Chun Wang, the Chinese-born Maltese entrepreneur who founded Bitcoin mining pool F2Pool, has secured a seat on SpaceX's first planned interplanetary mission to Mars after purchasing the mission.
SpaceX announced Thursday that the two-year mission will travel beyond the moon, fly by Mars, and return to Earth. Wang has also bought a ticket for a weeklong commercial spaceflight around the moon set to launch before the Mars mission.
"I hope that by purchasing a flyby mission to Mars, SpaceX will have another reason not to forget about Mars," Wang said in a post on X.
Starship cargo flights to Mars for research and exploration are expected to begin no earlier than 2028, according to SpaceX. The company's ultimate goal is to establish a self-sufficient city on Mars, requiring more than one million people and millions of tons of cargo.
Wang, a Chinese-born citizen of Malta, founded F2Pool in 2013, one of China's first Bitcoin mining pools. It is currently the third largest pool with a market share of 11.85%.
Last April, Wang also bankrolled and commanded the "Fram2" mission, another SpaceX venture that flew over Earth's poles and conducted experiments including taking an X-ray in space and growing mushrooms.