Bitcoin Bottom Line

This week on The Bitcoin Bottom Line, Co-hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson met with Harry Sudock, Vice President of Strategy and Management at GRIID Mining.

This episode was filmed live at the Bitcoin 22 Conference in Miami, and the conversation was kicked off with a discussion on the friendliness of their fellow conference-goers. McClurg explained how there is a collective feeling of support between otherwise competitive businesses at the convention. The trio opens a discussion on the Bitcoin mining industry.

After touching on the subject of competition in the mining space, Wilson asks, “How do you manage being all over the place?” Sudock explains how local the mining industry is, “There is a local contractor, a local electrician and a local group embedded at that level”. Sudock goes on to describe how working in rural areas is a great way to show that mining companies can help the community grow with large power deals.

McClurg asks,“How can someone mine bitcoin on the side but still be in play with the big guys? How can you break in and participate in mining?” Sudock responds, “You can buy a rig and put it in your garage. Your margins are not going to be the same as a huge company, but you may be beating the larger companies on the price of exchange for bitcoin.” The trio discusses the perks of mining at home, and Wilson adds on how some cold weather universities should mine crypto and add S19’s to heat their pools that they have so they can swim in the winter.

Wilson states that water and power are the two things that define your quality of life. Hearing this, Sudock shares his belief that there is a spectrum. One side of the spectrum consists of the responsible ways to use electricity, such as running an MRI machine, while the other side consists of things that are irresponsible uses of energy, like Christmas lights, etc.. He explains that, at the moment, bitcoin is viewed as an irresponsible use of electricity, when it should be viewed as a responsible use of electricity because of its ability to help grow many rural places economically by providing them with large electricity deals. The trio goes on to discuss how mining is a large revenue stream in Bitcoin, the competition in the mining market, and more.

Listen to the full episode!

Don’t miss another live taping from the Bitcoin 22 Miami Conference!

#Bitcoin #BBL #Bitcoinbottomline #Valkyrie #Podcast #Bitcoinconference2022

Jameson Lopp, one of the foremost experts in bitcoin security, joins Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson on this week’s Bitcoin Bottom Line episode from an undisclosed location. Lopp is the co-founder and CTO of bitcoin security provider Casa.

They kick off the episode discussing Lopp’s anonymity, how he has been avoiding public appearances, and the importance of privacy for the role he plays in his field.

The group talks about Casa, and how their security is so high that even if a wrench attack did happen, there’s no way that could lead to any loss of funds or compromise for their clients. On the Casa website, they offer a “well security protocol”, consisting of up to 40 pages of in-depth explanations covering how they architected their product using multi-sig protocols, multiple manufacturers, hardware devices for keys, and figuring out how to distribute them geographically. “We don’t want this to be a security through obscurity. An attacker should be able to completely understand our architecture and still not be able to do anything about it,” Lopp explains. McClurg brings up diversification and how it is one of the basic security strategies. He explains how Valkyrie receives questions about why we are using external services and hardware wallets, and his answer is always “diversification”.

Lopp explains that in his opinion, “The only reason someone would use a custodian is if they are in a regulatory position where they are legally required to use a qualified custodian.” He goes on to explain how diversification can be a threat, and closes out offering his best pieces of security advice.

Don’t miss the full episode for more! #Bitcoin #BBL #Bitcoinbottomline #Valkyrie #Podcast

Mike Hobart returns for Episode 30 with C.J. Wilson, co-host of Bitcoin Bottom Line, for a live broadcast from the Bitcoin 22 conference.

The two begin by discussing the conference and meeting Bitcoin celebrities, and the approaching one year anniversary of El Salvadorian adoption. “El Salvador making the move was like the one person willing to go against the flow. Since that country doesn’t have a history of innovation in that way, people didn’t follow them right away”,

Wilson states. Things are changing. The two go on to discuss the role that Bitcoin is playing in the war, and how the currency is helping the Ukrainian government. Wilson continues the conversation, mentioning that “If the government is running out of FUD weapons, and Bitcoin is growing at the same time, you’re going to have more voices that can attack those FUD vectors faster.”

Hobart is releasing an article through Bitcoin Magazine in which he interviewed one of Bitcoin twitters’ favorite female personalities, and she talks about how because she came to bitcoin, it made her value health in a new way. “With health, it’s all proof of work,” he continues, “If we don’t have new kids to grow the economy, in terms of not only consumption but new thoughts and ideas, we don’t solve the problems.”

Listen to the full episode for more!

Professional Wrestler is Bullish On Bitcoin w/ Summer Rae

This time, co-hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by horse racer, nascar driver, wrestler, and bitcoiner Summer Rae. She also holds an executive position at Hedge, a wire transfer program to set up your accounts so you can get paid in bitcoin. Rae is one of the top women in the WWE at the moment. She took a 5 year break due to an injury, and just returned at the Royal Rumble, taking a percentage of her winnings in crypto through Hedge.

