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The right to transact actually precedes all other rights.

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And I think when you don't have that sort of authentic ability to transact and have that freedom,

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I think it impinges on the rest of your freedoms.

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You know, it sort of shuts them down to a degree.

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I hope the Bitcoin community engages in what I think is actually the most important fight that we could possibly wage,

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which is to get inserted into the Bill of Rights of Freedom to Transact.

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Because I think when the framers of our Constitution put our Constitution together,

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There is no technology by which you could even imagine that anybody could stop your ability to transact.

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I think had there been technology that they could see that that would be threatened, I absolutely think that would be in our Bill of Rights, the freedom to transact.

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Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.

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My name is Walker and this is The Bitcoin Podcast.

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Bitcoin continues to create new blocks every 10 minutes and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.

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If you are listening to this right now, remember, you are still early.

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Find me on Noster at primal.net slash walker and this podcast at primal.net slash titcoin.

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On X, YouTube and Rumble, just search at Walker America.

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And find this podcast on X and Instagram at titcoinpodcast.

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Head to the show notes for sponsor links, head to substack.com slash at Walker America to get episodes emailed to you.

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And head to bitcoinpodcast.net for everything else.

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Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk.

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All right.

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Welcome.

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Happy Monday to you.

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How's it going?

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It's good, man.

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Happy Monday to you, too.

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yeah i'm i'm stoked to be able to uh to chat with you and i i just uh met uh nathan right on your

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team uh and marketing at the bpi bitcoin policy summit always interesting to see bitcoiners i felt

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like it was like bitcoiners out of their natural habitat to a certain extent uh in dc but then at

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the same time the realization is like oh bitcoiners are everywhere like bitcoin is a trojan horse but

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also bitcoiners are individual trojan horses just infiltrating everything like you never know where

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you're going to find Bitcoiners. And I think that's a beautiful thing.

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Oh, it is. And yeah, Bitcoiners in suits, inside of suits themselves,

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definitely does not come as a natural image in my head. But I was glad to be a sponsor of that

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event. Glad Nathan was there for us. And I'm glad that we're there influencing policy because,

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you know, as much as we don't like politics, particularly the Bitcoin community doesn't,

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you know, it doesn't matter. The impacts of politics are going to affect us.

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Yeah. It's like, you don't care about politics. Politics cares about you though. That cliche is

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very much true. I mean, and you see it today. I think there's, the voting might be on the,

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might be happening today, but there's, Cynthia Lummis was talking about, like I just saw just

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before we hopped on here, getting rid of like this double taxation treatment for Bitcoin miners

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specifically, where it's like right now the Bitcoin miners are basically, you're taxed when you

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actually discover a block like you're taxed when you mine uh the the bitcoin but then you're also

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taxed if you need to sell any of that bitcoin so which is just kind of like like insane like i

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don't believe gold miners are getting taxed when they are pulling the gold out of the ground and

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then also when they sell the gold it's just like you know uh people drilling for oil aren't getting

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taxed when they pull the oil out of the ground it's like no it's when you when you sell it um

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but i mean i also think we should just get rid of all capital gains tax on bitcoin but that's a

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It's a different story. The de minimis limit that Cynthia Lemus has also talked about is at least a decent start, but I'd like to see it all ripped out.

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And I'm curious if as a miner you have any additional insights on kind of that double taxation. That just seems ludicrous to me.

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It is ludicrous and I think it's – these sorts of policies only exist because Bitcoin has been relatively unknown and a lack of education.

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So, you know, like podcasts like this and just the whole, you know, podcasting arm and education arm of Bitcoin I think has been necessary to reach Capitol Hill to get this across to people that, hey, this is a commodity and there's no reason to treat it like it's something that you can just double tax.

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I mean didn't we have the Boston Tea Harbor over double taxation or is that just me?

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Right, yeah.

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I mean that – and to be fair, that was like a 2 percent tax on tea.

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And look how far we've come. It's like, you know, starting a revolution over a 2% tax on tea. And now we're like, oh, you want to take like 40 to 50% of the fruits of my labor? Yeah, go ahead, daddy government. Like, I won't revolt. I don't know. We're like-

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Do it twice.

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Yeah, seriously. And do it twice. It reminds me of that meme of like the wolf and then like a little pug or something. And it's like, what are you? Like you descended from me? This is just embarrassing.

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But yeah, perhaps we're turning a corner. Perhaps things will get better.

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Well, I'd like to think so. And I'm glad that BPI exists to put on those types of events up on the hill because I think that's the only way that we get better with our current apparatus.

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apparatus. I don't think that revolution is the right call today. And I would like to see a whole

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lot more of an intolerant minority from the voices of us in the Bitcoin community to affect change.

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Because I don't know if you've heard Balaji's breakdown of the political tribes right now in

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the US, but I think it's accurate from where I sit. Granted, I sit someplace outside the US,

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so I'm sort of obsessed looking in, but I'm outside the fishbowl here. But you've got

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Red Blue, which is what everybody talks about all the times, but he also classifies the tech bros from Silicon Valley as the grays.

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And then the orange is the other community that is impacting change right now.

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And actually, I've been talking about it for a little while now, a few years.

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And I think Team Orange is the intransient minority that Nassib Talim talks about.

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The vocal like 10% that can get massive policy change through just because we're in transit.

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We just don't give up.

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We're just going to keep chanting the same thing over and over again and sort of forcing politics to go around us.

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And I think that there's nobody else that has a stronger belief in the political system than I think the Bitcoin community does.

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I mean, and we've certainly seen the Bitcoin community's ability to like materially affect politics in the US and around the world.

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And I think it comes down to like passion and obsession and just a touch of autism as well, which allows for that relentless focus on these things.

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Because it's like most people you realize don't actually like their – the amount that they care about an issue is pretty – like it's skin deep.

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Like you take even the really hot button issues.

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Like really people don't care beyond the sound bites that they parrot, most of them.

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Like if you actually start having a conversation, asking them and trying to dig a little bit deeper, like why do you think that?

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Like what fundamentally informs that view of yours?

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And most of the time it's they haven't actually thought about that.

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Bitcoiners have thought and talked and studied a lot in terms of why they believe the things that they do, why they hold certain opinions like very, very, very strongly and will not compromise them.

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And I think having to – to your point, that little minority but that's incredibly vocal, incredibly driven and very importantly has an increasingly outsized economic impact.

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Like that should not be like understated in this case.

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It's – our purchasing power as Bitcoiners is only growing and it is growing exponentially faster than the purchasing power of basically anyone else.

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Yeah, to that point, it was last cycle where I heard a really wild statistic, but it stuck with me.

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It was something like – and so I think it should be research, right?

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So don't take what I'm saying with a grain of – take it with a grain of salt.

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But directionally, it's accurate, and that's that when Bitcoin passes $200,000, the majority of billionaires on the planet will be Bitcoiners.

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And when you think about that, it's mind-blowing.

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So again, that number may be off, right?

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But there is a certain price point at which that will be true.

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And when that is true, you think about what are the values of this cohort that is suddenly making up the billionaire class, the dominant majority of the billionaire class, and what impact is that going to have on the entire political, sociological system that we live within?

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I don't know, but I don't think that that's a bad change no matter what exactly happens from that change.

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I agree. And American HODL put out a great AI generated video today, kind of like, I don't know if you saw it. He posted it on Noster. It's quite a banger. But it's basically the idea of, you know, it's talking about, it's making some jokes about Bitcoin treasury companies, you know, paper Bitcoin, that kind of thing.

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But the ultimate point of the video is like who's Trojan horsing who here?

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Like even when it comes to Wall Street, when it comes to the government, some people like bemoan the fact that these entities that we eschew, like the government, like Wall Street, they're getting involved with Bitcoin.

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And it's like one, that was always going to happen if Bitcoin was going to be successful.

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You don't have to like it, but it was always going to be a natural result of Bitcoin success.

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if bitcoin wasn't successful we wouldn't see that because it would be insignificant nobody would care

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but two it's your point about like what does it start to look like when economic dominance

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is uh is on the side of bitcoiners it's you know again to you know who's trojan horsing who

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like bitcoin uh you know you don't change bitcoin bitcoin changes you whatever sort of

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you know these uh these sayings we want to go with it's like bitcoin is powerful because it

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is resistant to change and resistant to manipulation. Human beings are much more willing to change.

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They are much more susceptible to manipulation. But if that manipulation, if that incentive

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structure is a good one, is contributing to positive sum games, it's very exciting to think

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what the world may look like and how some of these institutions may be changed fundamentally

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for the better because they're forced to without even realizing it. To me, it's fascinating and

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It's one of the things that gives me a lot of hope as we go into the future.

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Well, it's interesting because as I think about it, I grew up on the West Coast in the US.

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And I watched the hippies during my childhood become the man in my older age, right?

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Not that I'm that old at this point.

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But I wonder if history repeats in a similar way where the Bitcoin community is vocal in trying to tear down the existing institutions and rebuild them into something better.

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I sort of wonder if the Bitcoiners are the institutions of the future or wind up the dominant majority within the institutions of the future.

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I don't think that that's a bad thing, but I think that it is something that we have to watch out for as a community is I think there is a desire to sort of tear things down.

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There's an impulse at least within our community.

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And I don't think that's a wrong impulse.

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I just think it needs to be carefully shielded and not turn into the negative because it's really hard to build things and it's very easy to tear them down.

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And I do think that we need institutions to help us. As much as I love the anarchist dream, I just don't think that we're evolved enough as a species to all be able to maintain our own rulebook and manage ourselves all that effectively.

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And so I think I'm glad to see the Bitcoin community getting involved with the political level.

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And I think as long as we maintain control of our own coins, I really think it's that simple of a metric.

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As long as we maintain control of our own coins, I don't see how the existing system co-ops us.

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But that's my take at this point.

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I mean an institution is not inherently bad.

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Like an institution is not necessarily bad.

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But it's just a collection of people who get together and agree to basically to centralize a little bit of thought or of economic power or, you know, mindshare, whatever you want to call it.

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Now, incentives matter, right?

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So institutions that get really, really, really big and really, really bloated, which is like what we have now, the incentives start to warp.

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And we have a fundamentally warped system from its base layer because our money is fundamentally broken.

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But like to your point, it's, you know, Bitcoiners have the opportunity to build better institutions, institutions that last and are built on a sounder, sounder money and a sounder set of incentives.

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And I think that that is like I want Bitcoiners to build institutions.

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You know, we don't have to we don't have to do things the same way.

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And, you know, something is not necessarily just the idea of the idea of getting together to solve problems is not inherently bad just because the people that, you know, the boomers that did it before created more problems than they solved.

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And I rag on boomers a lot, but there are so many amazing boomers out there, too.

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So, like, shout out to them.

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And you know who you are.

