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All right, guys, welcome back to another interview.

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Hashed right up.

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Today, I'm sitting down with Kent Halliburton of Saz Mining.

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Saz Mining is a mining as a service provider.

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They have four existing sites in Wisconsin, Ethiopia, Norway and Paraguay.

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Now they're releasing their fifth site in North Carolina.

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They have about 17.5 megawatts under management

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and are a very famous brand when it comes to Bitcoin miner hosting.

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Today, I want to speak to Kent about his plans to expand in the US and what mining is like in Paraguay, Norway and Ethiopia as well.

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With that being said, I hope you enjoyed the interview. Let's dive in.

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HashrateUp. Hardware sales, advisory, hosting and side brokerage.

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Find new and use ASIC deals through the website and the Telegram channel below.

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Make smarter decisions with HashrateUp.

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Alright, so as I said in the introduction, I'm here with Kent. Hi Kent, how are you?

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wonderful man good to be on here it's been a while yeah it's been a while i see beautiful

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trees in peru waving in the background it's awesome um i'm in my office we had a think

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record heat week hitting 100 degrees fahrenheit or 40 celsius which is crazy but i'm glad it

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cooled down a bit but that's besides the point um i want to talk to you about mining and you guys

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just announced your fifth site in south dakota you just told me that was announced today

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it's nearly sold out now you're looking to get another site online and i'm wondering um how does

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that work with the ai pivot how easy is it for you to find infrastructure at reasonable prices

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now that everybody and their grandmother that has access to energy is looking at ai

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that's a great question i um so i have a kind of contrarian take about ai in general um i think

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there's a bit of a data center infrastructure overshoot that is occurring at this particular

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moment with the demand for edge computation and AI agents on people's desktops. However,

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what I find right now in the US is that we are just strategically lucky, to be honest. I think

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there is a lot of pressure. I know there's a lot of pressure for energy. And we've been in

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operations now for four years. This is our fourth year mining. And we've kind of gotten to the point

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where we are seeing, and I heard this, you know, this opportunity that we're looking at right now

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is in Texas. And I think I'll be able to talk more publicly about the specifics within a week or so

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here of our recording. But at this particular moment, the main reason why the data center

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operator wants to work with us is because of a reputation, right? So I don't think that these

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sort of opportunities are just available to everyone. And that's not to try to say that

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we've done anything other than just operate as a healthy business. But, you know, the Bitcoin

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mining space has been really full of a lot of Wild West actors, right? And the more professional

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actors are starting to emerge. And I'd like to think that we're one of those. And I think comments

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It's like we got this morning talking to this operator that we're looking to lock horns with in Texas sort of validates that thesis.

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So, yeah, I think we're sort of lucky because of who we are, really.

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And I think that it is not a dime a dozen to go find rack space right now because of the AI pressure.

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That said, I do think that with the hash price pressure, that there is a lot of traditional Bitcoin miners that are not pivoting, that is creating some softness. So it's, there's kind of two separate tracks, right? Like there's a demand from a lot of AI, but there's also a lot of people that have plowed a very specific, we're a Bitcoin only company, and then we only host Bitcoin miners. And so if they have rack space there, it's different rack space that you need for AI, right?

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yeah i mean 100 i'm i'm covering that more on the channel now the difference between tier three tier

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four data centers there should be like a focus episode on that and pretty soon as well to make

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people understand the difference between i don't know tier zero bitcoin mining um basically no

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requirements and tier four redundancy everywhere 99.9 uptime there's just a big big difference 100

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um but i think like what you said is really important right i mean this is not your first

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bear market that you've seen.

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I think it's safe to call it that.

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And then, yeah, the valuable players, they survive.

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The people who accrue value and are able to manage these sort of market conditions, they survive.

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I mean, we see even pools pivoting, right?

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Recently, Foundry announced that they're now doing Zcash mining pool as well.

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And I understood, okay, like these guys make a percentage of the revenue.

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Revenue in dollar terms is down.

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They have wages to pay.

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They're also struggling.

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But I think this leads to me to sort of my second point.

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I mean, you guys have been mining all over the shop.

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You jumped into Paraguay.

