What happened?
Serial entrepreneur Jed McCaleb is once again venturing into new territory. The entrepreneur, known for founding Mt. Gox and co-founding Ripple, is now setting his sights on the space industry, having established Vast and continuing his pursuit of innovation and breakthroughs.
Vast is actively developing the Haven-1 commercial space station, which is scheduled to launch in May 2026. The success or failure of this project, as well as whether Vast can secure NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) contract, will be critical to the company’s future and could even impact McCaleb’s personal wealth.
The space industry has attracted numerous entrepreneurs and companies racing to get involved. Vast will face strong competition in securing the NASA contract and in capturing future space markets, with formidable competitors such as Axiom Space and Blue Origin.
Vast’s Goal to Launch Space Station in 2026
As the International Space Station (ISS) is expected to be decommissioned by the end of 2030, NASA is actively seeking commercial partners to take over research and activities in low Earth orbit (LEO). NASA plans to award a lucrative contract in mid-2026 to support the development of commercial space stations. Vast is a contender in this competition, aiming to secure the critical contract with its Haven-1 space station.
Vast, a space company founded by Jed McCaleb in 2021, aims to help expand humanity into a multi-planetary species. The company is actively developing the Haven-1 commercial space station, with plans to send it into orbit by May 2026, hoping to establish human habitation beyond Earth in the future.
McCaleb, a serial entrepreneur, was also a co-founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Mt.Gox and the global payment company Ripple. This ambitious project not only reflects McCaleb’s adventurous spirit but could also play a key role in the future of space exploration.
According to a statement from Vast, Haven-1 will be launched into low Earth orbit aboard SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with the launch date having been postponed from August of this year to May 2026. Although the progress has been delayed, Vast remains optimistic and confident in its ability to design, build, and launch the world’s first commercial space station within three years, challenging the unprecedented speed in human spaceflight history.
Vast’s long-term goal also includes the creation of “artificial gravity” through acceleration or rotation of the spacecraft to simulate Earth-like gravity conditions, addressing the issue of organ damage faced by astronauts in prolonged weightlessness aboard the ISS.
While Haven-1 is primarily designed for short-term human visits and will not be equipped with technologies to recycle wastewater into drinking water or convert carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen, Vast plans to incorporate these functions in the Haven-2 model, scheduled for launch in 2028. Haven-2 will be designed for longer stays in space.
However, Vast faces intense competition in the space development field, with several entrepreneurs already making moves to claim a stake in the future space economy. Vast will have to contend with strong competitors like Axiom Space and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin.
Reports from foreign media indicate that if Vast fails to secure the NASA contract, McCaleb could lose up to $1 billion of his personal fortune, and Vast’s prospects in the commercial space station market could face serious challenges.
“Not many people are willing to invest the amount of resources, time, and risk tolerance that I am,” McCaleb told Bloomberg in an interview.
The Space Dream of the Co-Founder of Ripple
Looking back at Jed McCaleb’s entrepreneurial career, it can almost be called “legendary.” His friend and former business partner, Sam Yagan, describes McCaleb as a “thoughtful adventurer” with highly rational traits, willing to take risks that most people would find unimaginable.
“He’s willing to take risks that seem excessive to you and me; it might even be a little eccentric.”
In the early 2000s, after achieving success with the file-sharing service eDonkey, McCaleb founded the cryptocurrency exchange Mt.Gox in 2010, which rapidly became the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange. The cryptocurrency market was still in its infancy at that time, with Bitcoin having only recently been launched. Mt.Gox was among the first exchanges, playing a pioneering role in the early days.
However, McCaleb sold most of his stake in Mt.Gox in 2011, and the exchange declared bankruptcy in 2014 after suffering a $400 million hack. This experience undoubtedly added a complex chapter to McCaleb’s entrepreneurial journey.
A few months after leaving Mt.Gox, McCaleb once again showcased his innovative abilities by co-founding the payment company Ripple in 2012, creating the XRP cryptocurrency.
Though he left Ripple in 2013 due to differences with other founders, he initially held 9% of XRP and, between 2014 and 2022, profited billions of dollars through the sale of these tokens and Ripple equity.
In addition, McCaleb founded Stellar Blockchain and its cryptocurrency XLM in 2014 as a spin-off from the Ripple protocol. According to CoinGecko, Stellar now has a market cap of $8.7 billion.
As a successful serial entrepreneur, these ventures quickly accumulated significant wealth for McCaleb and laid the groundwork for his entry into the space industry.
Now, McCaleb is bringing his past success in the cryptocurrency field and his adventurous spirit to the space domain, sharing similar aspirations with SpaceX founder Elon Musk, aiming to send humanity to other planets.
McCaleb stated, “It’s very important for humanity to transition from our current state to a potential world where many people live beyond Earth.”
Whether Vast will secure the NASA contract and carve out a position in the future space race remains to be seen, but undoubtedly, Jed McCaleb’s story will continue to inspire others to pursue seemingly impossible dreams.
References: cointelegraph, www.space.com