By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 20th, 2024
Although the DOGE effort was announced first, BitMEX’s recent publication has put Bitcoin ahead as both assets race to the moon.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Seychelles-based crypto derivatives exchange BitMEX have begun an interesting space race to literally take Doge and Bitcoin to the moon. While the Elon Musk attempt was the first announcement and was not intended to be a race, the response from BitMEX has now indubitably made it so.
DOGE vs BTC
In a June 4 BitMEX announcement, the exchange revealed plans to support Astrobotic Technology, a space robotics firm working to send its first commercial lander to the moon. BitMEX’s announcement states that the company scheduled the trip for the fourth quarter of 2021, but did not specify a date. According to BitMEX, the effort will be the first time a private company will lead a lunar expedition made up of academia, government, industry, and other international players. BitMEX intends to send a physical bitcoin along:
“BitMEX will mint a one-of-a-kind physical bitcoin, similar to the Casascius coins of 2013, which will be delivered to the Moon by Astrobotic.”
According to the announcement, the physical coin will hold one bitcoin at a public address. It would also be “underneath a tamper-evident hologram covering.”
Back in May, there was an announcement of a similar effort from SpaceX. According to the CEO, the company will launch a mission to the moon, making history as the first-ever commercial lunar payload completely paid for using DOGE. Announced by Geometric Energy Corporation (GEC), company dubbed it “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon”. The mission will use a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
The BitMEX announcement references the DOGE mission, saying:
“We’ve nothing against Dog Money, we felt it was only right to help Bitcoin get there first.”
Apparently not taking the reference to heart, Musk responded saying:
“A new space race has begun!”
As part of the GEC announcement, SpaceX President of Commercial Sales Tom Ochinero revealed ambitious dreams for crypto. Ochinero said the mission would show that cryptocurrency application is possible outside of the earth’s orbit. He also added that the mission and out-of-earth crypto application could “set the foundation for interplanetary commerce”. At the moment, both Doge and Bitcoin are set to hit the moon soon.
Not The First Efforts
Interestingly, the SpaceX and BitMEX efforts are not the pioneer crypto space moves. For example, blockchain company, Blockstream used leased satellites to beam the Bitcoin Blochcain all over the world. In a 2017 tweet, CEO Adam Back confirmed a successful Bitcoin transaction via the satellite.
Spacehain has also deployed nodes in orbit. Last week an announcement revealed that the company had launched its multisig Ethereum payload on a Space X rocket. The plan is to install the payload on the International Space Station.