On an environmental note, they go on to discuss the hot topic of bitcoin mining, its efficiency, and how it works in terms of the Texas power grid specifically. In terms of our national energy usage, Rae says, “Bitcoin and bitcoin mining has helped increase awareness of renewable energy usage and how we can do a lot more.” The trio goes on to discuss dollar cost averaging, wrestling, athletes accepting paychecks in Bitcoin, and more.

Listen to the full episode for more!

In this week’s Bitcoin Bottom Line episode, Co-hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by guest Nick Hansen, CEO of Luxor, and Valkyrie’s Head of Research Josh Olszewicz.

Luxor is one of the top 10 bitcoin mining pools in the world. They have a Hash Rate Index, and through that they are aiming to provide great data about the mining ecosystem. In addition, they have an ASIC Index, and are just about to launch Energy Markets which tracks the value of energy over time, which they view as very integral to bitcoin mining. In addition to a suite of other products.

Wilson says, “Hash rate is worldwide, machines are getting better every couple of years, and now there are new innovations because people like Luxor are getting involved with the firmware side” He goes on to ask, “How do you see growth in bitcoin mining in the next couple of years?

Hansen explains that he doesn’t see the consistent “all time highs” stopping, but the only thing that could stop that trend is international regulation and how the new hash rates in texas manages during the summer.

The conversation naturally leads to one on energy, and Hansen explains how “Bitcoin mining is just an energy problem at the end of the day.” The group discusses immersion cooling on massive scales, some over 100 megawatts. For reference, Hansen explains that a single megawatt is probably one’s entire neighborhood.

Hansen goes on to explain, “Whether we like it as bitcoiners or not, ESG is here to stay. If you can lean into that in effective ways, you're going to make it way easier for yourself going forward to raise capital and tell the right story to the market.

People who are leaning into ESG are going to be really effective about continuing to be on the forefront of this industry.”

The group discusses sustainable energy, and Hansen defines sustainable as “lasting one thousand generations through solar, wind, and hydro”. He continues, “This brings us to a new energy future where energy is effectively free. The best part about bitcoin is that it incentivizes that and provides you the economic value to learn how to do those things.”

Wilson explains how we as consumers struggle with sustainability since we love packaging. “The difference between bitcoin and many other items is that Bitcoin requires no packaging at all. Effectively, we’ve taken old shipping containers, a torch, and some chords and we’ve turned them into these multi-million dollar industries.”

They go on to discuss firmware, hash rate hedging, out-of-the-box carbon capture techniques, and more.

Closing out the episode, the group agrees that we have to do everything we can to protect bitcoin mining.

Listen to the full episode for more!

On this episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by Josh Olszewicz from Valkyrie and Desiree Dickerson who has experience in the Bitcoin space in a nontraditional way. She is coming from Lightning Labs and is now CEO and Co-Founder of THNDR Games. Dickerson opens by sharing about THNDR Game’s strategy for gaining new users. She states that many users have no background in crypto but have found some of their applications or have been referred by a current user. “Once they earn Bitcoin through one of the applications, they have an incentive to continue using the game and become a Bitcoiner.”

#Bitcoin #Gaming #BBL

Wilson states that he frequently gamed as a child and as he got older, he was more focused on beating other players instead of the game itself. He asks Dickerson if they are focused on single versus multiplayer games and if there are different levels of interest between age groups. Dickerson says that all of their games are single-player, but will have multiplayer abilities with coming updates. They get very positive feedback from esports and host an event almost every weekend. Dickerson believes “having a highly divisible asset allows for more equitable play in esports events... At the end of the day, pretty much everyone is winning .”

As for the user’s demographics, traditionally the largest audience is always white teenage boys, but mobile gaming is starting to change this. One of the fastest-growing demographics is women between the ages of thirty-five and fifty. One of these reasons is that “there is no longer a large barrier of entry to game. You do not have to buy a multi-hundred dollar console and pay for individual games, all you need is a smartphone which opens these games to a much larger demographic.” Sixty percent of the market is mobile games and with the diversity of the applications, they are going towards mass adoption.

McClurg asks if THNDR Games will be at the Miami Bitcoin Conference 2022. Dickerson says that although they are still a smaller company we will be demoing all of our games at the conference. You can find all of their games and information on esports betting on the Bitcoin 2022 app under the games tab. There will also be a running ledger at the events of all the bets that are being placed on tournament participants. The group wraps up the episode by talking about a competition between McClurg and Wilson on THNDR Game’s traditional snake game before the conference.

Listen to the full episode!