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The Larry Lippards of the world, the Bob Burnett's, the George Bodine's, like so many incredible boomers I've met through Bitcoin.

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I'm like, ah, see, not everyone is lost.

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No matter what age you are, there's always hope.

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But I'm curious, Kenton, I want to get into kind of your background a little bit because you mentioned you were in the US.

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You are no longer in the US.

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Can you just give like a little bit of background?

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Who are you?

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How did you get here today to be working on Bitcoin mining?

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Yeah, I think everybody's got an interesting orange pill journey.

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Mine is more circuitous than most, though.

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So I worked for about a decade in rooftop solar on the West Coast, was operating a nine-figure sales software construction company competing, publicly traded, competing with the likes of Elon Musk's cousins.

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And it was quite a driven sort of career.

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and a new CEO was named by the board.

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And I realized that I needed to fulfill

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a lifelong dream of travel.

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And so I had enough pennies in the piggy bank

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that I took off, threw on a backpack

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and traveled the world for a couple of years.

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And on that two-year sabbatical,

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I fell in love with the Portuguese woman and Bitcoin.

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Both happened ironically in Peru where I now live,

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but she was Portuguese.

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And so I wound up in Portugal in 2016

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and lived there until early 2023

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when we moved to Peru for my wife's work.

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But in 2021, after trying my hand,

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so between 2016 when I got to Portugal and 2021,

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I was trying my hand at all sorts of entrepreneurial ideas

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while living in Portugal.

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And the environment there was not as entrepreneurial as the U.S.,

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we'll put it that way.

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There's a lot more red tape and a lot less inertia,

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a lot more difficult to get things off the ground.

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So after trying my hand at a few different activities,

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Of course, trading, mining from home, tried Bitcoin ATMs, was even trying to fund renewable energy projects with some blockchain technology.

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But I realized I picked up a copy of Jeff Booth's The Price of Tomorrow, and it just hit me like a ton of bricks.

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I was like, you idiot. You have this energy background. Why aren't you in mining?

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So I discovered SaaS Mining through a mutual connection, the founder of it, and joined up with the founder.

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We raised some pre-seed capital to go build a mining as a service platform.

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So think SaaS, software as a service, but for mining.

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And we started building.

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This was mid-2021.

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And we got operational, had our first data center January 2023.

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And we've been growing like gangbusters.

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So our first year over year, we had about 350% growth.

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And we're expected to do the same this year.

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and it's I didn't realize that what we set out to do was anything all that innovative it just

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seemed obvious to me when I was trying to mine from home in Portugal that you know I just wanted

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to be able to go buy a mining rig have somebody else plug it in manage that for me and I received

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the bitcoin and I was happy to pay for that service and I didn't seem particularly complicated

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but nobody had done that nobody just made that like web 2.0 product and so we set out to build

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that. So in a nice, easy, simple way with a couple clicks, you buy a mining rig, you can look at the

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specs of it. We get it deployed in one of our data centers of which we've got three, one in Wisconsin,

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one in Paraguay, and one in Norway. And the sats go to your wallet. So they're all wild, the sats

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that we generate. And we don't mark up the hardware or electricity. We're cost pass through on those

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two items and instead we take a share of the block reward just 15% when the pool pays it out.

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Can you explain that concept of wild in terms of the Bitcoin as opposed to?

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As opposed to surveilled, right? So when you acquire your Bitcoin, you've basically got two

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ways of doing it. Either you're going to buy them or you're going to earn them, right? And if you're

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going to go buy your Bitcoin, that's where the surveillance state steps in. You're going to have

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to give over everything but your firstborn child to be able to actually purchase those sats.

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And what we've discovered is that when people purchase their sats and they pull them off the

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exchange, it's like the surveillance camera sort of comes with them and sits on their shoulder.

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And nobody really feels at liberty to use their sats, right? It's just like, uh-oh,

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like if I use these, how do I manage the reporting? What are the tax consequences,

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yada, yada. And what we see from our customer base is they're actually using their sats,

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right? Because they've been generated, they're wild sats, right? Like Bitcoin mining is the only

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way to generate Bitcoin. Like that seems like a very simple statement, but I found the more I

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think about it, the more profound it is. And as a result of you generating your own Bitcoin,

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you're getting them fresh off the network and they're wild and they don't have any history

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related to them. So people just feel more liberty to utilize them as they see fit.

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And for me, I actually see the more wild sats that we get out into the economy, the more the

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circular economy is going to naturally just develop because people don't have that psychological

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friction that comes with surveilled sats. So there's no mandate on you guys. I'm not sure

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where you're domiciled in terms of the company itself, but there's no mandate on you guys to do

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any sort of ridiculous KYC or anything for your customers, they can actually get KYC free

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SATs?

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Well, as of right now, I don't like to say that exactly because I don't want to draw

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unwarranted attention to myself.

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But if you think about what we do, we sell hardware and we maintain hardware.

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If anything we much more akin to a property management company right And so do you know a property management company that really has to KYC you I mean they may but that sort of optional right Like we not

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doing any money transmitting. We're not, you know, people don't give me dollars and I give them

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Bitcoin, right? They give me dollars and I get them a mining rig with that and then it's their

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Bitcoin. So we're able to just sort of work around like all the issues that force exchanges into the

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regulatory apparatus. And it's not because we're trying to do anything shady. We're just able to

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take advantage of, you know, standard business regulations that are out there and we're a

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property management service, not an exchange. And I mean, technically, even in the US,

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the IRS classifies Bitcoin as property. So there you go. I'm curious too. I mean, I'd love to just

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kind of touch for a second on that KYC element, because I think it's actually really important

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for folks to understand. We've seen so many different data breaches like this Coinbase one

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recently was quite high profile. I think KYC AML is fundamentally just an absolutely misguided and

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ridiculous kind of regulatory framework. Like one, it doesn't work because if it did work,

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it would work like it would stop money laundering, you know, but it doesn't.

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It's like summary.

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It's like less than 1% of, you know, laundered money is actually identified or

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and like 99 point something percent of the money laundered in the world is done

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through the, you know, traditional fiat systems.

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So like it doesn't work and it just creates these massive, massive honey pots.

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I mean, like, do you think, I mean, I don't know about you, but I don't think

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the average person probably thinks twice about it.

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I know Bitcoiners do, but I feel like most people are just kind of like, well, it's just, this is just what you have to do now.

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Like, it's kind of sad that we got to that point where people are just resigned to the fact that, yep, I guess I've just got to, you know, give up, you know, my firstborn child basically to be able to do basic financial services.

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Like, it's truly absurd.

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If you've accepted that we're living through the fourth turning, then it's time to get yourself some Bitcoin and then go to bitbox.swiss slash walker and use the promo code walker for 5% off the easy to use, fully open source Bitcoin only Bitbox02 hardware wallet.

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00:22:16,894 --> 00:22:27,154
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It is Bitcoin only and fully open source.

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00:22:43,594 --> 00:22:47,414
No need to trust me. You can head to their GitHub and verify that for yourself.

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00:22:47,714 --> 00:22:52,314
When you go to bitbox.swiss slash walker and use the promo code walker,

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00:22:52,594 --> 00:22:57,574
not only do you get 5% off, but you also help support this podcast. So thank you.

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If you're stuck spending dollars, at least stop earning dirty fiat rewards.

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00:23:03,634 --> 00:23:08,034
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00:23:10,994 --> 00:23:18,034
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It is.

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And I, you know, the conspiracist, the conspiracy theorist in me wants to wants to go to, hey, this is by design, right?

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But I try not to go there.

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I just feel like it is sort of death by a thousand paper cuts though, right?

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It's like we've been slowly lulled into this sense that there is no privacy.

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And just to back up for a minute about SaaS mining, so we don't require anything other than to be able to contact you, our customer.

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So whatever you want to call yourself for first name, but we need to need a phone number.

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We need an email address.

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So that is what we collect, but that's just more I need to be able to communicate with you.

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We tried actually not having phone numbers, and then we realized we couldn't actually reach our customers, and that was problematic.

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So then we sort of forced – like you have to give me a phone number because I need to contact you when I need to contact you.

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And so to be fair, if somebody came to me, I would have those records, right, and they could get those records from me.

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But it's very different than where you do the face scan and the whole bit that's typical of KYC exchanges now.

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And I do. It just feels somewhat diabolical to have to have that level of invasion. I hate it personally. And the one that really goads me is when people always say like, hey, I have nothing to hide. Why should I care? And I'm just like, well, why do you have bathroom doors or blinds? I'll take those for free off you and resell them and make a buck if you don't mind.

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But so I think as Bitcoiners, we do need to drive back that privacy is important because actually the way I really – the metaphor, the analogy I like to use most often is almost all of us have walked into a room and not noticed that there's a surveillance camera in it, right?

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And then out of the corner of your eye, you notice there's a surveillance camera, and every time you do, your body changes.

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Like as soon as you know you're being watched, your behavior changes.

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And just that simple experience I think goes to show why privacy is important.

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It's not that anybody has anything to hide.

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It's just we know when we're being watched, we behave differently and we don't behave as our authentic selves.

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And I think it's important that we are able to behave as our authentic selves.

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I mean there's like – there's countless studies.

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I'm forgetting the big one or like the famous one now.

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but it's literally been proven that the presence of an observer materially

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changes the behavior of the observed. Like this is, this is just a fact,

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whether, whether or not you think that you're doing like you are,

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you're changing your behavior.

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And I think that's actually a fascinating way to look at it that, you know,

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you're even if you don't realize that you are when it comes to Bitcoin,

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like you are doing things differently than you would if you knew no one was

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watching. And not that you're going to do bad. Again, it's like,

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it's not like you're going to do bad things for some reason. You know,

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we've got the idea of innocent until proven guilty in our legal systems.

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And yet when it comes to anytime you want to touch your money,

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it's guilty until proven innocent.

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And also not just guilty,

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but we're classifying you and treating you the same as we do drug dealers and

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terrorists and like child traffickers.

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Like that's insane that a normal person who has probably never,

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you know,

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never been arrested and never doesn't have any marks on their record is

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somehow treated the same as the worst criminals.

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And guess what?

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They don't even catch the worst criminals.

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Like that's the other thing.

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It just makes the lives of ordinary people way worse, way more cumbersome and, again, creates these honeypots where actual criminals then can go and take advantage of you.

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Like it's just – it screws the law-abiding citizen on so many levels.

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And I mean, yeah, I would love to see that regime abolished.

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Sadly, I don't think we're getting there anytime soon, but at least there are ways for us to act a little bit more freely thanks to Bitcoin.

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Yeah, I agree.

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And I think listening to RFK Jr. when he was campaigning for president last year, he said something that really struck with me, that the right to transact actually precedes all other rights.

