Bitcoin miners have spent years seeking cheap electricity around the planet. Nvidia-backed Starcloud is betting that leaving the atmosphere could produce better results.
The startup plans to put dedicated cryptocurrency mining hardware aboard its second spacecraft, Starcloud-2, as part of a broader effort to build data centers in space. CEO Philip Johnston says Starcloud will be the first company to mine Bitcoin in space, with application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICs, riding aboard Starcloud-2 when it is expected to launch in early 2027.
Starcloud believes abundant solar power could make orbit an attractive home for an industry notorious for its energy consumption. The company’s main ambition is not mining alone but space-based data centers.
The company’s first mission put an Nvidia H100 chip into orbit in November 2025, launching it aboard Starcloud-1, a roughly 60-kilogram satellite about the size of a mini-fridge.
Starcloud-2 is designed to expand that test into a commercial service. The spacecraft would combine a GPU cluster, persistent storage, continuous access, and dedicated thermal and power systems. Its sun-synchronous orbit supports the company’s solar-powered plans.
Starcloud is not alone in exploring orbital computing. Google is pursuing a similar idea through Project Suncatcher, which would use TPUs and optical links between satellites.
Mining in space, however, faces a significant engineering hurdle: cooling. Space offers a cold background, but a vacuum provides no air to carry heat away through convection. A spacecraft must transfer heat from its electronics to radiators that emit infrared radiation. How much heat can escape depends on radiator area, operating temperature, and surface properties.
There are also economic questions. Johnston has estimated that a B200 GPU drawing one kilowatt costs around $30,000, compared with roughly $1,000 for an ASIC consuming the same power. That comparison is about hardware cost per kilowatt, not a claim that ASICs are 30 times more efficient at mining.
Johnston also notes that ASICs don’t last as long as GPUs before they become obsolete, so there’s less time to actually make money back on the hardware. And he points out that down here on Earth, miners can already get electricity from stuff like flare gas for just two or three cents a kilowatt-hour.
On paper, cheap chips and near-constant sunlight make space-based cryptomining a compelling pitch. But whether it can actually compete with mining on Earth hinges on launch and cooling costs, and how long those ASICs stay profitable.
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