Cardano Foundation CEO Frederik Gregaard has confirmed that the blockchain platform is actively collaborating with NASA on data provenance, track and trace solutions, and satellite data applications.
Cardano X NASA Collaboration Details
Gregaard detailed the scope of the partnership, stating that NASA is utilizing Cardano’s blockchain capabilities for data integrity and provenance tracking. He specifically emphasized the role of Merkle Patricia Tries (MPTs), an advanced data structure enabling efficient and verifiable storage of complex datasets on the blockchain. This feature allows ADA to handle large-scale and constantly updating information, a capability that is not present in other major blockchain networks.
He elaborated on this unique functionality: “We’re actually working with the National Space Agency, so NASA, around some of these track and trace, not just from physical items like hoodies, but also by data and data provenance. One of the unique things you can do on Cardano, which you cannot do on any other blockchains to my knowledge of the big size, right, is something called Merkle Patricia Tries. So we actually took the whole Bitcoin protocol and put it on Cardano.”
One of the most striking aspects of this development is that Cardano has integrated the entire Bitcoin protocol into its blockchain. This means that every Bitcoin transaction—past, present, and future—is automatically recorded on the ledger, ensuring a transparent and immutable record. Gregaard explained:
“Every single Bitcoin transaction there ever was and there ever will be is automatically recorded on Cardano. This is really hard to do because, you know, normally you take a data dump and you maintain it. But the idea that you have a flexible end date is very interesting.”
Beyond financial transactions, Gregaard underscored the significance of the ADA blockchain in satellite data management, which plays a critical role in scientific research, global tracking systems, and AI-driven applications:
“And what we do then is we’re exploring everything from satellite data, which keeps updating with billions of time, right? Because then it becomes a provenance layer of data. And when you have a provenance layer of data, you have quality for the AI to train on, right? And you have reinsurance and you have all those things which we’ve been dreaming about in blockchain for so long, right?”
Notably, the collaboration with NASA is not a new endeavor. In January, Gregaard hinted at this partnership during a conference, where he revealed that NASA had already been experimenting with the blockchain infrastructure. “NASA has code running on Cardano today. I bet some of you didn’t know that,” Gregaard stated.
At press time, ADA traded at $0.71