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And I think when you don't have that sort of authentic ability to transact and have that freedom, I think it impinges on the rest of your freedoms.

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It sort of shuts them down to a degree.

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And so I actually think one of the – I hope the Bitcoin community engages in what I think is actually the most important fight that we could possibly wage, which is to get inserted into the Bill of Rights of Freedom to Transact.

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Because I think when the framers of our constitution put our constitution together, there is no technology by which you could even imagine that anybody could stop your ability to transact.

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I think had there been technology that they could see that that would be threatened, I absolutely think that would be in our Bill of Rights, the freedom to transact.

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But because that couldn't even be conceptualized at that point, it's not included in our Constitution.

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And to me, as soon as I heard RFK Jr. say that, I was like – well, he didn't advocate for a new amendment to the Bill of Rights.

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I'm saying that, but he didn't mention that.

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And it was like, yeah, if you don't have the right to transact, how are you going to go buy the sign to go demonstrate with?

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How are you going to go buy the gun to show your Second Amendment rights?

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How are you going to do all these things to actually protest if you can't actually buy anything?

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And so I actually think that that's probably the most important hill for us as a Bitcoin community to die on because the US enshrines so many of the property rights that are important for the entire planet.

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And because we don't have that one, the government is able to constantly push in on it. And I think that threatens all of our long-term liberty without having something substantially and legislatively put in place to protect our right to transact.

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I would certainly support that amendment. And it's one of those things where you can very easily prove that this right is kind of primary in the sense that what's the first thing that any dictator does or any leader of Canada, let's say, when they want to shut down a peaceful protest of truckers, what do they do?

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they cut you off from the financial system.

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They cut off your ability to transact freely.

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That's the first thing they do.

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Like it's the first,

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first,

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you know,

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thing that a dictator,

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an autocrat,

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you know,

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Fidel Castro's son will turn to is,

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is that cutting off the freedom to transact.

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And so,

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yeah,

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I,

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I would love to see,

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I don't know if we're there yet in terms of that as a constitutional amendment,

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but I hope that we're,

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I think we're on the right track at least.

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Like we're,

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we're moving in the right direction.

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I hope countries implementing CBP,

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CBDCs, probably less so.

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But it looks like for now we'll just maybe get some private CBDCs, not Fed-issued ones.

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So let's see.

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But switching gears a little bit, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was misconceptions around mining.

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Because I think there's misconceptions on, let's say, the normie, the pre-coiner side.

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Of course, they've been fed bad information for a while.

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But I think there's also probably misconceptions on the side of Bitcoiners.

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So maybe wherever side of that you'd like to start on, can we walk through just some of those misconceptions?

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What are the things people get wrong about Bitcoin mining?

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Yeah, this is probably my favorite soapbox to get on, Walker.

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So you're going to have to bear with me here for a minute.

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I'm ready.

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So I think first, let me give some history that I think is not talked about enough within the Bitcoin community.

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So if you go back to OGs up until like 2012, most of them acquired their Bitcoin through mining, right?

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And that was how Bitcoin was designed by Satoshi to distribute Bitcoin was you mine it to acquire your Bitcoin.

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Then Coinbase was the first to open their door as an easy user experience.

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And most of the Bitcoin community chose to use Coinbase.

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And we've since gone on from Coinbase to all sorts of other exchange-based acquisition approaches.

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But I would actually argue that our Bitcoin community has moved for convenience to exchanges to acquire their Bitcoin.

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And in the long run, there's been a big question mark that's out there right now about exchange-based liquidity.

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there may come a point in time, not saying it will, but I personally think it will happen

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because of how we behave with money and how we tend to hoard the good and spend the bad.

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But I believe that there will come a point in time where you're going to have to earn your Bitcoin.

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And the easiest way to earn Bitcoin in a predictive manner is through mining.

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So I think the way that we've acquired our Bitcoin over time, we went from mining to exchanges,

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and I believe the arc of history is going to bring us back to mining.

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And the misconception that I have seen about mining, the primary one is it's been driven by the mining industry as a whole.

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We've confused the bejeebus out of people, and what I mean by that is we have people that are looking for a fiat return, and we have people that are looking to acquire Bitcoin.

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And if you conflate both of those, it equals confusion for the masses, and that's in essence what the mining community has done.

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So very simply put, if you're a Bitcoiner, mining is the only way that you can generate Bitcoin, right?

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And as a result, from an acquisition standpoint, the right approach to evaluate a Bitcoin mining opportunity is not an ROI-based opportunity, right?

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ROI means return on investment.

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I put dollars in.

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How long does it take me to get dollars out?

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You, by default, having that conception about a mining opportunity means that you're looking at it from a fiat mindset.

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Dollars in, dollars out.

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The right way to look at it as a Bitcoiner is, are the sats I'm acquiring by mining, are they equal or lesser in value to an exchange where I could go buy those?

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And I have the upside benefit that I get wild sats as well.

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Now, one of the things that I want to mention about us as a Bitcoin community having decided to go to exchanges to acquire our Bitcoin is a very important downstream consequence has now arisen, and that is that we've ceded the network itself to fiat hashing, right?

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Most of the hash rate that is on the network is there primarily to acquire fiat, and it's using Bitcoin as a proxy to do so.

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And as a result, if you're a fiat hasher, you're not necessarily aligned with the long-term incentives of the network.

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You may be, but you also may not be.

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And I'd argue most of the mining centralization issues that we worry and fret and hand-wring about are all because we as a community have decided to go to exchanges to acquire Bitcoin instead of dominating the Bitcoin network with that being our primary way to acquire Bitcoin.

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And so I think that as much as Ocean is working to decentralize the mining pools, which we love, we're about ready to release that to the public for all of our customers to be able to mine with Ocean through our platform.

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I think that we actually have a moral incentive as a community to actually take back the network.

390
00:35:12,314 --> 00:35:18,214
And I think we see the first impulses with that right now with the BidAx community where people are getting hands on.

391
00:35:18,614 --> 00:35:25,554
It's a terahash, but they have it on their desk and they're having this good experience and feeling like a connection with the network itself.

392
00:35:26,074 --> 00:35:29,774
The issue though is a BidAx is one terahash, right?

393
00:35:29,774 --> 00:35:36,614
The average Bitcoin miner on the industrial level is 250 times that, right?

394
00:35:36,694 --> 00:35:40,574
So it's going to take a god-awful lot of bid access to get out there.

395
00:35:40,574 --> 00:35:56,474
And so that's where a company like ours steps in and it's like, hey, you can get an industrial-sized mining rig because we're aggregating client purchasing power to get rack space at a low enough energy price that we can get you sats at a cheaper price than buying them off an exchange.

396
00:35:56,474 --> 00:36:09,094
So not only do you get more sats for your dollar, but you also help to change the equilibrium between fiat hashers and Bitcoin acquisition hashers.

397
00:36:09,954 --> 00:36:12,174
Let me just touch on one of those points there.

398
00:36:12,174 --> 00:36:25,794
So the economics actually work out with you guys where it is cheaper for folks to acquire Bitcoin via this – hosting them with you, for example, than it would be for them to just take their fiat to an exchange, buy it.

399
00:36:25,794 --> 00:36:31,734
Like you actually have low enough energy costs with where your data centers are that you're able to achieve that.

400
00:36:31,774 --> 00:36:32,294
Is that correct?

401
00:36:33,454 --> 00:36:33,554
Yeah.

402
00:36:33,714 --> 00:36:33,854
Yeah.

403
00:36:33,934 --> 00:36:41,714
So one of the things that I realized is that analysis, how do you evaluate your cost per Bitcoin, has horribly confused people as well.

404
00:36:41,874 --> 00:36:45,874
So the way I looked at it was how do I get this as simple as possible?

405
00:36:45,954 --> 00:36:50,014
So you can go to our website and you can see we've got a little calculator there.

406
00:36:50,314 --> 00:36:54,954
And it shows you, okay, based on the mining rigs we offer, how much does it cost for you to run it a day?

407
00:36:55,414 --> 00:36:57,414
How many sats will you generate, right?

408
00:36:57,434 --> 00:37:01,394
Because if you know how much hash rate you've got, well, you know how much of the network

409
00:37:01,394 --> 00:37:01,874
you're mining.

410
00:37:02,014 --> 00:37:04,474
So statistically, this is how many sats you should receive.

411
00:37:04,794 --> 00:37:09,734
If you know those two numbers, you can divide those and see what your price per Bitcoin

412
00:37:09,734 --> 00:37:10,134
is.

413
00:37:10,574 --> 00:37:12,914
Now, that's a very, very simple analysis.

414
00:37:13,234 --> 00:37:15,674
People like to make it much more complicated than that.

415
00:37:15,674 --> 00:37:16,934
But that's the core of it.

416
00:37:17,094 --> 00:37:20,554
And right now, if you look at that, we call that your daily cost to mine a Bitcoin.

417
00:37:20,554 --> 00:37:25,014
we can get people Bitcoin for about $45,000 on our platform.

418
00:37:25,354 --> 00:37:28,774
What that doesn't take into account, and be very clear,

419
00:37:28,934 --> 00:37:30,954
and there's not trying to be any hand wavy here,

420
00:37:31,274 --> 00:37:33,774
is you have to buy a mining rig.

421
00:37:34,314 --> 00:37:38,054
And when you're done using that mining rig, you can sell the mining rig.

422
00:37:38,494 --> 00:37:40,694
And that piece is what's confused people,

423
00:37:41,174 --> 00:37:44,494
is because the price of the mining rig, it fluctuates.

424
00:37:45,314 --> 00:37:49,254
And the price when you can sell that mining rig, it also fluctuates.

425
00:37:49,254 --> 00:37:53,794
and how you decide to play that game is up for debate.

426
00:37:53,994 --> 00:37:57,154
But what's not up for debate is when you're plugged in and mining,

427
00:37:57,374 --> 00:38:00,154
this is what it costs and this is how much Bitcoin it will generate.

428
00:38:00,254 --> 00:38:01,514
I can tell you that right now.

429
00:38:01,514 --> 00:38:04,034
So if you strip all the noise away and just look at that,

430
00:38:04,274 --> 00:38:08,334
I've been showing this at different conferences I go to to different Bitcoiners.

431
00:38:08,434 --> 00:38:11,294
I'm like, hey, do you know this is the daily cost to mine a Bitcoin?

432
00:38:11,514 --> 00:38:14,994
And almost without fail, every single one of them is like, are you kidding me?

433
00:38:15,034 --> 00:38:15,714
I didn't know that.

434
00:38:16,354 --> 00:38:23,074
It's just that very simple idea of comparing to the price on the exchange is not being done by our community.

435
00:38:23,274 --> 00:38:32,754
And I think as a result, we're sort of missing the forest for the trees about what mining is, which is an opportunity to acquire Bitcoin, which is how Satoshi designed the network.

