Citadel Dispatch

Share on social media:

Video: https://youtu.be/n2ClKkQTBms

(Home) Mining for the Streets - with Econoalchemist, Diverter, Coinheated, John Stefanopoulos at Bitcoin 2022 on the Mining Stage in Miami

twitch: https://twitch.tv/citadeldispatch  

bitcointv: https://bitcointv.com/video-channels/citadeldispatch/videos

podcast: https://www.podpage.com/citadeldispatch  

telegram: https://t.me/citadeldispatch

support the show: https://citadeldispatch.com/contribute

stream sats to the show: https://www.fountain.fm/

join the chat: https://matrix.to/#/#citadel:bitcoin.kyoto

[00:00:05] Unknown:

What is up Miami?   Yeah. Right on.  

[00:00:09] Unknown:

Okay.  

[00:00:10] Unknown:

So we're here to talk today about mining at home, bringing a miner in every single home in America,   not stopping until that happens.   Yes,   sir. To my left here, we have John with FutureBip.   We have Diverter.   We have coin heated. He specializes in,   emergent mining, specifically at home. And we have econoalchemist   who's working with upstream data, bringing Bitcoin to music.   So first, can we get a show of hands   if you've mined Bitcoin before?   Nice.   Yeah. Well show of hands if you've mined Bitcoin while actually,   you know, owning the ASIC and not having it in a hosted facility.  



[00:00:58] Unknown:

There we go. Awesome.  

[00:01:02] Unknown:

So it seems like a lot of people have already started, which is great to see. I mean, you wanna get your feet wet. It's not as difficult as it seems.   But I think a good productive way to start this off is is why people should consider mining in the first place.   Iko, you wanna you wanna lead us off on that? Sure. Yeah.  

[00:01:22] Unknown:

You know, mining at home solves a lot of issues. It solves problems with censorship.   It solves problems of not being able to get a bank account,   and it solves a problem with the risk introduced by using KYC services.   And, you know, you can get Bitcoin   for a lot cheaper   by mining at home depending on your electricity rate than you could buying at an exchange anyways.  

[00:01:49] Unknown:

Very well said. Very well said. Yeah. I mean, for me, the whole point of,   even looking at Bitcoin mining to begin with,   it was solely   as a means of acquisition. I just I wanted to be able to acquire Bitcoin.   And when I look around, I,   all I could see were the on ramps,   or the off ramps of fiat, whichever way you wanna look at it,   we're continuously being   squeezed tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter, and more and more information is needed from you.   More and more   KYC, AML,   there's no way to just   take some cash and buy some Bitcoin. The the the options are shrinking very fast.   And so a couple of years back,   when I see the trajectory, I see the way things are going, that's exactly   what kinda led me to mining.  

At the time, of course, the atmosphere was much different, and,   it was a whole lot of discouragement to anybody that   was looking to mine Bitcoin at home. You would have just been told, no. Just don't do that. Just buy Bitcoin. You'll come out better.   You know, you're you're gonna get wrecked. The machines are gonna go down, then the price dumps, all this stuff.   All this all the stuff that I'm sure everybody's hurt. And   but I kinda pushed through that a little bit   and just did my own work and did my own research and looked, and I saw what my electricity rate was.   I saw what the difficulty was. I mean, I I'm not a math whiz, but I can use the calculator.  

So,   you know, once I saw that it made sense for me,   that that was all I was really interested in doing. And   what's happened since then? The price run,   the ASIC shortage, the things that a few of those things that have come together to make it extremely profitable,   right now to mine Bitcoin. But that, in my mind, is   strictly a bonus.   The real the real meat of, of this thing is being able to acquire Bitcoin without having to hand over your entire identity.  

[00:03:51] Unknown:

Awesome. Thank you, Diverter. So,   I mean, all of us on stage   have essentially,   attempted to use the tools that are available to us,   in order to   be able to mine that home. And a lot of these tools aren't necessarily,   designed   with the home first mindset. They're usually set up to be in these large server farms, and that's that's their focus.   John being the exception, he was right next to me. I mean, you built this company, FutureVid,   to basically target home miners.   So can you go into a little bit about how how you think about that? Like, how is like, what are the priorities that you focus on with Futurebit to kind of make home mining more accessible?  

[00:04:34] Unknown:

Yeah. So kind of a background story of how I started the company. I'm I'm live in Brooklyn.   Back in 2015 when I started the company was when Bitcoin kinda transitioned to these large ASICs, and there was no product out there where I could run a Bitcoin miner in my apartment.   And, you know, I was looking at the space. I was like, this this goes against what Bitcoin is about and what it was founded for. Everybody should have the access to mine Bitcoin,   you know, if you live in a dense city and and, you know, you physically can't do all the cool things you guys are doing to to run these huge machines in your house.   So we built a product that enables anybody to participate.  

