The Space Race for a Decentralized Internet—Another Road Not Taken | HackerNoon

As I recently wrote about missed opportunities in blockchain adoption during my time at Tonga Cable Ltd, another memory surfaced—this one from my tenure at Kacific Broadband Satellites Group. As satellite technology and blockchain technology have evolved, it seems I’ve had a front-row seat to multiple “roads not taken” that are now being traveled by others.

Back in 2022, I led an innovative project at Kacific that, in retrospect, was remarkably prescient. The concept was elegantly simple yet disruptive: utilizing their satellites as “Nodes” for blockchain networks and hybrid smart contracts. The project, which we tentatively called “Space Nodes,” aimed to leverage it’s satellite infrastructure in a way that no one else was considering at the time.

The fundamental insight driving this initiative was the unique position of Kacific satellites. Unlike terrestrial infrastructure, these were essentially secure computing units floating in space, naturally isolated from physical tampering and cyber threats. What made the proposition particularly compelling was the architecture of the network: every communication had to pass through these satellites. This created a unique opportunity for secure, verifiable transaction processing that was fundamentally different from traditional internet routing, where data can take multiple paths.

The vision for the Kacific K2 and K3 satellite projects included embedding specialized crypto engines, both hardware and software components, that would transform these communication satellites into orbital blockchain validators. The security implications were significant; trying to hack a satellite is considerably more challenging than compromising a terrestrial node. This natural security advantage could have made our space nodes particularly valuable for high-stakes smart contracts and cryptocurrency transactions. But perhaps the most innovative aspect of our proposal was its potential to create a new kind of demand for satellite bandwidth. By requiring certain types of transactions to be validated through these space nodes, we could have created a system where satellite connectivity wasn’t just a communication pathway, it would become an integral part of transaction verification. We even planned to optimize network usage by processing these transactions during off-peak hours, effectively monetizing our nighttime bandwidth capacity.

The seeds for this innovative approach were actually planted earlier, during my participation in the Chainlink Hackathon Fall 2021. My use case/proof-of-concept, “Blockchain/Chainlink: Satellite Broadband Service Chain,” was a top-quality project winner for its groundbreaking concept of using dynamic NFTs to revolutionize satellite broadband service delivery. The project demonstrated how smart contracts could automate the entire satellite broadband service chain, from equipment procurement to service delivery, while creating the world’s first direct-to-consumer marketplace for satellite broadband solutions.

This early prototype showed how blockchain technology could bridge the digital divide in underserved communities by replacing traditional paper contracts with hybrid smart contracts. The system used Chainlink oracles to connect off-chain data feeds and trigger real-world events, effectively creating a DeFi payment gateway for remote communities lacking traditional banking infrastructure. Looking back, this hackathon project laid the theoretical groundwork for what we would later attempt to implement at Kacific on a larger scale.

Fast-forward to 2025, and it’s fascinating to see how Spacecoin has successfully implemented many of the concepts we envisioned. Their blockchain-powered satellite network is revolutionizing connectivity and decentralized finance in ways that eerily mirror our original proposal. The key differences? Timing and market readiness.

This pattern of being “too early” seems to follow me: first, with the Bitcoin mining opportunity at Tonga Cable Ltd, and then with the Space Nodes project at Kacific. In both cases, the infrastructure and technical capability were present, but the market and institutional appetite for such innovation weren’t quite ripe.

As I watch Spacecoin’s potential success in integrating blockchain technology, I’m reminded of Alan Kay’s famous quote: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” Sometimes, though, inventing the future isn’t enough; you also need the market to be ready to embrace it.

The convergence of satellite technology and blockchain that we’re seeing today validates our early vision. Spacecoin’s success in creating a decentralized, satellite-based network isn’t just a triumph of technology, it’s a validation of an idea that many of us in the industry saw coming years ago. The difference is that they launched at a time when the market was finally ready to embrace such innovation.

As we look toward the future of decentralized internet infrastructure, I can’t help but feel both vindicated and slightly wistful. The roads we explored but couldn’t travel at Kacific and Tonga Cable are now becoming major highways in the digital landscape. Perhaps that’s the nature of innovation, sometimes you need pioneers to envision the path, even if others will be the ones to eventually walk it.

The lesson here isn’t about regret, it’s about recognition. Recognition that good ideas often need to wait for their moment, that being too early is often indistinguishable from being wrong, and that the seeds of innovation we plant today might bloom in someone else’s garden tomorrow. As we continue to watch the evolution of satellite-based blockchain technology, I take comfort in knowing that we were among the first to see its potential, even if we couldn’t be the ones to realize it.

The journey continues…