436
00:38:33,314 --> 00:38:43,854
So to me, it's kind of like we've had this big exodus away from mining, and I think we have to come back to it to actually resolve some of the problems that we've seen on the network.

437
00:38:45,714 --> 00:38:56,874
So with regard to like, okay, I get that your daily cost to mine Bitcoin is, you're saying it's like 45,000 versus whatever Bitcoin's at right now, 107, 108.

438
00:38:57,014 --> 00:38:57,834
Like that sounds great.

439
00:38:58,134 --> 00:39:01,574
You mentioned obviously that's not taking into account the actual purchase of the rig.

440
00:39:01,574 --> 00:39:11,374
So like, and grand people can sell these rigs at a later time, but what's the, do you have any stats on the average amount of time it takes, like the payoff time for one of these rigs?

441
00:39:11,374 --> 00:39:15,714
So how far until you're in the black, basically, given that there is an initial capex?

442
00:39:16,394 --> 00:39:17,114
There is.

443
00:39:17,154 --> 00:39:17,954
There is capex.

444
00:39:17,954 --> 00:39:26,214
And what I see is – so part of what I want to do is to get Bitcoin-backed loans to sort of work around that particular argument.

445
00:39:26,674 --> 00:39:32,254
But if you look at it, it's – okay, to take that and break it down, how do you calculate that, right?

446
00:39:32,514 --> 00:39:37,854
Are you going – and this is where the complexity comes in because there's no agreed-upon way to calculate that.

447
00:39:37,954 --> 00:39:39,574
So yeah, you're going to put dollars up front.

448
00:39:39,574 --> 00:39:52,048
About 5 is kind of a typical number to get a Bitcoin mining rig So let say you put 5 up front Well you going to be able to sell that at the end and there been moments where you can sell that for multiples

449
00:39:52,928 --> 00:39:59,088
But also kind of more standard if you're not hitting that timing right is to sell it for a fraction, right?

450
00:39:59,188 --> 00:40:02,268
And so you have that capex that has been spent.

451
00:40:02,628 --> 00:40:05,628
Now, how do you calculate your return on that from a dollar standpoint?

452
00:40:06,227 --> 00:40:09,168
And the answer is it depends, right?

453
00:40:09,608 --> 00:40:13,788
It depends on how you choose to manage the Bitcoin when you acquire it.

454
00:40:13,948 --> 00:40:15,308
Are you going to just sit on the Bitcoin?

455
00:40:15,768 --> 00:40:19,868
Or are you going to sell enough of your Bitcoin to pay your electricity bill?

456
00:40:20,828 --> 00:40:26,668
Or are you going to sell only all the Bitcoin to pay your electricity bill, right?

457
00:40:26,748 --> 00:40:29,168
There's sort of kind of three gradations there.

458
00:40:29,668 --> 00:40:33,288
And depending on that determines how long it takes to pay for the mining rig.

459
00:40:33,688 --> 00:40:36,328
That's why for me, I try not to get into that argument.

460
00:40:36,428 --> 00:40:36,808
It's there.

461
00:40:37,288 --> 00:40:38,468
Absolutely, it is there.

462
00:40:38,468 --> 00:40:46,727
But what I find is just the very core value proposition of, hey, this is your daily cost of mine of Bitcoin is just not even understood in our community.

463
00:40:46,908 --> 00:40:48,848
And so I'm just trying to get that idea across.

464
00:40:49,248 --> 00:40:53,668
And we'll add – we'll stack on more layers of explanation along the way.

465
00:40:53,788 --> 00:40:54,468
So you're right.

466
00:40:54,548 --> 00:40:55,188
There is a capex.

467
00:40:55,868 --> 00:41:00,968
And I just want to get the core message out before I get too involved with that part of the conversation.

468
00:41:00,968 --> 00:41:02,828
Not trying to have a gotcha at all.

469
00:41:02,888 --> 00:41:03,808
Just genuinely curious.

470
00:41:03,808 --> 00:41:03,988
No.

471
00:41:04,628 --> 00:41:09,528
As somebody who's interested in this myself, I have my – I need to hook it up.

472
00:41:09,648 --> 00:41:16,308
I just – shout out to Average Gary who I bought this bid axe from in D.C., paid in sats, of course.

473
00:41:17,368 --> 00:41:22,028
And yeah, Gary was nice enough to bring one to D.C. for me, so that was nice of him.

474
00:41:22,028 --> 00:41:30,227
But I'm curious about this because obviously realistically I'm not going to get an industrial-grade miner and plug it in where I live.

475
00:41:30,227 --> 00:41:35,088
first of all, the, uh, the electricity costs are prohibitive where I am. And so it just,

476
00:41:35,148 --> 00:41:39,368
it wouldn't make any sense. Like if I was, you know, if it's, unless I just really wanted

477
00:41:39,368 --> 00:41:45,588
completely KYC free sets and I was willing to really burn, uh, burn, burn a lot of, uh,

478
00:41:45,588 --> 00:41:49,568
of my excess value to do so, which like, there's an argument to be made for that as well.

479
00:41:49,948 --> 00:41:55,207
Uh, but on this side, so, you know, through, like you mentioned reselling these after,

480
00:41:55,308 --> 00:41:59,648
I'm just curious that like the mechanism of that, uh, do you guys actually facilitate that for your

481
00:41:59,648 --> 00:42:03,227
customers like is that something that's easy or is it like you have to take possession of it resell

482
00:42:03,227 --> 00:42:07,528
it later like you know like when you're done hosting it what's the and what's the actual uh

483
00:42:07,528 --> 00:42:12,608
like what is the shelf life on one of like the you know modern kind of you know uh these five

484
00:42:12,608 --> 00:42:16,588
thousand dollar miners that you're talking about like what how long can they typically run if well

485
00:42:16,588 --> 00:42:24,868
maintained yeah so there's how do i and so useful life of a mining rig is not actually what you

486
00:42:24,868 --> 00:42:29,448
think when we think of the useful life of a dishwasher we think when is my dishwasher going

487
00:42:29,448 --> 00:42:34,008
to stop working and I need to go buy a new one, right? When you think useful life of a mining rig,

488
00:42:34,088 --> 00:42:40,748
it's actually less about when it stops working and more about when is it not competitive enough

489
00:42:40,748 --> 00:42:48,128
for me to generate enough sats. And that timeframe, it's a bit dicey to say we use a conservative

490
00:42:48,128 --> 00:42:54,288
number, sort of industry average that I've heard is about four years. We like to use three in our

491
00:42:54,288 --> 00:42:58,548
analysis just to be a bit more conservative. But yeah, you're going to get at least three years of

492
00:42:58,548 --> 00:43:04,388
life is what we say out of a mining rig. And during that time, you know, our approach, again,

493
00:43:04,468 --> 00:43:10,508
just trying to be very simple and make very simple approaches to the entire thing is cycle your fiat

494
00:43:10,508 --> 00:43:14,088
through your electric bill into a Bitcoin position, hold your Bitcoin, because if you're a

495
00:43:14,088 --> 00:43:18,227
Bitcoin or, you know, over the course of the next four years, you're not going to have anything but

496
00:43:18,227 --> 00:43:25,148
upside in that. Now, as far as what you're going, why you wouldn't want to mine at home. Yeah,

497
00:43:25,148 --> 00:43:29,088
Yeah, it's probably my – so you've got electricity issues, right?

498
00:43:29,268 --> 00:43:35,148
Like most people don't realize that the high-end mining rigs these days are about the equivalent of plugging in about five microwaves.

499
00:43:35,568 --> 00:43:41,388
Most people need to rewire their houses to be able to handle that sort of electrical consumption in a single device.

500
00:43:41,888 --> 00:43:44,648
You've got the noise, which we know is an issue.

501
00:43:44,648 --> 00:43:54,028
But probably the biggest issue is – and it's kind of a result of the first two – is the disputes that happen between couples when couples try to mine from home.

502
00:43:54,288 --> 00:44:06,008
Genuinely, that has been the biggest thing that I've heard a lot of people that are mining with us that used to mine from home will tell us is, hey, man, I just had too many arguments with the missus trying to mine out in my garage.

503
00:44:07,207 --> 00:44:11,088
Yeah, the garage gets a little bit deafening, I'm guessing.

504
00:44:11,928 --> 00:44:12,207
Yeah.

505
00:44:12,207 --> 00:44:17,528
running some immersion ones, which I suppose you need a little bit more technical chops to be able

506
00:44:17,528 --> 00:44:23,808
to keep running. But okay. And I appreciate, you know, you walking through this. And again,

507
00:44:23,808 --> 00:44:27,048
not trying to have any gotcha, just trying to like understand better for myself as somebody

508
00:44:27,048 --> 00:44:33,028
who's interested in doing this. I guess from your side, like, are there any other big misconceptions

509
00:44:33,028 --> 00:44:40,148
on the side of Bitcoiners specifically about mining? You know, or I mean, maybe about like,

510
00:44:40,148 --> 00:44:44,408
does some of it come down to like the kind of the dangers of centralization?

511
00:44:44,508 --> 00:44:51,328
I feel like people are starting to get better or Bitcoiners are starting to get better educated about mining pool centralization risks.

512
00:44:51,328 --> 00:44:56,128
But I feel like it's still not even of all the things that are debated within Bitcoin.

513
00:44:56,268 --> 00:45:03,148
This is one that really should be debated a lot and talked about a lot and still gets hit on the back burner a little bit.

514
00:45:03,388 --> 00:45:04,468
I don't know if that's your feeling.

515
00:45:04,468 --> 00:45:16,868
I think the more we get the Bitcoin community mining, the healthier the entire community will be because if you look at it, the mining community has basically been separate from the rest of the Bitcoin community.

516
00:45:16,868 --> 00:45:27,668
Those two groups largely don't talk. I think like SaaS mining, I think Ocean, I think we're two of the first entities that really exist that are trying to create a bridge between those two communities.

517
00:45:27,668 --> 00:45:44,028
And I think that what we see is because there's been a lot of sort of fiat hashers or fiat service providers in the industry, they've not always treated the Bitcoin community the way they should be, right?

518
00:45:44,028 --> 00:45:48,548
I'm trying to be nice and dance around some of the negatives that have occurred.

519
00:45:48,648 --> 00:45:54,648
But as a result, it sort of left a pockmark on anybody that is trying to help people mine Bitcoin.

520
00:45:54,648 --> 00:46:07,068
And what I saw when I got into this – so I had about a decade of experience helping to construct rooftop solar systems, which I'd cut back to, but there's a lot of analogies between solar and Bitcoin mining that are surprising.

521
00:46:07,808 --> 00:46:20,448
But what I realized is that nobody was coming in and looking at this properly from the standpoint of, okay, Walker, I'm going to hold on to and manage a piece of property that you own.