So we chose a power,   and wattage range where it would make sense to run-in, you know, any apartment setting.   Super quiet, super low power,   very easy to use, and and that was the founding principles of of Futurebit.  

[00:05:30] Unknown:

I love it. Yeah.   When you is so, like, how long has how long has your product been on the market for now?  

[00:05:37] Unknown:

So we launched the Bitcoin version,   last February. Do you, like have you what kind of feedback have you gotten from customers since they're because it's it's been yeah. It's been incredible.   We've had so many cool stories. Like, one guy came to our booth. He's like, yeah. I'm a trucker. I've been running my, been running your your miner in in my cab while traveling car cross country. You know? So it's it's cool stories like that where, you know, anybody can participate in in in all areas of life. So  

[00:06:07] Unknown:

I mean, I know you said, there was no easy way to,   run a minor in your apartment, but I   had an s 7 in my small New York apartment.   And, I mean, it was a horrible experience. Right. But it's very loud and very hot.   Yeah. I I I And then I had to get rid of it when I,   when I got a girlfriend. Right. Yeah.  

[00:06:31] Unknown:

Yeah. I I I attempted an s 5 for a while. It kinda worked. I put these Noctua fans on it, but, you know, that didn't last too long. So,  

[00:06:40] Unknown:

so   so home mining is important.   You can use it to get KYC through Bitcoin,   privacy preserving in that regard.   Let's get into trade offs.   Courtney, did you wanna start with  

[00:06:57] Unknown:

heat?   Sure. So, I mean, along with noise, you have a lot of heat to deal with. Obviously, you guys in Miami and and, the South, you don't need it so much. Myself up in Minnesota,   that's actually what got me into it. I was staring up, in my workshop at this really nice electric space heater thinking, like, wow, that's just waste.   I got my s nine, and   the noise was like,   k. I'll have to deal with that, and promptly got into immersion and then it changed absolutely everything.   So you can have low volume.   Once you get into things like brains, you can you can actually bring the wattage down even if you keep the stock fans. It's actually tolerable.  

There's really no reason to not be mining at home at this point. Even in a small   You could dial it   even if you need a 240 volts, you can unplug   dryer.   You know, plug in your a 64 l. I mean, how often do you use your dryer? What? Once a week maybe? You're saying your clothes up. That's it. I mean, what's more important? Bitcoin or your dry clothes plan?  

[00:08:01] Unknown:

Can you go into a little bit,   why don't you tell them about your pool setup? Sure. Not your mining pool setup. Yeah. Yeah. Different different pool.  

[00:08:09] Unknown:

So then   after I proved out the ASN, like, this actually works, then I got a, I actually refinance my house.   I was going to build an extension, talked to the wife and she says,   I'm like, hey, can I just buy a bunch of ASICs instead? And she's like, sure. I'm like, cool. Done.   And then hooked them up to a pool because my kids love swimming,   but generally, it's pretty cold. I still never went to go into it and,   the entire summer is about 95 degrees. So the 17,000   gallon hot tub all summer.   And then as it as it got cooler than, like, the 30 degrees, there's just steam billowing off the pool It's so awesome. And then, you know, the warmer you run it, the more money you're making.  

[00:08:50] Unknown:

I love it.   Also did a pretty dramatic setup for your heat without immersion.   Do you wanna go into that?  

[00:09:08] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I had my 1st day stick installed underneath my kid's bedroom in our house, so, you know, I had to deal with that noise and that heat pretty quick.   And,   you know, to solve for the heat, I was sticking with the air cooled system. So I just built a simple little enclosure   that I tried to,   design some noise attenuation features into.   And this enclosure also allowed the air to flow all the way through the box.   And then I just piped in cool air from a window and then piped the hot air right back out the window. So, you know, in my case, I wasn't, like, harvesting that heat to reuse it for anything. The   the heat in my setup was more of a problem that I just wanted to get rid of.  

So I just put a inline fan in the ductwork and just sent it right back out to atmosphere.   Then I the China ban happened.   The markets crashed, and I saw that as a good opportunity to buy some more ASICs.   So I bought some more and then tried making a elaborate setup that   the circuitry inside   Yeah. Thank you to my wife for giving me a call and letting me know the power lines are on fire so I could rush home and address the issue.   So I backed off my setup a little bit, and then   and then we decided to sell our house and move out to the country. And right now, I'm in the process of building out a shipping container   so that I can run all of my a six, off of a 4 100 amp service.  

