SpaceX just handed the keys to its first crewed interplanetary Starship mission to someone who made his fortune mining Bitcoin. Chun Wang, co-founder of one of the world’s largest mining pools, will command a roughly two-year expedition that includes flybys of both the Moon and Mars before returning to Earth.
The announcement, made on May 22, marks a milestone not just for private space exploration but for the crypto industry’s expanding footprint in ambitious, capital-intensive ventures far removed from blockchain technology.
From hashrate to headspace
Wang co-founded F2Pool in 2013, during the early days when Bitcoin mining was still something you could reasonably do in a garage. The pool grew to control as much as 11% of Bitcoin’s total hashrate, making it one of the most influential operations in the network’s security infrastructure.
Wang, a Maltese-Kittitian investor originally from China, has been converting crypto-era riches into space-era ambitions. Wang commanded the Fram2 mission in early 2025, which became the first crewed flight to orbit over Earth’s poles. During that mission, his crew executed the first X-ray experiments ever conducted in space.