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I know you've been there for a long time.

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We should talk about that maybe next and see how mining is in Paraguay today.

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You've done Ethiopia as well.

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Norway, if I'm not mistaken.

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Yeah, lead me maybe through all the sites that you guys operate at.

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and what sort of the premise was to start

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versus what it looks like today.

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Maybe we can start in Paraguay or Norway, up to you.

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Yeah, first, just to go back to what you talked about

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with doing a focus podcast, send it my way when you're done

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because I am no expert in tier three, tier four data centers,

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but feeling like I need to get better up to speed there myself.

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That said, so let me just walk you down memory lane

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and talk you through where we came from and where we are today.

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So our first data center was Wisconsin.

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That was an MVP, proof of concept.

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Does it work to build a software solution and user experience

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and then apply a data center to it?

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Because that was a new take.

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And does it work to do a revenue share model, right?

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Because as far as I'm aware, we're the only,

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we distinguish ourselves from traditional hosting providers

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in that we are tech forward.

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so like a tech company first with operations second and that we only generate bitcoin revenue

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for ourselves when our clients generate bitcoin so we pass through the cost of hardware and

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electricity to clients and then we take a share of the bitcoin mine 15 is typical on the back end

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so that those alignment of two things is unique so wisconsin was our proof of concept validated

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that. This is the depths of the bear market. So you're right. Assuming this is a bear market,

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I think it's fair to call it that at this point. Then this is our second. And we got through

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Wisconsin, single megawatt, proof of concept. And then we moved on, had a great opportunity in

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Paraguay and started to sell into that. And that took us through the beginning of 2024.

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and the beginning of 2024, we had a data center opportunity in Norway pop up and wonderful

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opportunity in the Arctic Circle combined heat reuse was just on stage at the Heat Punk Summit

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in Denver, Colorado, a couple of weeks ago with Mara's main guy for their heat reuse center. And

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ours was identical in almost every way. It was pretty interesting to see. We'd come to very

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similar conclusions about how to operate. So that's a two and a half megawatt data center.

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Paraguay at this point is about nine megawatts total there. And then that brings us to

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last year when our Norway data center operators, so we contract Rackspace. We don't own our

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infrastructure. So we're very strategic and selective about who our operators are. But our

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operator in Norway, presented us with an opportunity in Ethiopia. So we went and checked it out and

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decided, yeah, let's try it out. The strategy really has been, there's no place, the simple

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statement that I believe to be very true is, until Bitcoin is seen as the global store of value,

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that there's no safe jurisdiction for mining Bitcoin. And as a result, the only prudent thing

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to do is to diversify your revenue streams across multiple jurisdictions. So decentralize.

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So that's what we've pursued and why we're in the different locations that we are. So the US,

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Paraguay, Norway, and Ethiopia. Paraguay and Norway are the riskier places, of course.

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Paraguay, I think, has largely been de-risked at this point. We live through it. Ethiopia is

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de-risking, I would argue, at this point, but not totally there yet. But both of those places

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to strategically have long-term viable excess hydropower,

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which is steady, low cost.

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And we wanted to have a seat at the table in those jurisdictions because opportunities will present themselves if you there If you not in a market you don get to see those opportunities and you looking from the outside in

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So that's how we chose those locations.

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Norway, we actually went there strategically because rule of law was strong and great power

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costs.

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And we hoped to be able to expand more there, but regulation came in and we're in no way

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jeopardize with our data center in Norway because of the heat reuse component sort of makes it

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politically infeasible to attack. But it's not a good regulatory climate to do much expansion in at

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the moment and hope that changes, right? But it's nice to at least have a foot in the Scandinavian

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countries so that when things shift and change there, we can expand. So a lot of it has been,

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you know, kind of playing the game of risk, you know, the board game where it's like, okay,

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we're going to set our pieces where it makes sense in hopes that we can expand.

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And sometimes it's worked and sometimes it hasn't.

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Yeah, no, I think risk is the key word.

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I know, of course, nowhere is safe, but the question is, where's safest?

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And then you combine power price with that, right?

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So would I mine in Paraguay today at five cents?

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Probably not.

