By
Benjamin Njiri
April 23rd, 2024
Ethereum’s blockchain venture production studio, ConsenSys, expands its activities by acquiring an asteroid mining company called Planetary Resources.
Blockchain software technology firm ConsenSys Inc. is expanding its horizons. According to the recently made announcement, ConsenSys has acquired American asteroid mining company Planetary Resources Inc. The acquisition has been conducted via an asset-purchase transaction.
Details of the Deal
ConsenSys has chosen a way to develop the company through investing and acquiring new businesses. This time it has taken a decision to enter the space industry: the most recent company being acquired is Planetary Resources Inc. which deals with exploring, extracting and refining resources from asteroids.
Under the terms of the acquisition agreement signed by the companies, Planetary Resources President and CEO Chris Lewicki and General Counsel Brian Israel will join the team at ConsenSys.
New Team Members
Chris Lewicki, one of the co-founders of Planetary Resources, earlier worked as flight director of the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers and Phoenix Mars lander at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Being a real professional in this industry, he said that Planetary Resources had been always trying to be the first in all the aspects including technologies, business, law, and policy and now he expressed his hope that together with ConsenSys they would achieve new heights. He stated:
“I am proud of our team’s extraordinary accomplishments, grateful to our visionary supporters, and delighted to join ConsenSys in building atop our work to expand humanity’s economic sphere of influence in the Solar System.”
As for Brian Israel, he joined Planetary Resources in 2017. From 2009 till 2017 he worked in the US State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser and served as a representative to the United Nations’ space law body. Moreover, he examined the issue of the usability of Ethereum smart contracts in space exploration and their tore in the development of these studies.
He said:
“Ethereum smart contract functionality is a natural solution for private-ordering and commerce in space—the only domain of human activity not ordered around territorial sovereignty—in which a diverse range of actors from a growing number of countries must coordinate and transact.”
Benefits for ConsenSys
ConsenSys was founded in 2015, by one of the co-developers of Ethereum, Joseph Lubin. The company works on creating and scaling tools, developing startups, and enterprise software products powered by decentralized technology. It has more than three dozen companies working on various projects in different spheres that make use of Etherium.
Now, ConsenSys will have a possibility to translate into life its space initiatives. Lubin commented their new acquisition the following way:
“Bringing deep space capabilities into the ConsenSys ecosystem reflects our belief in the potential for Ethereum to help humanity craft new societal rule systems through automated trust and guaranteed execution. And it reflects our belief in democratizing and decentralizing space endeavors to unite our species and unlock untapped human potential. We look forward to sharing our plans and how to join us on this journey in the months ahead.”
Let us also remind that it is not the first breath-taking large-scale initiative of ConsenSys. This July, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China’s Xiongan New Area government to advise the authorities with a view to develop blockchain solutions for China’s “dream city.”