Jed McCaleb made a fortune in cryptocurrency. Now he’s prepared to lose a big chunk of it in space.
The billionaire who was behind the infamous Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange and the cryptocurrency XRP is the sole financial backer of a wildly ambitious effort to build the world’s first commercial space station and send it into orbit.
If he succeeds, his startup, Vast Space LLC, will be well-positioned to win a lucrative contract from NASA next year—potentially worth billions of dollars—to replace the International Space Station. If it’s a bust, McCaleb says, he’s fully prepared to lose $1 billion ...