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Would I mine in Ethiopia at 5.5 cents?

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Probably not.

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Why?

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Because I see the US as much less risky and power price is only marginally more.

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So the risk-adjusted power price in the US is still super attractive.

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And I think your decision to open another two locations in the US echoes exactly that sentiment.

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Wouldn't you agree?

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Uh, the first part, I don't know that I'm totally aligned with the second part. Yes. Um, and I think part of it has to do with the business model, right? So if I were a self minor, I think probably what you're saying makes sense. But given the type of model that we run, we're not always able to access the sort of pricing that you laid out.

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However, even to put it into context, if you look last year, the U.S. was not a totally risk-free place.

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Terrorists actually stopped mining rigs from crossing the borders for a little while and created some supply chain disruption.

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So even in the U.S., a place that is one of the safest jurisdictions is still not totally safe.

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So again, having a spread out footprint is best.

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and what you described is the ideal, right?

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Low power costs, high rule of law.

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That's what you want to find.

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But that's what everybody wants.

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And so that's why it's the scarcest.

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Yeah, no, just in case I misspoke there,

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I didn't mean risk-free.

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I mean, lowest risk.

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Yeah, no, I don't think you misspoke.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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This episode is sponsored by HashBranch.

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then you said something about the revenue split i cover that quite a bit on a channel

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it's often misunderstood can you lay out why your clients find it interesting

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and why it makes sense especially in bear markets yeah absolutely i think the key there is that last

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part the bear markets right so um so revenue share and profit uh profit share are often confused is

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what I've discovered in our industry. So let me start off by describing the difference between

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those two. So revenue share means that when the Bitcoin is sent from the mining pool, actually,

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it doesn't have to happen at the mining pool, but basically it's splitting the Bitcoin that is

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generated from mining. Profit share is saying, let's split the Bitcoin after the electricity

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bills are paid. That's the main difference. So we do revenue share, not profit share.

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And the revenue share, the alignment of incentives is the primary reason we did it.

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So coming into this industry, I identified what I thought was the key Achilles heel for us to be successful was lack of trust.

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The marketplace didn't have a lot of trust with the actors that I could see in the marketplace at that point.

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I think it's gotten better largely since we became operational in the beginning of 2023.

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However, when you align incentives, there's no better way to maximize the trust, right?

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Clients give us possession of equipment they own.

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So it is by definition a high trust relationship.

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So as the Bitcoin is mined from the mining rig by splitting the Bitcoin when it's paid

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out, so we're non-custodial how we do it, never take possession of clients' Bitcoin,

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the mining pool pays it out and is split accordingly.

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What that means is that if I'm not helping my clients generate Bitcoin, I'm not getting paid.

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And that alignment of incentives, I think, is the most important part of the model.

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The second most important part is what you identified or mentioned, which is bear market, right?

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So when you take a percentage of the revenue, it means that you're going to share in the gains and share in the pains.

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And that's especially important in bear market conditions like we are right now because our clients get squeezed, but so do we.

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And if you look at it on a dollar-per-dollar basis and convert that into kilowatt-hour price, you'll see that we become quite attractive during a bear market, and that helps our clients remain profitable for longer.

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And do you see hesitancy with clients looking to deploy new units?

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Or are they more interested than in deploying older units where maybe they're more at risk when it comes to break-evens?

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No, almost exclusively we're getting asked by clients for new equipment.

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We almost never get clients asking us.

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I think we're sort of carving out a unique marketplace.

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And, you know, the way that we frame ourselves in the market is a bit different than the traditional hosting.

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We're not a passive income generation scheme.

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We're not aiming for profitability.

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Our focus is on, hey, this is how Satoshi Nakamoto designed the network to distribute Bitcoin.

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So this is a Bitcoin acquisition vehicle.

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This is quite literally the only way to generate Bitcoin.

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There's no other way out there to make Bitcoin.

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And as a result, it's sort of confounding, but it's a zero to one innovation in the same way that the decentralized ledger of Bitcoin is a zero to one innovation, meaning that this is a decentralized money printer.

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You put dollars into it through the form of electricity, hardware and Internet connection and you get Bitcoin out.