522
00:46:20,448 --> 00:46:25,008
There is no way for that relationship to be anything other than high trust.

523
00:46:25,488 --> 00:46:31,868
Therefore, if I do not optimize around that being a high trust relationship, I'm going to lose, like just straight up.

524
00:46:32,328 --> 00:46:40,568
So that's why when we came to the market, we came out the gate and said the only way to build this trust is if we fully align incentives with our client.

525
00:46:40,568 --> 00:46:48,488
And that's why we chose not to mark up electricity prices, not mark up the hardware, and instead just pass through our costs on those.

526
00:46:48,488 --> 00:47:01,468
And instead, we'll take our cut on the back end the same way that our clients do. Because if our clients aren't generating Bitcoin, we're not generating revenue either. So we're going to share the pain and the game together. And in doing so, I can optimize trust.

527
00:47:01,468 --> 00:47:09,088
no that that makes sense am i i'm remembering correctly there have been uh like there have

528
00:47:09,088 --> 00:47:14,888
been some other let's say like uh hosted mining services right and there was i'm forgetting which

529
00:47:14,888 --> 00:47:19,288
one it was exactly that may have like there were some issues with it in the past and i'm not trying

530
00:47:19,288 --> 00:47:24,908
to you know uh dump on on anyone here but like there have been problems with these kind of

531
00:47:24,908 --> 00:47:29,428
services because and again like everything comes down to incentives right so i mean it's it's it's

532
00:47:29,428 --> 00:47:32,888
it's good to hear. I think that like the model that you guys have probably makes the most sense

533
00:47:32,888 --> 00:47:38,168
for this just in terms of like, yeah, you guys are providing a service. People pay for that service.

534
00:47:38,308 --> 00:47:43,828
You're not like making your, you're not making your margin on a, you know, kind of opaque markups

535
00:47:43,828 --> 00:47:48,768
of elements of the, uh, the service you're providing. It's just, it's the service itself.

536
00:47:48,768 --> 00:47:52,548
Like to me, that's, that's a, it's an honest way to run like any business, you know, like,

537
00:47:52,568 --> 00:47:58,188
cause if it's a, anything that's like free, um, like generally isn't actually free and you're

538
00:47:58,188 --> 00:48:02,727
somehow getting screwed even more on the backside. So at least that's my general experience.

539
00:48:03,328 --> 00:48:07,108
Yeah, I concur. And if you look at, I mean, you've basically, you've got only three ways to make

540
00:48:07,108 --> 00:48:12,508
money in this business. You can either mark up the hardware, mark up the electricity, or take a

541
00:48:12,508 --> 00:48:16,828
share of the Bitcoin out the back end. And every business has got to be paid somehow, otherwise

542
00:48:16,828 --> 00:48:21,048
they can't give you the service. And if you look at the first two, if you're going to mark up

543
00:48:21,048 --> 00:48:25,648
hardware, does that mean that you're necessarily going to plug the mining machines in? And if

544
00:48:25,648 --> 00:48:29,868
that's where the most profit is coming from, are you going to care about how long it takes to plug

545
00:48:29,868 --> 00:48:34,468
in the mining machines or how they actually function? If your profit is coming from electricity,

546
00:48:34,908 --> 00:48:41,028
are you going to care if you are actually providing hash rate out the back end or are you just selling

547
00:48:41,028 --> 00:48:46,868
electricity? Meaning that if it's broken but still drawn electricity, do you care? It's still

548
00:48:46,868 --> 00:48:51,968
getting your profit in. So it's only by the alignment of the third one, the block reward,

549
00:48:52,068 --> 00:48:55,608
that you can ensure that you are actually aligned with what your client wants, which is

550
00:48:55,608 --> 00:49:01,828
why we actually offer a performance guarantee. So let's say you've got a 200 terahash machine,

551
00:49:02,008 --> 00:49:08,248
right? The computational power is 200 terahash. We actually guarantee in our data centers that you

552
00:49:08,248 --> 00:49:13,348
will receive a certain percentage of that across the course of a year. And the reason we put that

553
00:49:13,348 --> 00:49:17,868
in place is because that's actually what our customers care about. They don't care about the

554
00:49:17,868 --> 00:49:24,088
actual uptime, whether it's 100% or 90%. They care that they're generating the Bitcoin that

555
00:49:24,088 --> 00:49:30,207
the machine can generate. And that's terahash. So we aligned a rig performance guarantee around that

556
00:49:30,207 --> 00:49:33,928
to try to also align our incentives even further, because then it's like, okay,

557
00:49:34,207 --> 00:49:38,488
not only are we incentivized from this is where our revenue comes from, but now we're also

558
00:49:38,488 --> 00:49:44,188
going to promise it. And I don't know if you're not incentivized to generate your revenue the same

559
00:49:44,188 --> 00:49:50,308
way, if you would go down the path of then putting a rig performance guarantee in place, because

560
00:49:50,308 --> 00:49:54,707
why would you you know but we're already there anyway so why not just take the step

561
00:49:54,707 --> 00:50:02,528
you think uh so we talked a little bit about within the bitcoin community uh but there's

562
00:50:02,528 --> 00:50:09,548
obviously a plethora of uh misconceptions outside of the community uh that's you know

563
00:50:09,548 --> 00:50:17,227
it's been driven by a lot of uh junk science and propaganda uh funded by the you know likes of ripple

564
00:50:17,227 --> 00:50:23,508
propagated by Greenpeace, mouthed off by Elizabeth Warren, the Alex DeVries of the world.

565
00:50:23,508 --> 00:50:26,227
I can name many, many instances.

566
00:50:26,707 --> 00:50:32,788
Been fought by folks like, you know, Daniel Batten, Troy Cross, many, many others.

567
00:50:33,668 --> 00:50:38,128
Where do you think we're at right now with the biggest misconceptions about Bitcoin from

568
00:50:38,128 --> 00:50:41,068
outside of the Bitcoin industry, from the pre-coiners?

569
00:50:41,428 --> 00:50:42,548
Where are we at with that?

570
00:50:42,668 --> 00:50:45,908
What are those biggest misconceptions right now in 2025?

571
00:50:45,908 --> 00:50:55,488
So where we are right now is – I think we lost a lot of those people.

572
00:50:55,968 --> 00:51:02,328
I think that what I see – so first of all, our product, we market specifically to the Bitcoin community.

573
00:51:02,828 --> 00:51:08,227
You need to be pretty far on your journey to be somebody that's looking to acquire Bitcoin and use it as savings, right?

574
00:51:08,227 --> 00:51:18,108
And that's – there's a lot of people that are further up in the no-coiner, pre-coiner sort of funnel that they're not looking to acquire Bitcoin and sit on it as savings.

575
00:51:18,288 --> 00:51:22,588
So I don't have as many conversations with those people as I probably should.

576
00:51:22,588 --> 00:51:34,028
But when I do, the energy FUD, unfortunately, Daniel Batten, Troy Cross, Bob Burnett, we've had a lot of very vocal people who've done a wonderful job of combating it.

577
00:51:34,428 --> 00:51:37,268
And I think largely at the academic level, we've done so.

578
00:51:37,268 --> 00:51:52,808
But I think it's going to take a very long time for that to filter down to the common man because unfortunately, just as a species, if you look at it, when there's something new and unknown, our default is to create a fear-based story about it.

579
00:51:52,808 --> 00:52:00,408
And that's what happened to our community is we were unknown, Bitcoin mining, Bitcoin.

580
00:52:00,988 --> 00:52:11,468
And as a result, it was very easy for the incumbent that were disrupting the existing financial system to come out and say, let's prey on this and let's put a lot of FUD out there.

581
00:52:11,968 --> 00:52:15,108
And that FUD has imprinted our culture to a large degree.

582
00:52:15,388 --> 00:52:18,648
And I think it's going to take a long time for that to be disrupted.

583
00:52:18,868 --> 00:52:19,908
It is what it is.

584
00:52:20,148 --> 00:52:21,688
It's just sort of an entrenched fight.

585
00:52:21,688 --> 00:52:31,668
The conversations like you and I are having and we could go into how the incentives are there for Bitcoin to be mining with clean energy and it's becoming better over time.

586
00:52:31,768 --> 00:52:32,508
There's lots of data.

587
00:52:32,988 --> 00:52:38,468
But at the end of the day, that narrative has planted itself with a lot of people and they'll come around eventually.

588
00:52:39,548 --> 00:52:47,448
But to me, trying to – the battle has been won and it's going to take a long time for people to come around to your average show.

589
00:52:47,448 --> 00:52:59,948
I think that's fair. I mean, just speaking from, as you know, I was in D.C. last week for the Bitcoin Policy Summit and was talking to some staffers.

590
00:53:00,207 --> 00:53:07,328
And they quite literally were raising the most cliched Bitcoin mining FUD that you can imagine.

591
00:53:07,468 --> 00:53:12,528
And another set of staffers raising incredibly cliched AML KYC FUD.

592
00:53:12,528 --> 00:53:15,308
And also some of the – not to say they're all bad.

593
00:53:15,388 --> 00:53:23,028
Many asked very good questions from a place of genuine curiosity and saying, look, I don't understand how – like what this is.

594
00:53:23,028 --> 00:53:27,348
Or even like can you explain the difference between Bitcoin and crypto because I honestly don't get it.

595
00:53:27,448 --> 00:53:32,128
Like that's great when you get honest questions where it's like someone's genuinely wanting to learn.

596
00:53:32,428 --> 00:53:41,727
But you can also see to your point how even though at the academic level, it's becoming an untenable position to say Bitcoin mining wastes energy, right?

597
00:53:41,727 --> 00:53:47,948
Like that's – if you're doing any sort of decent academic work, you just make yourself look like an idiot by saying that.

598
00:53:48,568 --> 00:53:57,808
But the average person, even the average staffer in D.C. or the average senator or congressperson in D.C., they're not even close to there yet.

599
00:53:58,068 --> 00:54:02,288
And the average citizen is still not close to that.

600
00:54:02,288 --> 00:54:16,088
And so it's like, man, it's tough because it's like we've won the battle on one side, but the other side doesn't even know that the battle has been won or they just don't even care about it.

601
00:54:16,088 --> 00:54:20,808
You know, it's like, so I don't know if it, if it matters, but I would like to get in.

602
00:54:20,848 --> 00:54:25,068
Cause one of the things I talked about in DC, when some of these staffers were asking about

603
00:54:25,068 --> 00:54:30,488
or bring up some of this mining fund was like, look, and they were like staffers of a democratic,

604
00:54:30,488 --> 00:54:32,628
you know, Congress person.

605
00:54:33,628 --> 00:54:36,248
And so I was like, okay, what angle do I hit them with?

