From OG Bitcoin Miner to Astronaut

Chun Wang’s superb life: From former Bitcoin miner to astronaut

On March 31, 2025, Chun Wang, co-founder of the historic Bitcoin mining pool f2pool, launched as mission commander of Fram2, the primary manned spacecraft to enter polar orbit. SpaceX Crew Dragon Resilience launched from Kennedy House Heart on a Falcon 9 rocket and entered a 90-degree retrograde inclined orbit passing instantly over the North and South Poles. No earlier manned mission had ever achieved this orbit. The very best ever inclination for people in orbit was 65 levels on the Soviet Vostok 6 flight in 1963.

In an unique interview with Bitcoin Journal, Wang shared one among his most memorable moments in house: “I do not keep in mind a lot about being in house, however as I appeared down on the Earth spinning under me, I simply saved considering: We had been flying so quick. “How can we get again to the bottom if we’re doing so? The gap itself is not actually that lengthy, lower than 500km, however what’s necessary is the large distinction in pace. That is after I remembered what I realized in regards to the uncertainty precept,” he added. It references Heisenberg’s 1927 bodily theorem. This theorem states that there’s an inherent restrict to the precision with which a given pair of bodily properties of a quantum particle might be recognized concurrently. Essentially the most well-known pair is place (x) and momentum (p, the product of mass and velocity).

He goes on to say, “Δx ⋅ Δp ≥ ℏ/2: Place solely is smart if we take into account momentum collectively; each decide whether or not two our bodies can really ‘meet’. Right here, distance isn’t just the distinction in place vectors. The rate vector should even be thought-about. ” The 2 objects he was in all probability contemplating had been the Earth and the Fram2 spacecraft he was on, each of which had been transferring at unbelievable speeds and will simply have handed one another for a touchdown with out a good engineer’s mind.

Wang led an all-civilian crew of first-time astronauts. The car is led by Norwegian movie director and polar explorer Jannicke Mikkelsen, piloted by German robotics researcher Lavea Rogge, and mission specialist Eric Phillips, an Australian polar explorer. The mission lasted three and a half days with out docking to the Worldwide House Station. The primary goal was to look at the polar Earth and conduct 22 analysis experiments.

House could have been Wang’s most excessive vacation spot, however it wasn’t his first. Mr. Wang is on a self-declared mission to go to each area on Earth, and his X profile describes it as “Documenting journey to each nation/area of the world based on ISO 3166: 60% (150 of 249) accomplished for one planet/moon and nonetheless ongoing.” So far, he has accomplished greater than 1,153 varied flights world wide, together with latest visits to Antarctica and the Polar Areas, averaging 36 flights per yr.

However Mr. Wang wasn’t all the time such an avid traveler. Born in Tianjin, China in 1982, Wang was 5 years previous when a world map introduced residence by his grandfather sparked a lifelong obsession with exploration, however it wasn’t till early maturity that he started touring the world after a legendary profession as an early Bitcoin miner and pool operator. Computer systems had been launched early in his life. He heard about computer systems at age 7, and by age 13 he owned his first 486 SX operating MS-DOS. He realized to code video games and planetary gravity simulations. In school, he entered programming competitions, however dropped out with out incomes a level and moved to software-related jobs all through China.

Bitcoin entered his world in Could 2011. Wang noticed two articles on the Chinese language expertise website Solidot and spent the evening studying the Bitcoin wiki. “Out of curiosity, I opened the en.bitcoin.it wiki hyperlink and studied all of it evening. I lastly understood every thing. It was like discovering a brand new world,” he wrote in his 2015 memoir. He borrowed $40,000 from his father, mined at 800 khash/s on a MacBook, and scaled up with a GPU he purchased in Zhongguancun. Within the first two years, he personally mined 7,700 $BTCthe revenue after electrical energy prices is about 2,700. He bought most of it for $11 in January 2013 to repay the mortgage.

Early GPU mining rigs in China. The sort of setup Chun Wang used earlier than founding f2pool. (Credit score: f2pool official historical past)

In April 2013, Wang co-founded f2pool with Mao Shihang, recognized on-line as Discus Fish. They established in Wenzhou. Wang coded the backend. Discus Fish was accountable for the operation. The pool was launched on Could fifth and has grown quickly, accounting for a few third of Bitcoin’s hashrate at its peak.