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So it's not a dollars in, dollar out analysis if you are a Bitcoiner.

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It's a dollars in, Bitcoin out analysis.

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And that means that what you should be doing for this investment is comparing it to the price of Bitcoin on an exchange.

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Is it better to acquire Bitcoin through mining or is it better to go buy it?

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And if you're doing anything other than that as a Bitcoiner, I think you've missed the boat on what this is.

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And that's a function of what you bring as your bias and your priors to the conversation, because everybody implicitly makes a decision on what their money is.

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Is it dollars or is it Bitcoin?

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And if you're a Bitcoiner, it's Bitcoin.

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So you're not looking to use Bitcoin as a stepping stone to get more dollars.

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You're stepping into that realm of what is, and I've mentioned this, it's interesting you to say that on a previous episode recently where I said that you have to, these are the times where the dollar is not the dollar anymore, right?

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So everybody kind of has to juggle and figure out to see what they actually want to own.

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And you can feel that.

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I don't know, there's something when you talk to people here in South Africa, when I talk to parents at the school that my son goes to about these things, and everybody's trying to sort of figure out, you know, okay, do they want to own the rent? Do they want to own dollars? Like, it's being weaponized, whatever. And it's a very interesting time, gold is going to 5000 an ounce, you know, and it's doing moves like it's never done before. So a lot of people are deciding to go there.

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but then I say to my clients

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exact same thing

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the opportunity cost is how much

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Bitcoin could I have bought

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instead of the miner

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and that's the baseline that you have to beat

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otherwise it wasn't a good investment

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and it has to be

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the returns on top of it

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have to be worth the risk

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right

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and then recently I gone all hydro because I said okay now to make sure in a hosted environment that you reach that target you need to make sure that

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you have a very reliable machine physically, and you need to be able to keep it profitable

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for a long, long time.

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And that's where the revenue profit split comes in revenue split or profit split to be

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clear.

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um and yeah then then the question becomes sort of what what rois are you are you seeing um when

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clients buy new machines today um and you assume i don't know what what would be a fair assumption

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of average hash price in your opinion when it comes to these calculations do you make them at

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all i don't know if it's even fair to ask no actually we we look completely at what's the price

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So we are reframing the conversation in terms of Bitcoin acquisition.

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So what you're doing is you're paying an electric bill every month and you're getting a certain number of sats.

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So what is the price of those sats?

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Well, you do division between those two and you get an energy cost average price of your Bitcoin.

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And so looking at that, like, for instance, in Ethiopia right now, that's about $50,000.

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So 20% discount to the price of Bitcoin on exchange.

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Now, that doesn't include the hardware. The hardware is a more tricky thing to analyze. And that's just because the hardware price fluctuates a lot more than your energy cost average price of the energy production cost of Bitcoin.

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So as a result, what we've seen historically is that with new hardware, clients have been ROIing on that in under two years.

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I don't know if that's the case right now.

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You know, we're kind of in an unprecedented moment here with hash price being as low as it is.

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I'm quite curious to see.

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And I think, although I would say, yes, we're in a fair market right now.

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I don't know that we haven't entered a new type of cycle, right?

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I think we're right on the cusp as we're recording this of finding out if this is a traditional bear market or if this is a shorter one and an elongated cycle is actually going to play out.

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And that's currently my base case is that it's the latter, not the former.

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And I say that because we never really had a euphoria phase of the last bull market, which peaked in October.

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So the whole dynamics are very odd now.

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Institutional money is clearly here.

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It's hard to make sense of it. You know, we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto, and got to figure it out. But I think that right now, if I can give some market indication from our client base, we're seeing little retail demand, but a lot of enterprise demand. So it's suggestive to me that smart money is buying the blood in the street right now. And it's suggestive that there's bullish price action for Bitcoin ahead.

