Chun Wang, the Chinese-born Maltese entrepreneur who founded Bitcoin mining pool F2Pool, has become one of the first private individuals to join SpaceX’s planned first crewed mission to Mars, after purchasing a seat on the historic interplanetary flight.
SpaceX announced Thursday that the mission will fly beyond the Moon, execute a Mars flyby, and return to Earth, a journey expected to span approximately two years. Wang has also separately purchased a seat on a planned weeklong commercial spaceflight around the Moon, scheduled to launch ahead of the Mars mission.
Why Wang is doing it
Wang was candid about his reasoning, and it goes beyond personal ambition. In a post on X on Friday, he said he has little confidence that Mars exploration will happen within his lifetime without active private support, and that he felt compelled to act.
“I have no confidence that Mars will still happen within our lifetime. And I think I should do something about that. I hope that by purchasing a flyby mission to Mars, SpaceX will have another reason not to forget about Mars. Because we seriously shouldn’t defer Mars to our next generation,” he wrote.
On the Moon, his view was more relaxed, he noted that geopolitical competition between the United States and China will likely push governments to establish lunar bases regardless of private involvement. Mars, he argued, is different: without private funding and public pressure, it risks being indefinitely postponed.
“I hope this mission can show the public that Mars is not just a point of light in a telescope. It is a real place, and humans can fly there and come back alive and come back healthy,” Wang added.
From Bitcoin mining to outer space
Wang founded F2Pool in 2013, making it one of China’s earliest Bitcoin mining pools. It currently holds a global market share of over 11.85%, ranking it as the third largest mining pool in the world.
His transition from crypto entrepreneur to space explorer is not entirely new. Last April, Wang bankrolled and commanded the “Fram2” mission, a SpaceX venture that flew over the Earth’s poles and conducted a series of experiments including taking an X-ray in space and growing mushrooms in microgravity. The four-person crew included a German polar scientist, a Norwegian cinematographer, and an Australian Arctic adventurer.
The bigger picture for private space
Wang joins a growing roster of technology entrepreneurs who have personally funded and participated in space missions, including Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Virgin Group co-founder Richard Branson, and Shift4 Payments founder Jared Isaacman.
SpaceX has said cargo flights to Mars for research and exploratory purposes are expected to begin no earlier than 2028, with the longer-term vision being the establishment of a self-sufficient city on Mars, a goal the company estimates will require transporting more than one million people and millions of tonnes of cargo to the red planet.
Wang’s investment is a bet that keeping private momentum behind that vision matters, and that waiting for governments alone to make it happen is a risk he is not willing to take.