On this episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by Josh Olszewics from Valkyrie. They open by discussing the new crypto executive order. Bitcoiners have been hearing about the possibility of a crypto related executive order over the past few months and many have been pulling coins off exchanges, coing-joining, and selling in preparation. After the release of the order, there was nothing that would majorly impact users and the price skyrocketed.

Wilson asks for McClurg’s perspective on if this is a positive or negative sign for the market. McClurg explains that anytime there is a sideways market and the macro perspective is not great but they have not yet gone down, the news cycle has complete control over the price. Historically, many people traded based on the news and it continues today.

The trio goes on to discuss Senator Elizabeth Warren’s letter to the United States Treasury. The letter stated how crypto could be used as a weapon against sanctions, especially in Russia. McClurg brings up how gas prices are not refutable; they are higher on the West Coast due to less efficient transportation. Only roughly three percent of all U.S. oil comes from Russia and the rest is from the Middle East, therefore it should not have a forty to fifty percent effect that has been seen over the last year. The reason for this increase is due to inflation as well as self-interest and lack of competition. “There is an opportunity to charge more, therefore they will.” McClurg states. Wilson adds in, “it goes back to Adam Smith’s economic principles, if you eliminate competition then self interest goes up. Similarly, if you eliminate supply, then demand will increase because self-interest is tied to demand and creates consumer competition.”

They circle back to discussing the executive order. Olszewics states that the order was tamer than anticipated and that it opens a door to start seriously talking about crypto. Wilson states that the fear was far greater than the reality. McClurg brings up the specifics from the executive order and says, “number one is to protect U.S. consumers and businesses, through which they are trying to reduce systematic risk... bitcoin will eventually look like real estate. It is property, not security and many other trade associations will make sure there is no fraud.” One of the other topics that he found interesting was, “promote U.S. leadership in technology and economic competitiveness, which is what individual states are attempting.” The group wraps up the episode by talking about politicians finally increasing their knowledge on cryptocurrency and the excitement to see one another in Bitcoin Miami.

On this episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts Steven McClurg and C.J. Wilson are joined by congressional candidate Taylor Burks.

#Bitcoin #Crypto #TaylorBurks 

Burks grew up on a fifth generation cattle farm in Missouri. After graduating as a first generation college student, he joined the United States Navy over 15 years ago where he is now a Lieutenant Commander in the Reserves.

Burks started hearing about Bitcoin around 5 years ago and has since been a proponent for the innovation of blockchain technology and Bitcoin in particular.

Host Steven McClurg relates his similar experience, explaining how his grandparents never used banks, always kept cash, and therefore he also grew up with a mistrust of banks.

“We don’t need some big institution to take care of our finances for us. We want that independence, because we don’t trust them to have our best interest at heart.” He continues, “Bitcoin is the ability to be independent from these macro factors that don’t have the little guy at heart.”

He goes on to describe how it allows immigrants to keep more of their hard earned wealth for themselves through remittances, and host C.J. Wilson explains how people are using Bitcoin as a savings technology, and not as a get-rich-quick scheme.

“The way people hold Bitcoin today reinforces the idea that it’s about independence. You can make a lot of money, but if you truly believe in bitcoin, you’re holding it.” Burks says.

McClurg explains, “There’s either hard earned money, or it’s found money. When you’ve actually had to work for the money, you understand that value.

In Russia, a lot of people have worked very hard for the money that’s sitting in their banks, and now all of a sudden they can’t access it anymore. Do you trust that money belongs to you, or has any value any more?”

Burks shares, “Bitcoin represents a concept of freedom that people who suffer from decisions far beyond their control really shouldn’t have to, because they can access something like bitcoin now to protect themselves and their families.”

When asked if Missouri has the chance to be a Bitcoin state, Burks explains how they have a few young legislators to create policies in a way where Bitcoin can be a part of their state lifestyle. He goes on to explain what that looks like.

They go on to discuss inflation, technology in the agricultural sector, generational wealth, values, and more.

Listen to the full episode!

On this episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” host C.J. Wilson is joined by veteran and contributor to Bitcoin Magazine, Mike Hobart. Wilson and Hobart share similar backgrounds in exercise, physiology, and kinesiology. Hobart’s journey started in 2013 when he joined the military. He gives credit to the book, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl for opening himself up to finding purpose after being in a dark place. He studied exercise science while in school allowing him to now write articles on a wide variety of topics.

Hobart's curiosity in Bitcoin sparked during his deployment to the Middle East in spring of 2017. This was the first time he had a salary which led him to research investment theory. One of the most well known theories is, “You have to put your money where the market is going to go before the market goes there.” After watching bitcoin quadruple in four months he decided to invest. He studied the market for hours each day during his deployment.

