Blockstream Satellite Frequently Asked Questions

Blockstream offers four kit options: the SDR Kit (DIY, USB, high CPU load, no LNB power, with a GitHub build guide), the discontinued Basic Kit, the Pro Kit (Ethernet, multi-host, dual-satellite reception, rack-mountable, no host CPU load), and the Base Station (Ethernet, multi-host, no host CPU load, no C-band support). The Pro Kit and Base Station are sold in the Blockstream Store. Kits that don't include a satellite antenna require buying a compatible one separately.

Blockstream maintains Bitcoin Satellite, a fork of Bitcoin Core that decodes the blockchain data arriving from your satellite receiver while keeping Bitcoin Core's familiar interface. It builds on the FIBRE protocol to handle data delivered in special carriers over one-way satellite links and adds forward error correction for lossy reception. It reuses Bitcoin Core's full, independently reviewed codebase with the satellite changes kept clearly separate, and it can run alongside Bitcoin Core or feed it blocks.

Check coverage with the country-by-country table in this article or the interactive map at blockstream.com/satellite/#map. Coverage comes from five satellites spanning the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia-Pacific, marked as full, partial, or none. Regions served only by Telstar 18V C-band can still use Blockstream Satellite Kits, but need a separate C-band dish, since the store's flat-panel antennas don't support C-band.

It is the exact same Bitcoin data that Bitcoin Core sends, just wrapped in special carriers optimized for one-way satellite links. Because satellite reception is receive-only and can't request missing data, those carriers add forward error correction so nodes recover even with more than 10% data loss. Satellite nodes also continuously receive mempool transactions, so they often already hold around 80% of a block before it's mined.