Jed McCaleb, the same guy who created XRP and started Mt. Gox, is now paying out of pocket to get a private space station into orbit. The company building it is called Vast. Jed is the only person paying for the whole thing. No investors. No partners. Just him. The project could get him a huge NASA contract in 2026. That deal would be worth billions. If it doesn’t happen, Jed says he’s totally fine with losing a billion. As of December 2024, he controlled $3.3 billion through two private foundations he fully funded himself. “It’s super important that people take this leap from where we are today to this potential world where there’s a lot of people living off the Earth,” Jed said from Vast’s headquarters in Long Beach, California. “There’s not that many folks that are willing to dedicate the amount of resources and time and risk tolerance that I am.” Jed is 50 years old. He grew up on a farm in Arkansas. He dropped out of the University of California at Berkeley. He’s never worked in aerospace. He made all his money by getting into new tech early and getting out before the government showed up. Vast was founded in 2021. Jed hired Max Haot in 2023 to run the company as CEO. Max is now leading the team that’s building a prototype station called Haven-1. Jed comes down from San Francisco once a week. He still owns the company fully. Max drives a Cybertruck. Jed drives a Model 3. Vast works with SpaceX to launch Haven-1 by 2026 Vast is working with SpaceX to send its hardware into space. The company already booked SpaceX launches for its modules and for astronaut crew missions. SpaceX agreed to carry astronauts on behalf of Vast as long as NASA gives approval. Vast is also using SpaceX parts to build its station. That includes a docking adapter for the Dragon capsule and a Wi-Fi system that will work in space using Starlink. NASA plans to retire the International Space Station by the end of 2030. Elon Musk has said that timeline should move faster. Vast wants to be ready before it’s gone. If they can get Haven-1 up first, and if it works, they could win NASA’s contract to keep astronauts in orbit. That would mean a steady stream of money. Vast is building Haven-1 right now. The station will be about 33 feet tall and 14.5 feet wide. It’ll fit inside a Falcon 9 rocket. It’ll hold four people. Inside, it’ll have about 1,600 cubic feet of space. That’s twice the space in a regular RV. It will have separate sleeping areas, wood paneling, a big window, and a table for the crew to eat together. Construction started in January. The original launch date was set for August this year. That was delayed. Now they’re aiming for May 2026. They’ve already tested a prototype of the module to make sure it can hold pressure. The team is now working on power, propulsion, and everything else needed to support a live crew. Haven-1 won’t have the same life-support systems as the ISS. There will be no recycling of water or air. The station is designed for short stays. Max said, “Right now we are not a space station company. We are an aspiring space station company.” If the first mission works, Vast will send another module called Haven-2 in 2028. That’s supposed to be the start of a larger space base. It would grow into something big enough to fully replace the ISS. Haven-2 will eventually include recycling systems for water and oxygen. But that won’t happen right away. For the first few years, they don’t plan to have anyone live up there permanently. Max met Jed in 2022 while looking for investors for Launcher, his rocket startup. Launcher had raised $30 million. They had built a rocket engine and two satellites. Both of those satellites failed after they made it into space. Jed offered to buy the company instead of just investing. He told Max to take the role of president. Later, Max became CEO. He first said no, but then agreed after realizing Launcher couldn’t get the funding it needed. The terms of that deal were never shared. Jed’s crypto billions came from XRP, Ripple, and Mt. Gox Before building a space company, Jed was already rich from crypto. He launched Mt. Gox in 2010. It was one of the first Bitcoin exchanges. He sold most of it in 2011. In 2014, Mt. Gox crashed. It went bankrupt. Over $400 million worth of coins were lost. That made it the biggest crypto failure in history until FTX collapsed in 2023. Jed still had a small stake when it crashed. He said he lost money too. He wasn’t fined or charged. He moved on to XRP. He co-created the Ripple protocol. He also held 9% of all XRP when it launched. He had disagreements with his co-founders and left Ripple in 2013. But he kept his XRP and sold it slowly over the next decade. From 2014 to 2022, he made about $3.2 billion by selling XRP and Ripple shares. That’s according to XRPScan, which tracks transactions on the XRP Ledger. Nic Carter, founding partner at Castle Island Ventures, said, “He’s one of the top 10 most important crypto founders, even though nobody really knows him. The other ones are these pretty flamboyant, loud, extravagant people.” Jed doesn’t talk much. He works with the same people he always has. He still works with Sam Yagan, who started a file-sharing company with him more than 20 years ago. Sam called Jed a “deliberate risk-taker.” He said: “He’s hyperrational about these things. But he’s maybe slightly eccentric in his willingness to take what you and I would see as a lot of risks.” Jed’s first startup was eDonkey. It launched in 2000. It let users share music and movies online for free. The company made millions off ads. Then it got shut down in 2006 after Jed agreed to pay $30 million to the music industry to avoid lawsuits. He now splits his time between his house in Costa Rica and another one in Berkeley. He flies his own plane. Vast needs NASA’s contract to survive long term Vast wants to build more than just one station. They’re also working on artificial gravity. That would mean spinning modules that create a gravity-like effect using centrifugal force. The goal is to make space more livable long-term. Living in microgravity has caused health problems for astronauts, including weakened bones and muscles. But all of that is far away. Right now, they’re focused on getting Haven-1 into space. Vast has grown from fewer than 200 people to 740 in the last year. Their Long Beach facility runs 24 hours a day. Some teams are building the space station. Others are expanding the headquarters. Competitors like Axiom Space, Blue Origin, and Voyager Space are all building their own space stations too. But Jed is spending his own money. That gives Vast an edge. “Vast is the only one that’s coming up with a solution that is primarily self-funded and ready to go,” said Chad Anderson, managing partner at Space Capital. He has no stake in Vast but is invested in SpaceX. Even though they’re close to SpaceX, Jed said he doesn’t know Elon Musk well. “I’ve met him a couple of times—he probably wouldn’t remember me,” he said. Both Jed and Elon dropped out of school. Both started software companies in the early 2000s. Both invested in OpenAI. There’s already been one lawsuit against Vast. A former employee said they tried to cut corners. But it hasn’t stopped the project. The company hasn’t had major public scandals. Jed isn’t running around trying to take over government policy. He’s at home with his wife and three kids. Then he flies down to Long Beach once a week to see what’s going on. If Vast wins the NASA contract in 2026, the government will buy time on its stations. That deal is the only path to steady revenue. Without that, the company probably can’t survive. “It’s a matter of existence for us to win that competition,” Max said. Vast already booked more flights with SpaceX for future missions. Both Jed and Max said they’re willing to go to space themselves. “As a kid, I spent a lot of time outside exploring, looking up at the sky to see how amazing it is,” Jed said. The next two years will decide everything. Haven-1 is still being built. NASA is still reviewing. The contract decision is expected mid-2026. Until then, Jed’s still betting $1 billion that crypto money can build a space station. Cryptopolitan Academy: Want to grow your money in 2025? Learn how to do it with DeFi in our upcoming webclass. Save Your Spot
