The co-founder of one among Bitcoin’s largest mining swimming pools, F2Pool, is scheduled to orbit each poles of earth tonight. Whereas in flight, Chun Wang’s mining pool will proceed to contribute roughly 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 possibly be the primary human flight to finish the weird trajectory over the Earth’s poles. He’ll fly alongside three astronauts.
Chun is among the earliest coiners nonetheless lively on social media. He purchased his first BTC by way of PayPal at a value of $8.70 on Might 28, 2011. His mining pool mined its first block on Might 5, 2013.
Each BTC acquired previous to Might 6, 2013 – even at BTC’s most costly level of $259 previous to that date – has elevated in worth by at the very least 30,000%. In different phrases, each $1,000 invested previous to Might 6, 2013 is now value at the very least $300,000.
Chun Wang carrying a SpaceX house swimsuit.
The chance price of a Caribbean citizenship: $40 million
The China-born citizen of Malta in addition to Saint Kitts & Nevis claims to be a Bitcoin maximalist more often than not, though his favourite early coiner is Ripple (XRP) and Stellar (XLM) founder Jed McCaleb.
Chun bought his St. Kitts & Nevis citizenship for 542 BTC in 2017. At present, those self same BTC could be value over $40 million.
Over the previous few months, Chun has spent at the very least tens of thousands and thousands getting ready for as we speak’s launch. He has not disclosed his full price for the voyage. For context, single seats on earlier non-public missions like Inspiration4, which included a charitable contribution, went for $200-600 million apiece.
Chun Wang’s F2Pool
For over a decade, F2Pool has been coordinating a contingent of miners who’ve contributed over 12% of Bitcoin’s hashrate during the last three years. Though its share of the community fluctuates by the hour, the pool has mined an identical 10% of hashes during the last week.
For years, working a mining pool has been a fabulously profitable enterprise mannequin. By offering some software program, coordinating payouts, and managing communications with collaborating miners, the pool operator earns a share of income
In accordance with Mononaut, nevertheless, Chun’s F2Pool has a historical past of suspicious cooperation with the Bitmain-controlled Antpool. Bitmain is the producer of Antminers, the most well-liked bitcoin mining rig.
Certainly, an ongoing collection of analysis into mining swimming pools has forged doubt on the decentralization of huge mining swimming pools like F2Pool. In accordance with varied researchers, supposedly aggressive mining swimming pools really cooperate when allocating work, utilizing frequent block templates and allocating coinbase rewards to their miners by way of shared custodians.
Crewed spacecraft launches are extremely climate dependent. Fram2 has backup dates extending from April 1 and past if as we speak’s launch is delayed for any cause. As soon as efficiently in orbit, the crew will keep in orbit for 3-5 days earlier than returning to the bottom. The crew is Chun Wang, Jannicke Mikkelsen, Rabea Rogge, and Eric Philips.
