Daily Update

Humans Are Going Back to the Moon, and the Future of the Space Economy Runs on Open Infrastructure

3 min read

Four astronauts launched toward the moon yesterday — the first humans to leave Earth’s orbit in 53 years. While NASA handles the science, it’s companies like SpaceX and blockchain-native projects that are building the commercial space economy — and tokenization is already playing a role.

Three things to know:

  1. NASA’s Artemis II launched on 1 April, sending four astronauts on a 10-day mission around the moon — the first crewed lunar mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.
  2. The space economy is already being tokenized. Spacecoin has four satellites in orbit tokenizing idle satellite bandwidth via the $SPACE token. Investors can buy tokenized SpaceX equity through platforms like Republic and Colb Finance — no IPO required.
  3. SpaceX has fundamentally changed the economics of space. Reusable rockets brought launch costs down from over $50,000 per kilogram to under $3,000 — making the tokenized space economy commercially viable.

On Tuesday evening, a 98-metre rocket lifted off from Kennedy Space Center and pointed itself at the moon. Four astronauts — Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Canadian Jeremy Hansen — are now on a 10-day loop around the far side of the moon, the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit since 1972.

It’s a breathtaking achievement, and it marks the beginning of a new chapter in human space exploration. But equally interesting is what’s happening in the commercial space economy around it.

SpaceX Changed the Game

The Artemis program is NASA’s moonshot, but the broader space economy increasingly runs on private infrastructure — and nobody has done more to reshape that than SpaceX.

Before SpaceX, launching a satellite cost upwards of $50,000 (R843,000) per kilogram. SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rockets brought that below $3,000 (R50,580) per kilogram. Starship, currently in testing, aims to push it below $200 (R3,372) per kilogram.

That cost reduction is what makes the commercial space economy possible. When launch costs drop by 95%, entirely new business models open up — including ones built on blockchain infrastructure.

SpaceX’s Starlink already operates over 7,000 satellites providing internet to more than 100 countries. It’s the largest satellite constellation in history, and it was built by a private company moving faster and cheaper than any government programme could.

What’s Actually Being Tokenized in Space

The space economy tokenization story isn’t theoretical. It’s already happening in concrete ways.

Satellite bandwidth. Spacecoin has four satellites in orbit — CTC-0 launched in December 2024 and three more in the CTC-1 mission in November 2025. The project solves a specific inefficiency: a low-Earth orbit satellite circles the Earth every 90–120 minutes but only connects to a given location for about 5–15 minutes per pass. That means satellite operators use roughly 5% of their capacity, with 95% sitting idle.

The $SPACE token lets operators monetize that idle capacity by joining an open network. Instead of one operator serving one region, the network pools global capacity. Operators stake $SPACE tokens to join, and the token is the settlement layer for bandwidth transactions across the constellation.

SpaceX equity. Republic launched rSPAX — a tokenized representation of SpaceX shares on blockchain — giving retail investors exposure to SpaceX before any IPO. Colb Finance followed with CSPX on the Plume network, offering proportional economic exposure to an underlying SpaceX position. Both products use blockchain to fractionalize access to one of the most valuable private companies on earth — valued at over $350 billion (R5.9 trillion).

Orbital infrastructure. J.P. Morgan’s Kinexys division has deployed blockchain infrastructure in orbit for secure financial settlements. SpaceChain has been running blockchain nodes on satellites since 2019, providing tamper-proof transaction validation from space.

Why Crypto and Space Are Converging

This convergence isn’t accidental. Space infrastructure shares characteristics with blockchain networks: it’s global by default, operates outside any single jurisdiction, and requires coordination between distributed participants who don’t necessarily trust each other.

Tokenization brings three things to the space economy that traditional finance struggles with:

  • Fractional ownership. A satellite costs millions. A token costs whatever fraction you want to buy. This opens space investment to anyone with a digital wallet.
  • Automated settlement. Smart contracts can handle bandwidth payments between satellite operators in real time, across borders, without intermediaries.
  • Open participation. Spacecoin’s network is permissionless — any satellite operator meeting protocol standards can join without going through a centralized application process.

The space economy is projected to grow from $350 billion to over $1 trillion (R16.86 trillion) in the next two decades. Tokenization is how ordinary investors participate in that growth, rather than it being limited to government agencies and defence contractors.

What South Africans Should Watch

South Africa has its own position in the space economy. SANSA — the South African National Space Agency — operates satellite infrastructure and monitors space weather. Dragonfly Aerospace, based in Stellenbosch, builds satellite imaging systems that compete globally.

As the space economy opens up through tokenization, South Africans can access opportunities that were previously limited to Silicon Valley insiders or government contractors. Tokenized SpaceX equity, satellite bandwidth tokens, and orbital infrastructure projects are all accessible from anywhere with an internet connection.

Yesterday’s launch was historic — a reminder of what’s possible when humans push beyond the familiar. The space economy being built around it is just as ambitious, and this time, it’s being built on open infrastructure that anyone can participate in.

Sources:

Exchange rate used: $1 = R16.86 (2 April 2026)

Leon Kowalski