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yeah look i mean miners are so dirt cheap right and and i want to get to to a point that you

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reminded me of just now um but you can also look at minor prices in bitcoin right um minor prices

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when bitcoin was back at 100k were similar in bitcoin terms than they are today right because

251
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as soon as bitcoin goes down hedge prices goes down bitcoin mining prices or bitcoin asic prices

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they also fall right so they all sort of move in tandem with each other and i've never liked to the

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to um to to the point you made earlier i've never really liked communicating that number oh it's you

254
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know it's 55 000 to mine a bitcoin why why would you ever buy it because that's often like i see

255
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that marketing a lot uh i i always include the minor price and always write it off over a reasonable

256
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time period you know four five six years or whatever um even three and um you will arrive

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at about 100k right and that the the the conversation or the sales conversation always

258
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goes like this yes it's a hundred thousand to mine bitcoin right but if i then ask you

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um what do you think the average price of bitcoin will be over the next three to four years

260
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you know and if your answer is lower than 100k it's probably better to just buy the buy the coin

261
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directly but if your answer is hey it's probably going to be higher than my cost of production even

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including the machine then you know it makes more sense to um to buy the machine and start mining

263
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so that's how i always framed it going forward yeah i think that i think we're all just still

264
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wrestling with how to frame Bitcoin mining because it is a zero to one innovation. I personally,

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yeah, I've taken a different track and try to be very clear that this is the Bitcoin energy cost,

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right? And this is an energy cost average that way. It's different than the hardware cost and

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our calculator on the website makes that very clear and looks at those two separate things

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for people to analyze. And the main reason why I did that is because I found over and over again,

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And it took me a little while to realize this, that people didn't realize that if you just take the CapEx and set it on the side and just look at how many sats you get from how many dollars it takes to get that on an energy basis, that is quite a valuable proposition.

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And so that simple idea, which is the simplest idea that I could discover to communicate Bitcoin mining's economic proposition in like a memeable way, is where I wanted to build the narrative around.

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that way people could see it but you're right it's i think i've seen a lot of people say hey

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mine a bitcoin for only this and that's not that's not the approach that we take it's hey this is the

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energy cost average so you still need to talk about the the bitcoin and in or the hardware and what

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it's going to cost for you to do but i think it's a function of just an early stage market i'll give

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you one analogy so i worked for a decade in rooftop solar and when i worked in that industry for the

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the first five years, it was mainly technicians that were selling the product. And then there's

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an interesting moment where marketing and sales professionals stepped in and they changed the

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language set and the value proposition. And suddenly a lot of capital started to flow.

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And it's been my belief for quite some time that we are going through a similar dynamic,

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You know, like the term Bitcoin mining as a service, right?

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Like that term didn't exist before we entered the market.

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We liked it because we were a software as a service play applied to mining.

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And so I thought, oh, this is kind of cheeky to apply.

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And now most of the traditional hosting providers now call themselves mining as a service, which is great.

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You know, I don't mind people copy things that we do.

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But the only downside is it's come to mean something slightly different than we did.

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But that's the way that things go.

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I don't have any control over words that people use.

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290
00:25:26,537 --> 00:25:29,078
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291
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292
00:25:32,658 --> 00:25:35,357
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293
00:25:35,797 --> 00:25:37,037
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294
00:25:37,037 --> 00:25:39,977
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295
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296
00:25:42,678 --> 00:25:45,377
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297
00:25:45,377 --> 00:25:52,178
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298
00:25:52,617 --> 00:25:55,557
Thank you so much, Altair Technology, for supporting the show.

299
00:25:55,777 --> 00:25:58,078
And without further ado, let's get back to it.

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Yeah, it takes shape 100%.

301
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No, I mean, look, just to go back to that, it becomes infinitely more difficult, right?

302
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Now you can say, okay, you can also sell the machines after four years.

303
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Now you've got to put a price on that.

304
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but you have to have a market you know exporting out of paraguay difficult you know so there's all

305
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these vectors and variables um but what if what has always treated me well is to be as conservative

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as reasonably possible and if the model still works good you know do it um and so yeah but i

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want to talk to you kent about paraguay a bit more because i know um i think it's probably the

308
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been the most volatile market when it comes to Bitcoin mining from a regulatory perspective.