Hobart has done in-depth research on bitcoin’s energy usage and believes that it is important to correct the misinformation that is being spread. He wrote an article on Microsoft’s energy consumption and discovered that each microsoft employee used roughly four thousand households worth of energy consumption per year. Wilson states, “I would say bitcoin is morally justified by producing a very high value in exchange for the energy use.”

Another popular topic in the bitcoin community is regenerative farming. Wilson asks Hobart’s opinion on why he thinks America needs regenerative farming and if there is anything that Bitcoiners have not considered before. Hobart was deployed with many farmers and was surprised to discover how many of them were trading bitcoin overseas. One thing that he was not aware of was what fertilizers are actually doing to the soil. Fertilizers are depleting nutrients in our soil and now our food has about 12.5% the nutrient density compared to the food our grandparents were eating. He believes that farmers need bitcoin for financial security. He goes on to say, “If the farmers do not have a financial vehicle with which to continue producing food, then we have no food.”

After working with many farmers, Wilson observed that, “farmers have very low time preference. If they are planting a tree, they have to wait 6 or 7 years for that tree to bear fruit. This is a real investment and time horizon that people do not understand... When farmers get into bitcoin, the are thinking ‘how can I hand this down to my kids.’” Farming is similar to trading with leverage.

Wilson wraps up the episode saying that the public perception is who started bitcoin and not who is in bitcoin now. Bitcoin is something different for everybody, with a wide range of options.

Listen to the full episode for more! 

On this episode of Bitcoin Bottom Line, host Steven McClurg is joined by Greg Foss and Josh Olszewics to discuss bonds. Steven and Greg met while being co-investors in the same company that is responsible for bringing ETFs into Canada. This company gave people in Canada comfort that a spot Bitcoin ETF will work and cannot be manipulated. #Bitcoin #Bonds #Investing #Crypto McClurg mentions that the last time he was with Greg they discussed gas flaring. Greg mentioned what had been happening in Alberta and shortly after, China decided to shut down all of its miners. McClurg asks how Foss has seen this progress in Canada. Foss states, “We do not have much flare gas in Canada. The US has more flare. We have 400 megawatts of power that are former peaking plants. They're located right along the TransCanada natural gas pipeline and we will be mining Bitcoin at those plants.” McClurg and Foss go on to discuss the two different Bitcoin audiences. The first is the intermediary audience, which consists of financial advisors and wirehouse platforms. The second being institutions. McClurg says, “Oddly enough, nobody wants to own Bitcoin directly.” Which is how both McClurg and Foss recommend owning Bitcoin. While Valkyrie was looking to productize Bitcoin rather than holding it directly in a product, they found that there were two ways to do it. “Number one was miners, but even that is relatively niche for a lot of the wirehouses. The ETF we launched in December is actually way more suitable for those people and those companies that hold Bitcoin in their balance sheet. They want the correlation to Bitcoin, but they don’t want the miners, nor t to hold Bitcoin. I think a lot of these shops are a little too far off to still get there” says McClurg. McClurg states, “Life insurance is another area that you look at and are like ‘okay, well they are not going to hold Bitcoin directly.’ They can’t, but when it comes to junk bonds, life insurance agencies are governed by the rating agencies. These agencies determine how much capital they have to reserve against each one of their investments, which is why they are so filled up with investment rate bonds and treasuries even though it is technically a negative yield at the moment.” McClurg questions what the FED is going to do and what they are thinking. “They have never traded risk and they are always very backward looking. They are waiting for data from months ago to make decisions on what they can do a month from now that can affect the economy in two to three years.” Foss believes, “it is a true lack of understanding about how the markets work. You can job-own all you want, but at the end of the day when volatility exceeds thirty percent annualized in the equity market, that implies moves of plus or minus two percent average daily volatility. New issue markets and everything close when volatility is above thirty percent. Volume is creeping up and if new issue markets close, access to capital closes and growth stops.” He continues, “There are no returns left in bonds so everybody’s pentiant is relying almost entirely on equities as a performance generator. If pentiant funds go into the underfunded status, there are going to be a lot of upset pensioners and an upset president.” Olszewics brings up that Bitcoin’s decline is smaller than Nasdaq. Foss believes, “Bitcoin will be a long volatility asset...Bitcoin’s insurance is essentially being short credit. When you have short credit, you have long volatility.” He continues that Bitcoin is the best asymmetric return opportunity that he has seen in his thirty years of managing risk. As the episode wraps up, McClurg and Foss return to discussing the FED. McClurg believes that there will be one rate hike. He predicts that the FED will do something in March and there will be two, maybe three rate hikes that the market will not be able to take. Foss says that high yield bonds are the worst investment he has seen throughout his years of managing risk and