Bitcoin mining in space and AI data centers in space are economically different. For space-based AI data centers, scaling potential is virtually unlimited. As long as global AI demand continues to surge, Earth’s power, land, cooling, and regulatory will eventually become bottlenecks. Even if space-based computing is far more expensive initially, terrestrial costs could rise under constant undersupply until they match. Bitcoin mining in space, besides the latency concerns previously noted by @peterktodd [https://petertodd.org/2024/keeping-it-cool-mining-bitcoin-in-space], is a zero-sum game constrained by a hard protocol cap. Miners share a fixed daily pie of roughly 450 BTC plus variable transaction fees. At current prices around $60,000–$70,000, total annual revenue tops out at ~$10 billion. Revenue does not scale linearly with added capacity in this market. Unless the price of each bitcoin rises to around $500 billion, it would not be economically possible to operate a Bitcoin mining farm large enough block the entire planet of Venus. But with an AI data center it could.(Chun)