radiative cooling and lack of permitting constraints could support massive compute. Starcloud-2 is the second of four planned launches and will feature a GPU cluster alongside the mining ASICs. The company’s official project page does not mention Bitcoin mining, making the announcement somewhat surprising. Johnston argues that mining is a compelling use case for space compute, noting that ASICs are about 30 times cheaper per kilowatt than GPUs. For example, a 1KW Nvidia B200 chip costs roughly $30,000, while a 1KW ASIC costs around $1,000. While space offers abundant solar power, the vacuum of space presents challenges for cooling and servicing equipment.

Why It Matters: Starcloud’s move highlights how extreme environments like orbit could unlock new economic models for hardware. By leveraging near-constant solar energy and avoiding terrestrial permitting, the startup aims to scale compute in a way that is difficult on Earth. The decision to mine Bitcoin rather than train AI models reflects a pragmatic focus on cost efficiency, as ASICs are significantly cheaper to run than GPUs in space.