Bitcoin miner Chun Wang to become SpaceX astronaut today
The co-founder of one of Bitcoin’s largest mining pools, F2Pool, is scheduled to orbit both poles of earth tonight. While in flight, Chun Wang’s mining pool will continue to contribute approximately 10% of the hashpower securing Bitcoin’s blockchain.
Chun is paying for and commanding SpaceX’s Fram2 mission of a Crew Dragon spacecraft, which could be the first human flight to complete the unusual trajectory over the Earth’s poles. He will fly alongside three astronauts.
Chun is one of the earliest coiners still active on social media. He bought his first BTC via PayPal at a price of $8.70 on May 28, 2011. His mining pool mined its first block on May 5, 2013.
Every BTC acquired prior to May 6, 2013 – even at BTC’s most expensive point of $259 prior to that date – has increased in value by at least 30,000%. In other words, every $1,000 invested prior to May 6, 2013 is now worth at least $300,000.
The opportunity cost of a Caribbean citizenship: $40 million
The China-born citizen of Malta as well as Saint Kitts & Nevis claims to be a Bitcoin maximalist most of the time, although his favorite early coiner is Ripple (XRP) and Stellar (XLM) founder Jed McCaleb.
Chun purchased his St. Kitts & Nevis citizenship for 542 BTC in 2017. Today, those same BTC would be worth over $40 million.
Over the past few months, Chun has spent at least tens of millions preparing for today’s launch. He has not disclosed his full cost for the voyage. For context, single seats on previous private missions like Inspiration4, which included a charitable contribution, went for $200-600 million apiece.
Read more: New research suggests Bitcoin mining centralized around Bitmain
Chun Wang’s F2Pool
For over a decade, F2Pool has been coordinating a contingent of miners who have contributed over 12% of Bitcoin’s hashrate over the last three years. Although its share of the network fluctuates by the hour, the pool has mined a similar 10% of hashes over the last week.
For years, operating a mining pool has been a fabulously lucrative business model. By providing some software, coordinating payouts, and managing communications with participating miners, the pool operator earns a percentage of revenue
According to Mononaut, however, Chun’s F2Pool has a history of suspicious cooperation with the Bitmain-controlled Antpool. Bitmain is the manufacturer of Antminers, the most popular bitcoin mining rig.
Indeed, an ongoing series of research into mining pools has cast doubt on the decentralization of large mining pools like F2Pool. According to various researchers, supposedly competitive mining pools actually cooperate when allocating work, using common block templates and allocating coinbase rewards to their miners via shared custodians.
Crewed spacecraft launches are highly weather dependent. Fram2 has backup dates extending from April 1 and beyond if today’s launch is delayed for any reason. Once successfully in orbit, the crew will stay in orbit for 3-5 days before returning to the ground. The crew is Chun Wang, Jannicke Mikkelsen, Rabea Rogge, and Eric Philips.
Got a tip? Send us an email or ProtonMail. For more informed news, follow us on X, Instagram, Bluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.