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What is it like mining there today? I mean, the last headlines that I saw was that the miner,

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the government now wanted to start mining itself after confiscating all the hardware. Give me a bit

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of feedback as you're also present in the region. Like what is it actually like mining in Paraguay

312
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today? Well, I mean, it's a developing nation, right? And I see similar trends playing out in

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Ethiopia, where Bitcoin mining was a complete unknown to Paraguay. I don't know exactly how

314
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many years ago six seven years ago And you hear all these people showed up because the framing is there all this excess electricity And there is right They been selling it at a loss to Brazil So miners can come in sop it up mine and now there an exportable product Bitcoin that can take advantage of all this excess electricity

315
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Well, it's all well and good.

316
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The government didn't understand what Bitcoin mining is, so they're just selling tons of power and making, raking it in the dough.

317
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So now they suddenly realize, oh, wait, maybe we can make even more money.

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Let's start jacking up the rates.

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And then the miners say, well, maybe we don't want to be here anymore.

320
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And the way of the miners leaves.

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And then they try to jack up the rates again.

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And the remaining miners say, okay, now we're going to leave.

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And then they say, okay, maybe we won't jack up the rates again.

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And then they come to a standoff, right?

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So it's kind of like there's a process and similar that's playing out in Ethiopia.

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There's a process that I think governments go through to get educated by Bitcoin mining.

327
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And that process goes like, holy cow, we found a golden goose.

328
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Like, let's milk this thing for everything we possibly can.

329
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And then, oh, shoot, we're almost ready to kill this thing.

330
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We better back off, right?

331
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And that's only because Bitcoin miners can unplug and physically move their mining rigs into Brazil.

332
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In Paraguay, for instance, that caused the standstill.

333
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Otherwise, the Paraguayan government would have continued to extract more and more.

334
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But I think it's a wonderful thing that they're looking to mine on these illegal mining rigs.

335
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That part of the story is worth talking about a bit because most people outside of Paraguay mistook that and thought that the government was stealing mining rigs.

336
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And no, they weren't. They were actually cracking down on criminal enterprises.

337
00:29:11,736 --> 00:29:23,036
So in Latin America, where I live, it is fairly common for people not to have meters and to basically put jumper cables on power lines to get power for their homes.

338
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So this was happening at scale in Paraguay.

339
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The idea in the West of having stolen electricity is kind of hard to get your head wrapped around if you've never been in a developing nation.

340
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But it's very common because nothing restricts it.

341
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You put a tie into the electric lines and you have power.

342
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right and if it's not metered well it's it's guerrilla uh power and it's yours and you can

343
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run stuff with it um so that's what was happening at scale uh in paraguay and the government said

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this is an uncontrollable load we have to crack down in a criminal way so they came down and

345
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started to to put people in jail and take the mining rigs and and now uh they've got all these

346
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mining rigs and like wait you mean these can print money maybe i should plug these in uh and i love

347
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that because that suddenly means if they start mining as a government, you know, they're going

348
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to have free power. They're not going to, it's a state-run utility there, right? So they're not

349
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going to have electric bills. We as miners will be subsidizing their electric bills, but at least

350
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they will get more educated on mining and understand the concerns that we bring up and

351
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realize how they can work with us better. So I think we're past the phase of they fight you

352
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and we're onto the phase of, okay, let's grow this thing together.

353
00:30:35,976 --> 00:30:50,756
They want to learn from you. Okay, so you're saying it's only the illegal miners. And I mean, what do you pay for power in Paraguay these days? Is it worthwhile looking at Paraguay again?

354
00:30:50,756 --> 00:30:58,976
well it depends uh the best rate tariff is what comes off the high tension lines um and so you

355
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basically need to develop your own substation or go in with somebody else building a substation with

356
00:31:03,756 --> 00:31:09,056
you uh so if you're going to do that you can get power as low as like 4.9 cents per kilowatt hour

357
00:31:09,056 --> 00:31:16,756
but that's the the best rate tariff yeah so it's not but that's not cheap great no no no it's not

358
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So largely who's there is who's there.

359
00:31:19,536 --> 00:31:21,116
I don't see a lot of expansion.

360
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But the fact that we saw several publicly traded mining companies go in there and mine suggests to me that it's largely de-risked.

361
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You know, you can't, as a highly regulated entity, go into a highly risky situation.

