And this is a full sized sat runing on much higher power levels. And neither of them use the B/G wifi band, which as I have alrady noted, is heavily attenutated by water and hydrocarbons in a way that the rest of the S band is not, and is the primary reason that said band is unlicesned to start with.
Come on now, you can't be serious. Yes water and hydrocarbons do attenuate all signals (to a different degree), but physics is physics and there isn't a magical attenuation window right at 2.4 Ghz.
You got a point on the power of the sat but water is going to look the same to a radio wave at 2.4Ghz as it does at 2.3 Ghz (and 2.5Ghz and 2.2 Ghz). Now at 12 Ghz it would be a different story. That is the major disadvantage of Ku sat communication band. Much higher power (no interference with earth bound microwave transmitters) but in areas with a a lot of rainfall it is inferior to C band because water is almost opaque to a 12 Ghz radio wave. So areas with a lot of rainfall generally use the lower end of C band instead (~4 Ghz).
I am not sure if it would have enough power, that is a good point, but the frequency is fine. If you have a cite showing 2.4 Ghz attenuates far worse than 2.2 Ghz or 2.5 Ghz I would love to read it. BTW I agree with you that the project is likely too ambitious for the power and size constraints. To use consumer wifi band would probably require more power and more powerful transmitters. Still I like the idea in general as a way to blanket the earth with the blockchain.