we are here today in Washington, DC for the Bitcoin Policy Summit, their second annual event. I'm joined here today by Ben Gohn, CMO of Bit Farms. Ben, how we doing today? I'm doing great. It's been a great Summit so far and I think there's a lot of people here who are eager to learn more about this space and what it means for this country. You just gave a presentation on Bitcoin mining and the energy incentives that it provides. Could you kind of give me your base thesis on that presentation and how it's a pro for energy? Yeah, for sure. I mean, at its core, what Bitcoin mining is, is a free market economic incentive to minimize energy waste, minimize your emissions, and monetize the most cost-effective energy resources on the planet. So, you know, when you look around the United States and you look around where Bitcoin miners have largely located in Texas, the reason why they've done that is because they've installed so much electrical capacity in the forms of wind farms and solar panel Farms.

because there was a ton of demand there or a huge amount of demand there, but that's because economically, that's where they got the best use of the subsidies and the programs to finance the construction of these facilities. But now you've got multiple gigawatts worth of energy infrastructure with no demand, and it's creating a really volatile market price. Um, you've got negative pricing sometimes, you've got pricing that can swing, you know, from $10 megawatt hour to $5,000 megawatt hour. And Bitcoin mining is not really being driven by any sort of policy there, but it's there because it's absorbing those inefficiencies that the market has introduced through through policy. Um, and when you look around at this at this country, you know, a lot of America's success is about our ability to harness energy to convert it into other materials, other resources, and Bitcoin mining is another way for us to rethink about energy in America, to invest in new infrastructure projects, to revitalize communities that have been overlooked and forgotten where these

energy resources are vast and cost-effective, but need some other component there in the mix to make them worthwhile. There's certainly a lot on the infrastructure side that I feel like nobody just knows about, and something as soon as you start talking about it, like it clicks, yeah. And I know Bit Farms has been able to operate not just in the US but globally, and I can imagine from an infrastructure standpoint that there's been a lot of lessons learned in operating in some of these other jurisdictions. Could you tell me a little bit about the lessons learned and how maybe you could better shape US policy moving forward and operating in these other areas? Yeah, you know we operate in four countries, three languages. Personally, I've built Bitcoin mines in six countries at this point. There is a lot going on in terms of energy infrastructure around the world, and usually the markets that we're looking at are areas where historically they invested a lot into hydroelectric capacity and generation to power old industry in the areas.

of Quebec and Washington. Um, that we were in, you know, this hydroelectric power is there to power aluminum smelting and Timber Mills and paper factories. In some cases, gold Mining and all these sort of heavy industry resource applications. But over time, these industries have largely moved on. A lot of them have gone offshore. A lot of this infrastructure is sitting there underutilized. It's not as if the dam went, you know, with the business. The dam stayed in place in the river, and there's a lot of opportunity here, especially in the more rural parts of America that have been kind of Forgotten as these anchor companies, you know, that whole towns were built around, have have gone and picked up and left. And I think where the real opportunity is for America and its energy policy is to understand that, you know, there is an ability and an opportunity here to reinvest in American infrastructure projects and also to revitalize the infrastructure projects we already have that, you know, for decades, they've gone underutilized.

um in in nine of our sorry in seven of our eight facilities um that were operating in Quebec for instance they're all in former industrial plants that were abandoned the you know for years in some cases decades. These are factories they used to make hockey sticks and uh you know all sorts of different things but for for a multitude of reasons those businesses were driven out and nobody's wanted to invest in these rural communities. um Bitcoin miners are the ones who are seeking out these rural opportunities. It's not Fortune 500 you know companies who are trying to locate in these these rural communities. It's the Bitcoin miners driven by that free market energy incentive that free market economic incentive to go and find these pockets of energy that have been so overlooked and so you know when we go out into rural communities and we're investing there like the the reception that we get locally is tremendous right. The Mayors understand the benefits um the people in the town understand the benefits the municipal tax revenues

go up you know you're talking about the creation of high pay tech jobs in an area that doesn't see a lot of investment and especially not a lot of new technologies and new businesses coming into disrupt so it gives these rural areas an opportunity um that otherwise they just wouldn't really have uh and so when you look around at what we can do in this country is I I think America really needs to focus on developing much more energy resources of all sorts of kinds uh they need to be focusing on expanding the infrastructure in terms of the distribution and the transmission and how can Bitcoin mining come in here and fill a natural gap that has always existed in our electrical system and that gap is the gap between supply and demand you know there's it's the only economic equilibrium on the planet where the absolute you know equilibrium is not where supply equals demand it's it's where demand just exceeds supply or sorry supply just exceeds demand because if you demand just exceeding supply you have a blackout or a brown out people

run out of power, and so you always have had this kind of built-in excess capacity. We've never had the technology to monetize it, use it, um, take advantage of it, and this is where Bitcoin mining is really starting to find its natural fit in our ecosystem, is monetizing this gap between electricity supply and demand, and you know, making use of a resource that for most of time since electricity was invented has been wasted. It's actually the number one electricity use is just waste. So we could, we could as an industry grow, I think, something like 1,700 times without actually the world producing one extra watt of power just by trying to absorb the inefficiencies that are already here in the system. Yeah, it's incredible. Last question for you, Ben, um, is the future of Bitcoin mining here in the US. I think Bitcoin mining has a tremendous future here in the United States, um, but certainly it's not limited to the United States, it's limited or it's going to go.

anywhere that's really focusing on energy policies right. Where are the areas where they're going to invest the most in energy infrastructure? What are the areas that have the best energy resources, the lowest costs, the highest efficiencies? Um, and whoever or whatever region does that, Bitcoin miners are going to flock there in droves because they're going to be driven by that free market incentive. Um, we see has happened quite a lot in Texas and other areas, but there's a lot of other areas in the United States where it's just ripe for potential. And I think this technology is barely scratching the surface of what's possible. There's certainly a lot to come in the near future. Ben super exciting to see what's going on with bit farms. Uh, can't wait to talk at the next Summit here. Yeah, me too. Thank you. Cheers.

America Mines Bitcoin | The Route for US Energy and Mining Dominance w/ Ben Gagnon

Bitcoin Magazine is the oldest and most established source of news, information and expert commentary on Bitcoin, its underlying blockchain technology and the industry that has grown up around it. Since 2012, Bitcoin Magazine has provided analysis, research, education and thought leadership at the intersection of finance and technology.

America Mines Bitcoin | The Route for US Energy and Mining Dominance w/ Ben Gagnon

America Mines Bitcoin | The Route for US Energy and Mining Dominance w/ Ben Gagnon

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