US-based asteroid mining company Planetary Resources has been bought by blockchain venture production studio ConsenSys, the companies announced this week.

ConsenSys is founded by Joe Lubin, who is also cofounder of Ethereum - an open-source, public, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract functionality.

Lubin commented that bringing deep space capabilities into the ConsenSys ecosystem reflected its belief in the potential for Ethereum to help humanity craft new societal rule systems through automated trust and guaranteed execution.

“It reflects our belief in democratising and decentralising space endeavours to unite our species and unlock untapped human potential. We look forward to sharing our plans and how to join us on this journey in the months ahead,” he said.

Planetary cofounder and CEO Chris Lewicki and general counsel Brian Israel have joined ConsenSys, which will operate its space initiatives out of Planetary Resources’ former facility in Redmond, Washington.

“Over the course of nearly a decade, Planetary Resources has simultaneously pioneered technology, business, law and policy, and brought the promise of space resources irreversibly closer to humankind’s grasp,” said Lewicki, who previously worked at NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory as flight director of the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers and Phoenix Mars lander.

From 2009 until joining Planetary Resources in 2017, Israel served in the US State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser, where he was responsible for the international legal dimensions of outer space, oceans and international environmental governance matters, and served as US Representative to the United Nations space law body.

“Ethereum smart contract functionality is a natural solution for private-ordering and commerce in space—the only domain of human activity not ordered around territorial sovereignty—in which a diverse range of actors from a growing number of countries must coordinate and transact,” said Israel.