The ‘Crypto-1’ satellite was designed by the U.S. satellite startup Cryptosat to lay the groundwork for secure cryptography related to blockchain in space.
“We believe that satellites possess unique properties that make them well suited for these tasks, and by launching these platforms into space we can unlock new and exciting opportunities in the realm of computing,” the company said.
“We’re basically joining the Uber of spaceflight,” said Cryptosat co-founder Yonatan Winetraub. “Everybody goes into the same orbit, and we’re one of the passengers.
Satellite will provide cryptographic services
“SpaceX launched a bunch of satellites, each one of them is doing something else. It doesn’t matter for our service. We are hoping to use our satellite to provide cryptographic services for our customers here on Earth, which won’t interfere with the other satellites at all.”
“Working with a space asset is not the same as working here on Earth,” said Cryptosat’s Yan Michalevsky. “On the ground, if something goes wrong, you just open a terminal and debug it. When it happens in space, that’s not always available.”
He also added that the launch will be the first independent cryptographic system. In the future, the company plans to implement zero-knowledge-proof protocols.
Zero-knowledge proof is an advanced cryptography technology that is widely used in decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO) voting mechanisms to securely verify transaction details.
“There’s a lot of need for this,” Michalevsky added. “If we’re looking into protocols, especially in Web3, there are whole financial systems and smart contract systems, kind of digital legal agreements that depend on the trustworthiness of the cryptography behind it.”
Michalevsky also stated that space communication would take place via radio frequency, rendering the systems inaccessible to hackers operating from Earth.