606
00:54:36,308 --> 00:54:38,928
Well, obviously look, you care about renewable energy, right?

607
00:54:38,988 --> 00:54:42,948
Well, Bitcoin mining is the most renewably powered industry in the entire planet.

608
00:54:42,948 --> 00:54:47,008
like by a long shot, like, see, it's a good thing. It's not what you've heard.

609
00:54:48,008 --> 00:54:52,348
Where do you think we're at with that? Or can you talk a little bit about how that

610
00:54:52,348 --> 00:54:58,308
narrative has really proven? Can we talk about the incentives, really, of does Bitcoin mining

611
00:54:58,308 --> 00:55:02,448
facilitate this renewable build out as many have posited?

612
00:55:02,448 --> 00:55:10,207
Yes. Simple answer. And the reason why is because the incentives are there, right? And so I think

613
00:55:10,207 --> 00:55:18,108
I think that's actually one of the secret superpowers of Bitcoiners is we have the ability to follow incentives and see the likely outcome.

614
00:55:19,348 --> 00:55:23,268
Without fail, almost every Bitcoiner I know has that capability.

615
00:55:24,088 --> 00:55:28,468
And what you can see with mining is that it is no different, right?

616
00:55:29,268 --> 00:55:31,968
Bitcoin miners want the cheapest electricity they can find.

617
00:55:32,528 --> 00:55:34,988
What's the cheapest electricity you can find?

618
00:55:35,248 --> 00:55:37,788
It's the electricity that people don't want.

619
00:55:37,788 --> 00:55:42,848
And why do we produce electricity that nobody really wants?

620
00:55:43,227 --> 00:55:49,727
Well, it's because it's produced in the wrong time or the wrong location or a combination of both, right?

621
00:55:49,948 --> 00:55:50,768
And it's okay.

622
00:55:50,848 --> 00:55:52,068
Let's peel the onion one more layer.

623
00:55:52,328 --> 00:55:54,188
What energy sources are doing that?

624
00:55:54,648 --> 00:56:00,888
Well, it's a lot of times hydro is not geographically located right next to the city that's going to consume it.

625
00:56:01,808 --> 00:56:05,588
Or you've got wind and solar, right?

626
00:56:05,588 --> 00:56:11,848
So you look at those three energy sources and then off-grid flared gas, right?

627
00:56:11,948 --> 00:56:16,988
That one gets a little more complicated, but it's actually carbon negative when you break down that argument.

628
00:56:17,727 --> 00:56:25,908
And when you look at it across the board, there's just all this energy out there that's produced at the wrong time in the wrong place, and it's all carbon neutral to negative.

629
00:56:25,908 --> 00:56:38,628
And so naturally, Bitcoin miners are going to gravitate to consuming that electricity because the network drives them to increase their profit margins by driving down their electricity costs.

630
00:56:39,008 --> 00:56:42,688
So it's not a surprise that the network is getting cleaner and cleaner.

631
00:56:43,068 --> 00:56:48,588
It's actually a surprise that people are surprised that the network is as clean as it is.

632
00:56:48,588 --> 00:56:57,988
yeah i mean it's honestly like amazing the stuff around uh around either uh landfill like uh landfill

633
00:56:57,988 --> 00:57:03,988
gas methane or just uh flared flared gas broadly i think is one of the most fascinating sides of

634
00:57:03,988 --> 00:57:10,588
things uh just because it's like once you learn about that it's like it you it just you look really

635
00:57:10,588 --> 00:57:15,528
silly for trying to be against something like that and there's that uh i forget who was the

636
00:57:15,528 --> 00:57:18,948
first person to say it. It may have been Gladstein. It could have been someone else. But the whole

637
00:57:18,948 --> 00:57:25,727
idea that if you're not mining Bitcoin, you're wasting energy. Like, one, it's true. And two,

638
00:57:25,788 --> 00:57:30,028
it's like, it's really satisfying to see that thesis start to permeate a little more. You see,

639
00:57:30,308 --> 00:57:34,428
like, speaking of hydro, that's what I think that's what the kingdom of Bhutan has been using,

640
00:57:34,528 --> 00:57:41,768
right? Is hydropower to mine a shocking amount of Bitcoin with energy that would otherwise have

641
00:57:41,768 --> 00:57:48,408
been wasted. At the same time, you've got the United Kingdom, which is curtailing like billions

642
00:57:48,408 --> 00:57:54,008
or at least over a billion dollars worth of energy per year and passing the cost of that curtailment

643
00:57:54,008 --> 00:58:01,207
onto the taxpayer who already has high energy bills. They have high energy bills, but they're

644
00:58:01,207 --> 00:58:09,188
paying people to shut down their energy production. That's just nuts. That is so insane.

645
00:58:09,188 --> 00:58:24,368
Like your energy should be way, way, way cheaper. Your energy should be almost free at this point. But no, because you have a terribly managed system that apparently won't come around to Bitcoin mining, you're literally having people spend more money just to run energy into the ground.

646
00:58:24,548 --> 00:58:33,048
Like that just blows my mind. I'm sure you as somebody in the industry, that's like probably even more aggravating to you than it is to me.

647
00:58:33,048 --> 00:58:40,068
Yes, and I think I've just developed a thicker skin around it or more patience around it because actually – so this is going to sound odd.

648
00:58:40,128 --> 00:58:42,168
I learned this lesson in rooftop solar.

649
00:58:42,488 --> 00:58:47,448
So I'll give you an anecdote that still to this day I find mind-boggling.

650
00:58:47,608 --> 00:58:56,108
But I was selling rooftop solar and I had – these were house appointments I was going to and literally across the street from one another.

651
00:58:56,108 --> 00:58:56,888
There were two homes.

652
00:58:57,748 --> 00:59:02,388
It was a housing development complex, and so the homes were identical.

653
00:59:03,048 --> 00:59:04,608
Just straight cookie-cutter homes.

654
00:59:05,068 --> 00:59:09,768
I went into one house, and it had an electric bill, and this is circa 2010, right?

655
00:59:09,788 --> 00:59:14,308
So I'm dating myself here, but I had like a $50-a-month electric bill in California.

656
00:59:14,768 --> 00:59:16,468
I went into the house across the street.

657
00:59:16,568 --> 00:59:17,508
It was about $450.

658
00:59:18,168 --> 00:59:22,088
And that homeowner in this home sat there and scratched his face.

659
00:59:22,088 --> 00:59:26,188
I know my neighbor has a very low electric bill, and I can't figure it out.

660
00:59:26,628 --> 00:59:30,808
The only thing I do are turn on these few switches each day.

661
00:59:30,808 --> 00:59:41,622
And I okay what are the switches for One powers my air conditioning and I notice it like a 95 day outside and it 55 in his house Okay that using a lot of electricity

662
00:59:42,081 --> 00:59:42,702
What's the other one?

663
00:59:42,782 --> 00:59:43,902
Oh, yeah, that one's my pool.

664
00:59:44,581 --> 00:59:48,322
Oh, yeah, the other one is a tanning booth that I have back there.

665
00:59:48,442 --> 00:59:49,722
I like to tan, right?

666
00:59:50,422 --> 00:59:56,682
And this guy had no conception that the number of switches he was flipping does not correlate to the electricity he's consuming.

667
00:59:56,682 --> 01:00:05,342
And it occurred to me at that point, I was like, oh, when human beings can't see something, a lot of us can't understand it just straight up.

668
01:00:05,662 --> 01:00:06,382
We have no clue.

669
01:00:06,382 --> 01:00:11,942
And so when it comes to electricity, it fits in this box where it's like a mystical substance, I think, for most people.

670
01:00:12,642 --> 01:00:26,622
And I think for a lot of us as Bitcoiners that are sort of like retethered ourselves to reality as we get hard money going in our lives and start extending our time horizons and thinking about saving for our families and for our futures.

671
01:00:26,682 --> 01:00:46,061
Like we're just getting grounded and back to reality. The Nixon Goldshock, I think, just untethered society and the Bitcoiners are the first one that are getting grounded. And we see this stuff and it just seems so dead obvious. But to most people that are just running around helter skelter, they're just judging their electricity consumption by how many switches they flip.

672
01:00:46,061 --> 01:01:06,282
They think electricity is stored and can't be wasted. I mean, just the basic fact that electricity, the grid is a circuit. You use it or you lose it. That is just how the grid works. There's no storage mechanism, right? So if they're pushing all this power in, it's not being used. The rest has got to go to ground somewhere in the system.

673
01:01:06,282 --> 01:01:18,342
So just like how the grid itself functions, how electricity functions, like all of this is absolutely just over most people's heads and Bitcoiners are coming to realize what this stuff is and be like, you guys are crazy.

674
01:01:18,342 --> 01:01:26,442
Like you just don't understand and you're making the decisions on how the grid works, what electricity price – I mean can we at least get back to the laws of physics for our reality?

675
01:01:29,142 --> 01:01:30,002
I mean I'm sorry.

676
01:01:30,122 --> 01:01:34,502
I just got to touch back on this guy because – so he was legitimately thinking like there's like a one-to-one relationship.

677
01:01:34,502 --> 01:01:38,942
Like every switch that I flip is just using the same – it doesn't matter what that switch turns on.

678
01:01:39,502 --> 01:01:42,782
It's just like that's just using my one unit of electricity.

679
01:01:43,362 --> 01:01:44,581
I mean wow.

680
01:01:44,602 --> 01:01:44,862
Yeah.

681
01:01:45,222 --> 01:01:45,862
No, genuinely.

682
01:01:46,602 --> 01:01:47,122
Mind-blowing.

683
01:01:47,142 --> 01:01:54,081
The most surprising part was I managed not to laugh in his face because it was – it was rough.

684
01:01:54,302 --> 01:01:54,702
It was rough.

685
01:01:54,902 --> 01:01:56,902
I had to really snort that chuckle.

686
01:01:58,682 --> 01:01:59,541
Dear Lord.

687
01:01:59,541 --> 01:02:09,561
I mean, that's like it is just indicative of the fact that most people don't, again, they don't think that hard about most things.

688
01:02:10,242 --> 01:02:17,862
Like even the things that really affect them and affect their bottom line on a daily basis, they're not that curious about them.

689
01:02:17,962 --> 01:02:23,882
They just can't be bothered to care or to understand or maybe don't have the capacity to understand.

690
01:02:23,882 --> 01:02:32,081
But like you don't have to have too much mental capacity to understand that, you know, a little tiny light bulb is going to use less electricity than heating your pool, for example.

691
01:02:32,282 --> 01:02:35,142
You know, like that just that's mind blowing.

692
01:02:35,822 --> 01:02:37,362
So, OK.

693
01:02:38,122 --> 01:02:46,142
A lot of people, granted, are still going to strange, incorrect, preconceived notions about Bitcoin mining for a very long time.