362
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It just doesn't work for your investors.

363
00:31:40,756 --> 00:31:42,456
And then you mentioned Ethiopia.

364
00:31:42,896 --> 00:31:45,016
Has the power price increase happened?

365
00:31:45,016 --> 00:31:48,816
The audience already knows about the announcement from the government.

366
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Has it been, yeah, is it in effect or no?

367
00:31:54,076 --> 00:31:55,476
Has not come to pass, no.

368
00:31:56,616 --> 00:31:58,856
And there is an election coming up.

369
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So our operators there on the ground, their take is that this was largely a job owning

370
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exercise for the electorate more than it was them actually intending to raise rates.

371
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Now, let's see if this is not a certain situation right now.

372
00:32:15,016 --> 00:32:27,236
But if I look at the alignment of incentives, this looks to me to be the point at which, similar to Paraguay, to where the government backs off and says, we've hit a good stalemate here.

373
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We need your dollars.

374
00:32:28,916 --> 00:32:30,476
We're going to be okay with where we are.

375
00:32:30,816 --> 00:32:36,956
Particularly with Ethiopia, as my company is all about increasing hash rate on the African continent.

376
00:32:36,956 --> 00:33:05,136
I get really furious about this because if you do the math right, if they have, I think, 46 gigawatts of financially feasible projects that they could develop, and if only they understood the economic power they have of permissionlessly turning all of that electricity that they have into revenue, the effects of that would be insane.

377
00:33:05,136 --> 00:33:21,296
To put it into specifics, they could, if they did it right and sold it at, I don't know, three, four cents to miners in a strong PPA for 10 years or whatever, they could theoretically replace all of the development aid that they receive.

378
00:33:21,296 --> 00:33:24,476
they receive like I think 4-5 billion

379
00:33:24,476 --> 00:33:25,556
in development aid

380
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in 2022 at least

381
00:33:27,956 --> 00:33:30,356
and they could replace that entire amount

382
00:33:30,356 --> 00:33:32,236
just by selling the electricity

383
00:33:32,236 --> 00:33:34,176
that they have to Bitcoin miners

384
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or a small portion of it

385
00:33:35,516 --> 00:33:37,076
like that's

386
00:33:37,076 --> 00:33:40,356
it replaces not only does it

387
00:33:40,356 --> 00:33:40,916
replace

388
00:33:40,916 --> 00:33:43,996
development aid but it replaces

389
00:33:43,996 --> 00:33:45,416
bad money with good

390
00:33:45,416 --> 00:33:48,256
right it replaces money that

391
00:33:48,256 --> 00:33:49,796
comes with strings attached

392
00:33:49,796 --> 00:33:53,836
with money that is just from electricity sales

393
00:33:53,836 --> 00:33:55,016
that you can freely use.

394
00:33:56,096 --> 00:33:59,896
So it's especially frustrating to me when I see,

395
00:34:00,056 --> 00:34:02,476
oh, no, cool, all these Bitcoin miners here,

396
00:34:02,896 --> 00:34:07,496
let's raise prices because we have shortages in certain areas

397
00:34:07,496 --> 00:34:12,316
because we were not smart enough to limit access

398
00:34:12,316 --> 00:34:15,796
to high power consumption Bitcoin mining

399
00:34:15,796 --> 00:34:17,976
to areas where there is no population.

400
00:34:17,976 --> 00:34:23,616
we needed all these Bitcoin miners that said hey we're half an hour away from the airport

401
00:34:23,616 --> 00:34:28,896
I was like that's not a good thing I don't know why you're so loud about that I don't understand

402
00:34:28,896 --> 00:34:34,776
why that makes sense but yeah maybe there's a lot of catching up to do and I really hope that

403
00:34:34,776 --> 00:34:44,216
Ethiopia turns that ship around and understands the amount of opportunity that they have and again

404
00:34:44,216 --> 00:34:49,596
selling their power permissionlessly without asking the West if it's okay,

405
00:34:50,496 --> 00:34:50,836
you know,

406
00:34:51,456 --> 00:34:53,196
two bits from miners and make a ton of money.