So far, f2pool has mined over 1.3 million $BTCgreater than 9 p.c of all blocks ever created. It is likely one of the largest and longest-running mining swimming pools in Bitcoin historical past. Through the 2017 block dimension wars, this pool performed a quiet however decisive function in supporting Bitcoin’s Nakamoto consensus. Wang later mentioned, “Proof of labor is Bitcoin’s structure. Respect mining, respect miners. With out miner help, SegWit wouldn’t have been activated and the Lightning Community wouldn’t have been attainable.”

From 2014 to the early 2020s, Wang continued to function f2pool whereas navigating modifications within the business, together with transferring operations abroad on account of China’s mining crackdown in 2021. In 2017, he mentioned the upcoming proof-of-stake period with Vitalik Buterin. This dialog led him to launch stake.fish in 2018. It’s a non-custodial staking service that has change into one of many largest validators throughout Ethereum, Polkadot, Solana, and different networks. This transfer diversifies his infrastructure enterprise throughout the broader cryptocurrency business and brings his expertise as a large-scale operator to the quickly altering crypto market.

to the moon

Chun Wang (far proper) contained in the Crew Dragon capsule with the Fram2 crew strapped down for launch. (Credit score: From SpaceX) house dot com)

The subsequent frontier was house. Wang had been pitching a non-public polar orbit mission to SpaceX beginning in 2023. He financed your entire Fram2 flight himself by promoting Bitcoin. There are not any sponsors or authorities help. The group educated for eight months in a simulator in California, getting ready for high-G spins, zero gravity flight, emergency coaching and polar survival.

The launch passed off on April 1, 2025 from Kennedy House Heart. Mr. Wang commanded from the commander’s chair. “The journey to orbit was a lot smoother than I anticipated. I did not really feel a lot G-force apart from the ultimate moments earlier than SECO. Actually, it felt like I used to be on one other flight,” he posted. The one time he observed zero grams was when he by accident loosened a small stuffed polar bear and it began floating. Your entire crew skilled house illness on the primary day. “It did not really feel like movement illness in a automotive or on the seashore. Studying on my iPad did not make it worse, however even a small sip of water might trigger an upset abdomen.”

By the second day, the nausea had subsided. “I really feel fully refreshed. All traces of movement illness are gone.” They opened a cupola over Antarctica. “Hiya, Antarctica. From 460 kilometers up, it is pitch white and you’ll’t see any human exercise.” The crew carried out 22 experiments in three and a half days. It is the primary human X-ray in house, together with hand scanning with a hoop, a mirrored image of Roentgen’s authentic 1895 X-rays, rising oyster mushrooms for the Mars meals code Mission MushVroom, monitoring feminine hormones with urine strips, radiation monitoring, blood move restriction, cellular MRI, sleep monitoring, and extra. Radiation knowledge confirmed that the South Atlantic anomaly, relatively than the poles, produced the very best radiation doses. The truth is, polar orbit reduces time within the zone in comparison with the ISS path, and this was highlighted by the journey’s spotlight discovery.

View of Antarctica from the Fram2 cupola. (Credit score: Fram2 crew by way of House.com)

The splashdown occurred off the coast of California on April 4th. Wang shared radiation graphs in March 2026, confirming that polar radiation publicity was decrease than anticipated. A full scientific paper on the experiment has not but been printed.

Since then, Wang has hardly ever sat nonetheless, receiving his astronaut wings from SpaceX and heading again on the highway with NASA’s Johnson inspection behind him. In March 2026, he arrived at Bouvet Island, the a hundred and fiftieth territory out of 249 on his journey checklist, by way of ship and helicopter, spending 201 hours on the ice earlier than heading to Cape City. He information his flights and retains his X account up to date with pictures, charts, and occasional ideas on Bitcoin and crypto expertise.

March 2026, helicopter departure from Bouvet Island — Trung Wan’s a hundred and fiftieth territory. (Credit score: Chun Wang, X/@Satofishi)

This text, “The Wonderful Lifetime of Chun Wang: From OG Bitcoin Miner to Astronaut” was first printed in Bitcoin Journal and written by Juan Galt.