694
01:02:46,942 --> 01:02:51,501
Where do you think we're at from a nation state or governmental level?

695
01:02:51,501 --> 01:02:55,102
I know you're not in the U.S. anymore, but obviously you're still – you keep tabs on that closely.

696
01:02:55,842 --> 01:02:56,722
The world is a big place.

697
01:02:56,842 --> 01:02:58,342
We mentioned the Kingdom of Bhutan earlier.

698
01:02:58,501 --> 01:03:05,382
There's other governments who are also mining Bitcoin, whether in broad daylight or behind closed doors.

699
01:03:06,342 --> 01:03:10,862
Where do you think we're at from kind of a nation-state mining perspective?

700
01:03:11,482 --> 01:03:17,622
Do you think this is something that's increasingly just becoming kind of like a necessity for countries to pay attention to?

701
01:03:17,622 --> 01:03:21,342
Or do you think that a lot of them are still kind of asleep at the wheel like the average person is?

702
01:03:21,342 --> 01:03:29,581
Because let's be honest, governments are mostly run by average people with higher levels of psychopathy than the general population, to put it kindly.

703
01:03:30,521 --> 01:03:31,322
Yeah, to put it kindly.

704
01:03:31,982 --> 01:03:35,882
I think nation states are going to focus on a lot more than your average Joe.

705
01:03:36,242 --> 01:03:42,302
Unfortunately, and this is – it saddens me to say this to be completely frank with you, Walker.

706
01:03:42,302 --> 01:03:50,642
But I think the retail that is in now is one end of the barbell and I think institutions and nation states are the other.

707
01:03:51,342 --> 01:04:07,001
And I think that that's going to absorb most of the supply. And I think all the retail that have not adopted Bitcoin at this point or have started their stacking journey, I think they're not going to be starting until after it's socially accepted.

708
01:04:07,001 --> 01:04:21,422
And that really is rough to sort of come to accept. But I've just seen in the conversations, I think the biggest inflection point for me was just watching how everybody in the community got excited about us crossing 100K for the first time.

709
01:04:21,422 --> 01:04:34,102
I think for so many of us, we thought that was going to be a psychological tipping point for all of our friends and family to say, look, Walker, you were right. I was wrong. I'm going to start stacking Bitcoin now. And that didn't happen for any of us.

710
01:04:34,102 --> 01:04:54,001
And the fact that it happened for any of us is a sign that I just don't think that there's a number that that will happen. There's no capitulation point for retailers I think a lot of us have imagined and wished for. But I do think that there is a capitulation point and it is occurring for nation states.

711
01:04:54,001 --> 01:05:03,422
And I think the money printer and the ownership of the dominant money printer is the equivalent of Game of Thrones for our species.

712
01:05:04,182 --> 01:05:16,842
And we've been fighting over that money printer for so bloody long that to see a new entrance in the ring at a nation state level has the leading contenders vying for it now.

713
01:05:16,842 --> 01:05:24,882
And I think it's a game that none of us are really going to understand until history books are written about it 100 years later.

714
01:05:25,242 --> 01:05:30,982
But I do believe that we're starting to see the nation-state adoption curve playing itself out at this point.

715
01:05:31,242 --> 01:05:39,021
I don't understand exactly where it's going to go or what that means, but I think we've well moved past the retail period of accumulation.

716
01:05:39,021 --> 01:05:52,902
Aaron Ross Powell So, I mean, safe to say you're of the opinion that hash rate you would view as – or countries will increasingly start to view as like a strategic geopolitical priority.

717
01:05:52,902 --> 01:06:01,962
Aaron Ross Powell I think so and I don't think that – I mean do you know many government programs that are run all that well?

718
01:06:05,182 --> 01:06:06,102
Aaron Ross Powell Some military.

719
01:06:06,102 --> 01:06:25,302
Military is about it, right? And so I'm thinking, okay, you know how to run military. Is mining all that close to military? Maybe. I don't know. So I don't know how it plays out, but I think it's going to be a long time before the mining industry gets subsumed by the nation state mining play.

720
01:06:25,302 --> 01:06:44,581
And it's just for that simple reason. It takes – like I could see being subcontracted, right, where maybe Trump goes to some of the pubcos and says, hey, boys, we want to contract you to go monetize all this electricity for us that we're subsidizing with our money printer, and we want all the Bitcoin for it.

721
01:06:44,581 --> 01:06:59,282
I could see that happening. But as far as propping it up and building their own branch of the military for mining at this point, I think we got some years ahead of us just given the pace at which government gets good at doing things.

722
01:07:01,862 --> 01:07:06,842
Talk a little bit more about mining pool centralization because we touched on it a little bit earlier.

723
01:07:06,842 --> 01:07:12,202
you guys mentioned that you're going to start allowing redirect or, you know,

724
01:07:12,242 --> 01:07:14,142
to people to direct their hash power to ocean.

725
01:07:15,342 --> 01:07:20,001
Can you talk about this just for folks who may not be super familiar with why

726
01:07:20,001 --> 01:07:22,541
this is such an important thing? And maybe,

727
01:07:22,702 --> 01:07:25,142
cause a lot of people just may not know about it. Maybe they haven't,

728
01:07:25,182 --> 01:07:27,802
haven't seen that chart showing, you know, the,

729
01:07:28,001 --> 01:07:30,682
it's a pretty scary chart to look at when you see that, you know, what,

730
01:07:30,722 --> 01:07:34,182
like three entities control, you know, however, whatever high,

731
01:07:34,182 --> 01:07:36,642
like 70, 60, 70% of the hash rate.

732
01:07:36,842 --> 01:07:40,902
Like it's very centralized from a mining pool perspective.

733
01:07:41,342 --> 01:07:44,682
And to me, I view this as like a massive risk

734
01:07:44,682 --> 01:07:45,882
that should be paid attention to.

735
01:07:45,962 --> 01:07:49,282
I think there are also some solutions in place

736
01:07:49,282 --> 01:07:51,922
for alleviating some of that stress.

737
01:07:52,142 --> 01:07:53,442
And, you know, but the first step is like,

738
01:07:53,482 --> 01:07:54,862
make people aware of the problem.

739
01:07:54,862 --> 01:07:57,541
So what should people know about pool centralization

740
01:07:57,541 --> 01:07:58,262
and its effects?

741
01:07:58,262 --> 01:08:01,041
Yeah, I think first of all, excuse me.

742
01:08:01,882 --> 01:08:04,021
I think first of all, people should be aware

743
01:08:04,021 --> 01:08:08,822
that Bitmain is the 900-pound gorilla in the room on the network, right?

744
01:08:08,862 --> 01:08:13,481
Not only do they have the lion's share of the hash rate that they're selling for hardware,

745
01:08:13,762 --> 01:08:19,042
but they're also running AntPool that is a proxy for several other mining pools,

746
01:08:19,142 --> 01:08:21,521
and that was just discovered recently, right?

747
01:08:21,602 --> 01:08:25,481
So not only are they selling the hardware, not only are they mining,

748
01:08:25,921 --> 01:08:31,202
but they're also controlling a lot of blocks and the block templates that are being made

749
01:08:31,202 --> 01:08:33,042
and pushed out there, right?

750
01:08:33,042 --> 01:08:41,722
And so to me, the fact that we have that level of centralization risk with one actor is the ultimate issue more than anything.

751
01:08:42,021 --> 01:08:49,182
So yes, if you add up, I think it's Foundry plus Amp Pool plus there's one other sort of is the grouping that people worry about.

752
01:08:49,182 --> 01:08:55,642
it it's it's less that particular grouping that i worry about and the impact that bitmain has across

753
01:08:55,642 --> 01:09:03,082
the entire ecosystem because you know the ccp can come in at any time and say there's a throat to

754
01:09:03,082 --> 01:09:07,021
choke at bitmain right that's that's what we always worry about at the within the bitcoin

755
01:09:07,021 --> 01:09:14,162
community right and so because that that uh threat exists it could be utilized and i think that we

756
01:09:14,162 --> 01:09:19,061
should be mitigating that and we should be mitigating it by having different mining hardware

757
01:09:19,061 --> 01:09:22,802
that's available. And I'm the pop calling the kettle black, right? We sell a lot of Bitmain

758
01:09:22,802 --> 01:09:31,542
equipment. So it's not that I'm anti Bitmain specifically as I am the undue size influence

759
01:09:31,542 --> 01:09:37,082
that they have on the network. So to me, that's the biggest concern I have. And Bitdeer is coming

760
01:09:37,082 --> 01:09:41,322
to market with new mining rigs. Arodyne is coming to market with new mining rigs. So those are all

761
01:09:41,322 --> 01:09:48,082
wonderful things on the hardware level. On the mining pool level, you know, Ocean is the most

762
01:09:48,082 --> 01:09:54,622
dominant hype or opportunity we've got to decentralize there. Demand is another mining

763
01:09:54,622 --> 01:10:01,441
pool that's coming to market that's using Stratum V2. So Datum and Stratum V2 are two protocols by

764
01:10:01,441 --> 01:10:07,602
which block templates are put back in the miner's hands to generate their own blocks. And if you're

765
01:10:07,602 --> 01:10:14,282
not generating your own blocks, then in essence, you're seeding that right to somewhere else in the

766
01:10:14,282 --> 01:10:18,561
mining pool. And I think what we're going to see as a Bitcoin community is that we're going to start

767
01:10:18,561 --> 01:10:23,122
to see the mining pool turned into like a stack, right? Where we're going to start to see that you

768
01:10:23,122 --> 01:10:27,561
generate hash rate, hash rate generates a certain number of shares that you're going to be rewarded

769
01:10:27,561 --> 01:10:33,802
for when a mining pool finds a block. But that pool is going to be kind of an accounting function

770
01:10:33,802 --> 01:10:35,521
and a distribution function.

771
01:10:36,021 --> 01:10:38,622
And there may even be like a different layer.

772
01:10:38,722 --> 01:10:39,722
There's going to be a different layer.

773
01:10:39,882 --> 01:10:41,682
That's where Datum and Stratum v2 are

774
01:10:41,682 --> 01:10:44,002
for where the block is being created

775
01:10:44,002 --> 01:10:47,822
and then where the block actually gets propagated through.

776
01:10:48,182 --> 01:10:50,202
Like I think it's going to get a lot more complicated

777
01:10:50,202 --> 01:10:53,961
and that's actually a good thing for the entire network

778
01:10:53,961 --> 01:10:57,981
because it'll de-risk the centralization impacts.

779
01:10:58,322 --> 01:10:59,421
So I think to your point, Walker,

780
01:10:59,842 --> 01:11:02,242
the fact that we're all so focused on it

781
01:11:02,242 --> 01:11:06,561
and awareness is growing around this issue is the starting point.