407
00:34:54,496 --> 00:34:54,936
Yeah.

408
00:34:55,096 --> 00:34:55,396
You know,

409
00:34:55,536 --> 00:34:55,896
it's,

410
00:34:56,576 --> 00:34:58,896
you see situations like that,

411
00:34:58,956 --> 00:34:59,196
Jesse,

412
00:34:59,296 --> 00:34:59,996
and you just wonder,

413
00:35:00,156 --> 00:35:01,596
is it ignorance or malfeasance?

414
00:35:02,436 --> 00:35:04,336
And I go back and forth.

415
00:35:04,516 --> 00:35:05,376
It depends on if I want to add on or not.

416
00:35:05,376 --> 00:35:06,156
And neither is good.

417
00:35:06,936 --> 00:35:07,336
No,

418
00:35:07,516 --> 00:35:08,276
neither are good.

419
00:35:08,576 --> 00:35:08,976
You hope,

420
00:35:09,356 --> 00:35:11,236
here's the good news about ignorance though.

421
00:35:11,296 --> 00:35:12,236
Ignorance can be cured.

422
00:35:12,396 --> 00:35:13,916
I'm not sure that malfeasance can be.

423
00:35:14,216 --> 00:35:26,836
So hopefully people in Ethiopia are watching this podcast and realizing what you said and call you up and say, hey, man, come run for president here so we can monetize this and I'll be better off for it.

424
00:35:28,136 --> 00:35:30,596
Kent, we are at the end of the episode.

425
00:35:30,996 --> 00:35:32,416
I want to end it on a good note.

426
00:35:33,176 --> 00:35:38,176
Tell people where they can find more about you, where they can learn about the Texas offering.

427
00:35:38,416 --> 00:35:39,356
Do you already know?

428
00:35:39,696 --> 00:35:43,796
Can you share specifics around the economics of that site or anything?

429
00:35:43,796 --> 00:35:46,036
No, I can't. I can't. We're in South Carolina.

430
00:35:47,476 --> 00:35:51,636
South Dakota. Yeah. So we have South Dakota for the time being.

431
00:35:51,776 --> 00:35:53,376
All good. They're both South,

432
00:35:53,776 --> 00:35:56,876
even though what is a completely different size of the country.

433
00:35:57,056 --> 00:35:59,956
I don't know why they're both South, but anyway, no,

434
00:36:00,556 --> 00:36:03,556
you can be reached on Twitter is probably the best place to find me.

435
00:36:03,756 --> 00:36:06,796
Actually, I should start calling it X at K Halliburton.

436
00:36:07,116 --> 00:36:07,996
Go to our website.

437
00:36:07,996 --> 00:36:11,936
If you want to talk to one of our Bitcoin strategy advisors.

438
00:36:11,936 --> 00:36:14,936
so that'd be sassmining.com

439
00:36:14,936 --> 00:36:16,956
and then you can find me on LinkedIn as well

440
00:36:16,956 --> 00:36:18,536
if you're a fan of that

441
00:36:18,536 --> 00:36:19,356
Kent Halliburton

442
00:36:19,356 --> 00:36:20,856
would love to talk to you

443
00:36:20,856 --> 00:36:23,176
and Jesse, it's been wonderful to be on here

444
00:36:23,176 --> 00:36:24,296
thanks for the opportunity

445
00:36:24,296 --> 00:36:25,896
and good catching up with you, man

446
00:36:25,896 --> 00:36:27,576
Yeah, 100%

447
00:36:27,576 --> 00:36:28,316
anytime

448
00:36:28,316 --> 00:36:29,156
Cool

449
00:36:29,156 --> 00:36:30,396
Guys, that was Kent

450
00:36:30,396 --> 00:36:32,716
This was Kent from Sass Mining

451
00:36:32,716 --> 00:36:33,736
Go to his website

452
00:36:33,736 --> 00:36:34,736
learn more about it

453
00:36:34,736 --> 00:36:36,216
find everything in the show notes

454
00:36:36,216 --> 00:36:37,056
See you later

455
00:36:37,056 --> 00:36:37,596
Bye

456
00:36:41,936 --> 00:37:11,916
Thank you.