Most bitcoin transmitted via hobbyist radio waves into space are garbled and reflected off the Earth’s ionosphere. Like all electromagnetic waves, radio waves in a vacuum travel at the speed of light, and through the Earth's atmosphere at a close but lower speed. Those broadcasts that make it through the ionosphere travel at the speed of light.

If the furthest radio transmitted bitcoin made it through the ionosphere intact, and we optimistically presume they passed the ionosphere in 2012, they will have enjoyed a travel of just about 10 light years by this time. That’s 58.8 trillion miles or 94.6 trillion kilometers.

By the time most radio signals reach 100 light years (588 trillion miles or 946 trillion kilometers) away, they become so attenuated and weak as to be basically undetectable. Private keys transmitted as radio waves will eventually devolve into noise, gradually, then suddenly cease to be.

Although Bitcoin is a revolutionary technology for humans, a consideration of the grander scheme reveals that it is not a fundamental force in the universe. Rather, the evolution of technology, Bitcoin’s longevity, is beholden to entropy and the passage of time. Bitcoin are but rejoinders to the cosmic storm. It is our engineering of cosmic receivers and transmitters, the expansion of our nodes, that will make bitcoin the first native currency of space.