What if we misunderstand the value of crypto and where its value is derived? 

When Bill Spence bought a power plant in western Pennsylvania, he wasn’t aiming to become a crypto-pioneer.   His thoughts were more local, and more about reviving the communities that he had grown up in.   

Western Pennsylvania is at the top of the Appalachian Basin coal region, and coal was mined there, and funneled there to make the steel that built the US, both financially and physically.   When the basin had been tapped, mines started being closed, and in the wake they left refuse that poisoned the ground.  The excess iron turns the water rusty, and the other toxins do much more damage to the health and well-being of a population that often feels forgotten.   The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania started a program to help clean the refuse, subsidizing power plants that were created specifically to use this coal refuse to make power and to rehabilitate the land.

Bill Spence was a power guy.  He understood the energy industry, and he immediately found and made Scrubgrass a plant with that mission under the guidelines of the Pennsylvania program.   But even with the subsidies, power plants need customers.  And when the pandemic hit, power needs plummeted.    Now, there was another mission to save the plant by getting a new customer.   

This is part 2 of the story about how he “found” that customer, and what it could mean for bitcoin, energy stabilization, and the future of data centers.    This is the story of founding STRONGHOLD

Written and Produced by Rachel Morrissey, Head of Content, Money20/20 US and Roland Bodenham, Senior Video Producer, Flywheel

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