Yes you can, but that's not what was being discussed. If you establish the colony on Mars, you'd want the miners on mars so you can easily and effectively maintain them.
I do agree an orbital colony makes more sense and it's more likely, not arguing with you on that.
What’s the point? You will have less hash power and big delay on receiving new blocks to mine on top of. On Earth even seconds more in latency is bad for small miners, as you will spend energy on useless mining on wrong blocks, even if you find a block, it will most likely become orphan.
Look again at the original post: "Bitcoin won't work with Mars". For the L-1, that statement isn't wrong until we find a way to use quantum binding for near-instant information transmission.
Why would a hypothetical colony in Mars to mine? Well, because they don't want to trust Earth not fucking everything up. Or because they simply want to be able to obtain Bitcoin without having to buy it from Earth.
Would it be better to have it in orbit than in any planet surface? Sure. Even better if it's a Sun orbit closer than Earth, but that's not what was being discussed.
