites to broadcast the Bitcoins blockchain, or its decentralized database, across the Earth.

One of Bitcoin’s promises is the ability to improve global access to remittances, finance, international transfers and things like that, Back told Fortune. However, he said that in some countries the cost of a high-speed internet connection can exceed the average monthly salary, and a satellite dish is comparatively cheaper.

The backsight is that someone can buy an old laptop, hook it up to an inexpensive satellite dish, and then stream the Bitcoins data locally. He hopes that entrepreneurs and companies from different parts of the world where bandwidth is more expensive will use this infrastructure to make it economically feasible, he said.

Currently, Blockstreams satellites only broadcast the Bitcoin blockchain but do not update it. The company is actively working to make its satellites capable of receiving data in the near future, Back told Fortune.

Blockchain for space

Space can potentially help secure blockchains and provide a launching pad for disseminating blockchain information, but some believe that distributed ledgers can enhance existing space technology and even secure potential releases from our extraterrestrial neighbors.

In May, the SETI Institute (short for Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) announced that it had partnered with Protocol Labs, a lead developer behind the Filecoin project, a decentralized database.

Specifically, SETI held a fire drill to simulate how best to react if a satellite intercepted a transmission from extraterrestrial intelligence. An extraterrestrial message would be a shocking revelation, and whoever controls access to the message, SETI claims, controls one of the largest collections of megabytes in the world.

Therefore, the institute decided that it was better to store the message with Filecoin, a database that is not under the exclusive control of any authority. They’re very sensitive about not wanting to be censored and/or have anything removed or tampered with, Jennifer Bell, head of marketing at Protocol Labs, told Fortune.

This emphasis on tamper-evident and open data is the main value proposition for space scientists, according to Franck Marchis, senior astronomer at SETI and chief scientific officer of telescope startup Unistellar.

I believe space is going to be the next big thing, and if we want to have young, smart, motivated people to work in space, we have to train them and we have to give them access to data now, he said. he declared to Fortune. .

And beyond aliens, defense contractor Lockheed Martin is also turning to Filecoin to secure inter-satellite communications. Satellites often relay data between themselves, but in the highly nationalistic and competitive arena of the cosmos, trust in the integrity of a message relayed over a satellite grid is difficult to maintain.

To that end, Lockheed plans to launch IPFSshort for Interplanetary File System nodes in the skies to test the feasibility of using blockchain technology to secure satellite transmissions with the help of Protocol Labs, a subsidiary of Filecoin. . (IPFS is the protocol that underpins the Filecoin project.)

The United States and its allies invest very heavily and very legitimately in lunar and interplanetary travel, and IPFSit has interplanetary on its behalf was designed for this use case from day one, said Anshuman Prasad, head of partnerships at Protocol Labs at Fortune.

Launch sequence

The companies Fortune spoke to have already made space in outer space for crypto and, despite current regulatory uncertainty, are planning more launches this year.

Lockheed is preparing its LM 400 Technology Demonstrator spacecraft for launch in 2023, and onboard will be IPFS nodes, according to the Filecoin Foundation. Cryptosats is looking to launch its third satellite into the cosmos by the end of 2023, and SpaceChain is also looking to send a node into space for a similar period. We try to do one launch a year, its CEO Beek told Fortune.

The number of companies experimenting with blockchain in the space is small but persistent, and while crypto may not be able to escape the withered eye of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, it very well may escape Earth’s gravity.

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