Undeniably the most centralizing aspect of Web1 and Web2 was "the web" itself - their reliance on internet connectivity. Although there is no central governing body overseeing the Internet, key players from state actors to Big Tech companies have significant control over content and censorship, as we see on Weibo in China and Twitter worldwide every day.
The Internet’s infrastructure is similarly concentrated with AWS controlling 32% of the global cloud services market followed by Azure and Google Cloud. These cloud services providers are vulnerable to cyber attacks and outages, as we saw recently when East Coast AWS servers went down causing major disruptions to personal and professional internet-reliant technologies, from CRMs to coffeemakers and everything in between.
While climate change poses rising threats to our energy grids here on Earth, extreme space weather has the potential to cause an "internet apocalypse" leaving large segments of society offline for weeks or months at a time as Sangeetha Abdua Jyothi recently explained.[1] Our current system of undersea cables that connect continents to the Internet could be knocked out in the event of a severe solar storm and we currently do not have a plan in place to restore them.
Additionally, the World Wide Web isn't really so "worldwide" after all - only 59.5% of the global population has internet connectivity.[2]
Our reliance on this vulnerable and insufficient infrastructure can change with web3. Companies are developing models today that bring the blockchain into space, building satellite constellations that are more energy efficient, less vulnerable to cyber threats or outages, more global in coverage and greater in autonomy than the Internet.
Blockstream
Founded in 2014, Bitcoin company Blockstream launched their first satellite in 2017 with the mission of reducing Bitcoin's dependency on the Internet and vulnerability to network outages. The Blockstream Satellite network is a free service that broadcasts the Bitcoin blockchain around the world 24/7. This makes the blockchain more robust and solves for the concern of any network interruptions because there is no internet required.
Blockstream Satellite has ground stations known as "teleports" that transmit blocks to and from each other as well as to geosynchronous satellites, which in turn broadcast the signal back down to Earth. This allows anyone with a small satellite antenna to receive these blocks, ensuring that their node is always in sync regardless of any internet outages. Their RESTful API is open source, developer friendly and can be used to create dapps that broadcast encrypted messages via satellite. This offers unparalleled privacy by bypassing the terrestrial Internet, creating more access and security for the Bitcoin blockchain.
Blockstream raised a $210m Series B with a valuation of $3.2b led by Baillie Gifford and iFinex in November 2021.
SpaceChain
SpaceChain was founded in 2017 to build a neutral infrastructure for the New Space Economy that integrates space and blockchain technologies. They provide "Space-as-a-Service" enterprise products that give developers access to space-based computing and applications through LEO microsat networks that can serve as a decentralized computing platform.
Just this month SpaceChain announced its sixth successful blockchain payload launch into space, this time integrated with a space node created for Velas Network AG, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchain and open-source platform for decentralized applications (dapps).
SpaceChain has received a number of non-profit funded grants and launched their token, SPC, in a private sale to institutional and accredited investors, on the QRC-20 chain (Qtum) which runs on an MPoS (mutualized proof-of-stake) consensus mechanism.
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Many other companies are entering the blockchain space race with other services essential for this growing sector.
Space Traffic Control
Companies like LEO Labs and Slingshot Aerospace are working on tracking satellite location data for commercial space traffic and digital twins of LEO, but other companies are building these projects on the Ethereum blockchain.
TruSat
TruSat was conceived as a blockchain-based database for monitoring orbital positions of satellites, a crucial service as space gets crowded with more and more private companies launching satellites, increasing the odds of collision and creating sustainability concerns from orbital debris. TruSat has evolved into a community-led project helping individuals locate, track and document the location of visible satellites.
The project was incubated by ConsenSys, a market-leading Ethereum blockchain company best known for MetaMask, after they acquired Planetary Resources, an asteroid mining company, in 2018. ConsenSys Space has open-sourced all of Planetary Resource’s IP and released TruSat to the community in April 2020.
ConsenSys recently completed a $200m funding round at a $3.2b valuation with participation from Coinbase Ventures and Animoca Brands in November 2021.
Geo Location
XYO Networks was founded in 2017 with the mission to create an incentive driven, blockchain-based, decentralized geospatial location network utilizing IoT devices and satellites. They envision this network as an alternative to the American-controlled Global Positioning System (GPS). Their roadmap is ambitious and includes plans to launch their EtherX satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9.
Their XYO token currently has a $334.7m market cap.
Far Above the Cloud – Space Edge Data Storage
LEOcloud intends to offer “low latency, highly secure, high availability” cloud services through their Space Edge Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation. They plan to co-locate edge computing services at ground stations before establishing a constellation of orbiting data centers designed to support blockchain.
"As a result, LEOcloud could assist financial institutions wishing to provide digital currency-based services into regions of the world they otherwise cannot reach or don’t want to put the infrastructure investment in,” said LEOcloud CEO Dennis Gatens. “Blockchain gives them transaction security and immutability, whether it’s basic banking services or any financial tools or services they offer.”
Where Do I Get My Ticket??
Copernic Space (aka “Where People Get Their Space”) is developing on online platform called SpaceMart to convert assets from rides to orbit or shares in a space startup to digital tokens in order to facilitate their quick and easy exchange. Their co-founder and CEO, Grant Blaisdell, says he wants to make space “more psychologically accessible” for everyone.
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We often talk about democratizing access to finance and the unbanked when we discuss crypto, but there are currently 4b people without internet access. Decentralized satellite infrastructures have the potential to provide fully global connectivity.[3] Satellites can also use solar panels to transmit data without any carbon emissions,[4] significantly lowering the energy costs of data storage and potentially Bitcoin mining.
Web3 in space will create a truly worldwide web accessible 24/7 by twice as many people who can all share in its governance. As humanity begins our next steps towards becoming multiplanetary, our blockchains will be ready to support us both at home on Earth as well as up in the stars.
[1] SIGCOMM_21__Internet_Resilience.pdf (uci.edu)
[2] Internet users in the world 2021 | Statista
[3] SpaceX Gets US Approval to Launch Space-Based Broadband Service - Internet Society
[4] The Next Way to Stop Climate Change: Storing Data in Space - OZY | A Modern Media Company
Further Reading:
SpaceNewsBlockchain and Space: The Companies - SpaceQ