782
01:11:06,882 --> 01:11:09,722
There's not too many issues that we focus on as a Bitcoin community

783
01:11:09,722 --> 01:11:11,162
that we don't see progress on.

784
01:11:11,602 --> 01:11:14,702
This one is harder than a lot of others, though,

785
01:11:14,762 --> 01:11:18,002
because it involves moving molecules around meat space, right?

786
01:11:18,042 --> 01:11:20,382
It's not just software and code that can fix things.

787
01:11:20,382 --> 01:11:22,802
It's like we actually have to move electricity around,

788
01:11:22,941 --> 01:11:26,182
point hardware to a certain place and all that.

789
01:11:26,262 --> 01:11:27,242
So it's going to happen.

790
01:11:27,401 --> 01:11:28,242
The focus is there.

791
01:11:28,361 --> 01:11:31,421
But yeah, for me, the two big risks that I see to the network

792
01:11:31,421 --> 01:11:36,642
are mining centralization, of which I think SAS mining has some impact on it to change the

793
01:11:36,642 --> 01:11:44,502
incentive set on why people are mining. But downstream of that, I also, quantum attacks

794
01:11:44,502 --> 01:11:49,082
are the other one that concern me. And so, you know, as much as we've been arguing about things

795
01:11:49,082 --> 01:11:54,941
like op return, which I think there's a legitimate, interesting debate there, I actually think that

796
01:11:54,941 --> 01:12:01,122
it's the wrong debate and wrong use of our community's focus. I would much prefer to see

797
01:12:01,122 --> 01:12:06,742
all of us working together to solve the mining centralization issues and like the quantum issues

798
01:12:06,742 --> 01:12:14,282
that seem to be heading down the pike at us. So let's touch on the quantum thing for a sec then

799
01:12:14,282 --> 01:12:20,521
because I mean the way I see it, it's like, okay, if we do get to that point, you know,

800
01:12:20,582 --> 01:12:24,222
and I feel like this is often something that's used as like a gotcha for Bitcoin. Well, like,

801
01:12:24,322 --> 01:12:29,561
well, what's going to happen to Bitcoin when, you know, a quantum computer can just crack it and,

802
01:12:29,561 --> 01:12:33,901
And then all your little bitty coins will belong to the quantum computer.

803
01:12:34,742 --> 01:12:46,282
It's like, okay, if that happens and if it can – if it's able to break that level of encryption, well, then that means it's breaking all the encryption everywhere in the world.

804
01:12:46,282 --> 01:12:55,401
So like probably the bigger issue is that literally everything everywhere will shut down and we're going to descend into chaos.

805
01:12:55,401 --> 01:12:59,762
and it won't matter if you have Bitcoin because the only currency that anyone will care about

806
01:12:59,762 --> 01:13:04,202
is ammunition. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Bitcoin is uniquely vulnerable.

807
01:13:05,222 --> 01:13:08,042
I don't know. I just, I see it as one of those things where like, yeah,

808
01:13:08,502 --> 01:13:13,901
could this be a problem in the future? Absolutely. Am I also confident that we have ways in which to

809
01:13:13,901 --> 01:13:18,361
protect from that quantum threat and that Bitcoiners are probably more aware of that

810
01:13:18,361 --> 01:13:23,662
than folks in a lot of other industries also using strong encryption? Yes. So I'm curious

811
01:13:23,662 --> 01:13:27,042
where you sit on that. How much of a threat do you realistically think that is? And is that threat

812
01:13:27,042 --> 01:13:35,382
insurmountable? So I think that having a technology that's a store of value makes you uniquely

813
01:13:35,382 --> 01:13:42,222
vulnerable, not from the technology itself, but from people's perceptions of that technology.

814
01:13:42,222 --> 01:13:48,102
The fact that we hear it so much, I actually think limits our adoption because people's fear

815
01:13:48,102 --> 01:13:51,582
of that, whether true or not, back to what we were talking about earlier, if there's something

816
01:13:51,582 --> 01:13:56,582
they don't understand, then it becomes a boogeyman to get scared about, right? And I think that that's

817
01:13:56,582 --> 01:14:01,361
probably playing itself out. So for me, I'm actually, I'm in your camp, actually, I'm not

818
01:14:01,361 --> 01:14:06,202
that worried about it. For me, though, it's important that we as a community create a game

819
01:14:06,202 --> 01:14:11,502
plan and know when to deploy that game plan. And the fact that we don't have an agreed upon

820
01:14:11,502 --> 01:14:17,502
game plan at this point, and know when we plan to deploy it, that's my issue. And maybe it's just

821
01:14:17,502 --> 01:14:22,302
because I did Boy Scouts as a kid and have it drilled into me to be prepared. But that seems to

822
01:14:22,302 --> 01:14:27,322
me to be just an obvious, like, dumb thing. Like, we know quantum's coming. We know at some point,

823
01:14:27,401 --> 01:14:32,421
it does pose a risk for us. Why don't we have an agreed game plan in place? And why don't we focus

824
01:14:32,421 --> 01:14:37,941
on agreeing on that game plan as one of our priorities right now? Because we know it's an

825
01:14:37,941 --> 01:14:43,642
actual risk when it occurs. A lot of these things like the op return debate, you know,

826
01:14:43,642 --> 01:14:48,782
a lot of us just thrown around theoreticals on what if this happens and that happens.

827
01:14:49,021 --> 01:14:54,182
And I think the great fear of the opportune debate was, well, miners are going to centralize

828
01:14:54,182 --> 01:14:56,382
and we're going to have all sorts of problems in the future.

829
01:14:56,502 --> 01:14:58,061
And it's like, yeah, maybe.

830
01:14:58,382 --> 01:14:59,282
We don't really know.

831
01:14:59,382 --> 01:15:00,782
There's no counterfactual to that.

832
01:15:01,842 --> 01:15:02,782
It could happen.

833
01:15:02,822 --> 01:15:03,361
It might not.

834
01:15:03,481 --> 01:15:08,142
But we know as soon as quantum technology is at a certain point, whether people choose

835
01:15:08,142 --> 01:15:12,622
to or not, it could be pointed at Bitcoin addresses and used to break those.

836
01:15:12,622 --> 01:15:20,421
So that is just a hard fact, right? So let's just be prepared and get a game plan together we agreed to.

837
01:15:24,521 --> 01:15:32,722
And if not, then we've got a quantum-resistant fork and a non-quantum-resistant fork and we'll see what happens there.

838
01:15:33,782 --> 01:15:41,401
That's one thing that's clear. Consensus is rough and messy when it comes to Bitcoin.

839
01:15:41,401 --> 01:15:47,941
but okay well can we've we've covered a lot today was there anything that we did not get a chance to

840
01:15:47,941 --> 01:15:52,322
dive into anything you you wanted to go deeper on or anything we didn't get a chance to cover

841
01:15:52,322 --> 01:16:00,382
that you want to take uh take a few minutes to go into hmm no man i think i think if i yeah my

842
01:16:00,382 --> 01:16:04,802
instinct is to go to just shill what i'm doing with my project but i'm not going to anymore

843
01:16:04,802 --> 01:16:27,082
We've already talked about it. I think if anything, I just say that if you've been shafted by hosting or if you have been very negative towards it in the past, I would say we're Bitcoiners building a Bitcoin project and we're Bitcoin only.

844
01:16:27,082 --> 01:16:33,842
I'm pretty proud of the fact that we've got like very simple things but have been very hard to come by in our industry.

845
01:16:33,961 --> 01:16:42,122
We've got like Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App, Lightning, Bitcoin, Tether, like all like the major rails we've got available.

846
01:16:43,002 --> 01:16:49,961
We've done a lot of cool things that can only be done if you have a software forward approach to mining.

847
01:16:50,321 --> 01:16:54,821
And I think you're going to be shocked with the experience if you give it a second look.

848
01:16:54,821 --> 01:17:07,882
And I get why you've rejected it. And I know I'm speaking to the audience at large right here, but I get why so many Bitcoiners have rejected it because the trust has just been abused.

849
01:17:08,182 --> 01:17:15,742
And we set out at SaaS Mining to restore that trust because fundamentally, we should be acquiring our Bitcoin.

850
01:17:15,961 --> 01:17:22,922
And I know I'm being moralistic here, but we should be acquiring our Bitcoin the way Satoshi designed the network because it's a better acquisition method.

851
01:17:22,922 --> 01:17:28,061
We should not be going to the exchange-based surveillance system to acquiring our Bitcoin.

852
01:17:28,662 --> 01:17:35,702
And if we go back to the network, retake the network, so to speak, I think a lot of our problems are going to disappear.

853
01:17:38,961 --> 01:17:43,082
I like that. I like that message, and I think it's a great note to end on.

854
01:17:43,542 --> 01:17:44,742
Where do you want to send people?

855
01:17:44,742 --> 01:17:46,981
So the website is sasmining.com.

856
01:17:47,242 --> 01:17:51,122
You can find me on Twitter at K Halliburton, so two L's in Halliburton.

857
01:17:51,122 --> 01:17:53,122
DMs are open

858
01:17:53,122 --> 01:17:53,861
hit me up

859
01:17:53,861 --> 01:17:57,662
and you are

860
01:17:57,662 --> 01:17:58,742
getting back on

861
01:17:58,742 --> 01:18:01,502
I am on Nostra too but I just don't know how to

862
01:18:01,502 --> 01:18:03,162
I don't know how to share my Nostra

863
01:18:03,162 --> 01:18:04,521
very successfully

864
01:18:04,521 --> 01:18:07,981
that's okay

865
01:18:07,981 --> 01:18:10,042
I'll blast it out to folks

866
01:18:10,042 --> 01:18:11,342
once this episode goes live

867
01:18:11,342 --> 01:18:13,882
so they can find it online

868
01:18:13,882 --> 01:18:15,802
well Kent appreciate you sharing your

869
01:18:15,802 --> 01:18:17,502
scarce time and

870
01:18:17,502 --> 01:18:19,842
looking forward to talking to you

871
01:18:19,842 --> 01:18:21,382
again soon. Likewise. Thank you.

872
01:18:49,842 --> 01:18:56,061
x youtube and rumble just search at walker america and find this podcast on x and instagram

873
01:18:56,061 --> 01:19:01,961
at tip coin podcast and in the show notes to grab sponsor links head to substack.com

874
01:19:01,961 --> 01:19:08,582
slash at walker america to get episodes emailed to you and head to bitcoinpodcast.net for everything

875
01:19:08,582 --> 01:19:16,342
else bitcoin is scarce but podcasts are abundant so thank you for spending your scarce time

876
01:19:16,342 --> 01:19:18,821
listening to The Bitcoin Podcast.

877
01:19:19,401 --> 01:19:21,842
Until next time, stay free.