In this latest installment of the mining miniseries, Iris Energy cofounder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts joins us to talk through their approach to mining. In this episode: 

• How Dan came to work in mining
• Backgrounds of the Iris executive team
• Which thinkers influenced Dan in his Bitcoin journey
• Why Iris focuses on sustainable energy and on only entering energy markets where they will not drive prices up for households
• How Iris chooses geographies to operate
• How Iris found abundant underutilized power in British Columbia
• Why Iris’ entry to British Columbia actually drives down energy prices for regular households
• Why Bitcoin mining has better location agnosticism than aluminum smelting or hydrogen production
• How Bitcoin miners are more flexible loads than other datacenters
• How Iris is geographically diversified in Canada, Texas, and Australia, and why geographic diversification is so important
• How flexibility from Bitcoin mining replaces peaker plants burning fossil fuels
• Why the oversupply of power is an issue for many power markets
• Are Western miners being sufficiently responsible in finding low carbon energy sources
• How Dan thinks about political risk at the state level
• Can the world accommodate Bitcoin’s power consumption growth if the price goes up tenfold?
• What plateauing efficiency gains for ASICs means for Iris
• Why Iris doesn’t see itself as a pseudo Bitcoin ETF and does not seek to hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet

Sponsor notes:

• Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io