The Peter McCormack Show25 Nov 2022

Bitcoin Mining in Distress with Nick Hansen - WBD585

Nick Hansen is the CEO of Bitcoin mining software firm Luxor Technologies. In this interview, we discuss the distress within the Bitcoin mining industry caused by a perfect storm of leverage, stagnant value, huge growth in capacity, energy price shocks and wider headwinds affecting investment. This could become a national security issue.

- - - -

Exactly one year ago, US Bitcoin mining companies were posting record quarterly profits. A huge amount of investment followed China's mining ban making North America the centre of global Bitcoin mining. It spurred the development of mega miners: companies developing industrial-scale operations. These companies started building out new sources of energy and developing unique relationships with grid operators. And Bitcoin's price was at an ATH.

Roll on one year, and the industry is facing a potential crisis. Bitcoin price is at 2-year lows, the hash rate is at an all-time high, investment is drying up due to a range of issues, rig prices have tanked, whilst a swath of companies are struggling to manage debt obligations. Add to this the wider fallout as a result of the FTX collapse. It really is a perfect storm.

At the same time, companies are being buffeted by widespread disinformation, and polarised attacks predicated on energy usage concerns. Regulators seeking to acquiesce to those promoting FUD, have considered, recommended, and brought forward poorly designed rules. See the NY moratorium on PoW mining using fossil fuels just passed into law.

This is more than a parochial issue for the Bitcoin community. Bitcoin mining provides an unprecedented opportunity for wider society. It's the basis for an alternative to a broken economic system and the means with which to incentivise and support the energy transition at scale. It is the industry to help the US navigate a host of strategic problems. Bitcoin mining is, fundamentally, a national security issue. Its protection should be our primary focus.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(1087)

#209 - Johann Hari - We Built A World Humans Can’t Survive

Johann Hari is an internationally bestselling author and journalist whose work - including Stolen Focus, Lost Connections, and Chasing the Scream - delves into the structural and societal drivers behi...

7 Sep 2h 33min

#208 - Ann Pettifor - "A $40 Trillion Debt Crash Is Coming”

Ann Pettifor is a world-renowned political economist, author of The Production of Money, and former director of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, which successfully mobilised millions to cancel over $100 bil...

3 Sep 1h 19min

#207 - Eric Kaufmann - How 'Cultural Socialism' Destroyed Our Universities

Eric Kaufmann spent over two decades as a professor of politics studying demography, identity, and voting behaviour before leaving Birkbeck College to launch the Centre for Heterodox Social Science at...

1 Sep 1h 32min

#206 - Emad Mostaque - "Your Job's Economic Life Expectancy Ends In 2 Years"

Emad Mostaque founded Stability AI, built Stable Diffusion, and helped kick off the open-source generative AI explosion - before stepping down to build a new blueprint for human freedom as founder and...

28 Aug 1h 45min

#205 - Prof. Moran Cerf - "Did We Accidentally Build A Conscious AI?"

Moran Cerf spent twenty years recording single neurons inside the brains of conscious human beings and he still can't tell you what consciousness is. A former hacker turned neuroscientist, now a profe...

26 Aug 1h 10min

#204 - Dmitri Alperovitch - China's Cyber Sleeper Cells, Taiwan & The Second Cold War

Dmitri Alperovitch co-founded CrowdStrike, ran the investigation that first exposed Chinese state hacking to the world and predicted Russia's invasion of Ukraine months before it happened. He is now c...

22 Aug 1h 20min

#203 - Gregory Allen - Ex-DoD Official: "AI Is Now A Digital Nuclear Weapon"

Greg Allen has spent his career where AI meets national security. He wrote the landmark 2017 report on AI for the US intelligence community, served as Director of Strategy and Policy at the Pentagon's...

20 Aug 1h 34min

#202 - Barry S. Strauss - "We Are In The Final Stages Of Western Collapse"

Barry Strauss has spent four decades studying how empires rise and fall. A senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the author of Ten Caesars and Jews vs Rome, he argues the West is repeating a pat...

18 Aug 1h 15min