But, yeah, in the new setup, I I had   taken the 2 ducts out of the window and just replaced them with, like, a gable fan. And I just routed the heat vertically   into a big chamber, and then it all got sucked out the window.   And, you know, as far as the heat went, that worked pretty well.   But now I also have a black box from upstream data, and so that's hooked up and running in our backyard.   And that just forces the hot air out of the box and off to atmosphere. So this is like a easy plug and play  

[00:11:25] Unknown:

problem solver. Right. Right. You did it. You had to build it all by hand. Yeah. Now upstream just gives you a nice purpose built device. Yeah. Purpose built box  

[00:11:34] Unknown:

that you didn't put an ASIC into it. Yep. So the upstream one is weatherproof. So that's it's designed to be outside and in the elements where the DIY version that I built out of plywood, like, I've got one of those running in my basement, and that that won't withstand weather.  

[00:11:49] Unknown:

And then I believe Diverter, when you first released your home mining guide, you used,   a cooler. Right? Oh, yeah. First of all, don't judge me   off of today's standards   because,   over the last year and a half, to 2 years area, there's been a a serious resurgence,   in home mining. And there have been a ton of advancements in the way that people handle their heat, the way they handle cooling, and the way they handle storage, just everything.   Once once,   people really started understanding   and seeing the same things that we all see, as far as the KYC dangers, the the issues with acquiring Bitcoin.   This this other option that it now exists,   you know, you know, Bitcoiners, they start coming up with solutions.  

So, yeah, ton of ton of good stuff has happened since then. But when I did my original one,   yes, I got I just went to Walmart. I bought,   a a regular,   igloo cooler, I think it was,   Drilled a hole on both sides,   put some ducting,   you know, in and out.   And then I threw,   I had a window air conditioner unit that had was running at the time anyway. So I took a little piece of ducting and ducted off just a little bit of that   window AC cool air,   and shot it into the cooler   and then ducted the heat out the backside.   And, honestly, it the window air conditioning unit was louder than the miner was. And this was an s 17.  

This was when the with the s 17 pros were just they were just hitting.   And that ran great for, you know, a while. I I, like, I I I got my return on investment on that machine. I ended up being able to sell that machine,   basically for the same price that I paid for it,   in in in fiat terms.   You know, and this is after I'd already made my money back in Bitcoin terms. So,   you know,   a lot of things have changed and come a long way. The price of ASICs have gone off a lot. The   the the immersion stuff is really interesting. It's super smart.   Even the Air Force stuff like Econo has been doing. Like, there's just so much and there's so many places you can go on Twitter and find all kinds of people now that have big long threads about the all the cool things they've done with this air.  

And now to see this, I we were talking backstage. I haven't really gotten a chance to to look or play with this product. I know Eco has, but I'm super excited   for anything that is   exactly what,   this product is. I mean, I think we've all been kinda looking for this for a long time. Yeah. And and to go off, off,  

[00:14:31] Unknown:

the comments you just made regarding,   you know, non KYC and why it's so important.   I think it's a topic we really need to press is   Bitcoin mining has to go away from these centralized huge mines that are currently controlling a huge portion of the hash rate.   We need millions of people involved. It can't be just 10,000 DYIers. Right? It needs to be millions of people need to be participating in this network.   Anybody that owns Bitcoin, whether it's, you know,   a 100 satoshis on Coinbase   should be participating   in mining because that's one of the pillars of,   Bitcoin. Right?  

That's what secures the network. That's what validates transactions.   And there's nothing to stop these huge, you know,   Marathon and Ryan publicly traded companies from, you know, centering transactions.  

[00:15:23] Unknown:

They're very easy to go after. Percent. Yeah. Yeah. They can't go after a1000000 individually. And, like, it it won't be that there's necessarily   all miners or home miners or all miners are distributed miners. But as long as there's this, like, intolerant minority   of Exactly. Small distributed miners located around the world,   Bitcoin's in a much more robust place.   So I mean so I've had public conversations about home mining and trade offs of home mining with all 3 of those guys,   many times.   I kinda feel like you you kinda fucked our panel with your with your new product because, like, we usually talk about   talk about the the 3 main trade offs, which is electric,   heat, and and noise.  



[00:16:07] Unknown:

Like, what are the trade offs of your product? Like I mean, the trade offs is you can't earn as much Bitcoin as a s 19. You know? But yeah. I mean, that was the point of the product. Right? The point was,   to make it low power enough where most people wouldn't You're just plugging into a radio outlet. Right. Yeah. It's a 120 volts, a 100 volts. Have to consult a licensed electrician? No. Of course not. Yeah.   Yeah. It's like running a a high powered,  

[00:16:32] Unknown:

computer pretty much 247. Nobody likes to show off. So what what is  

[00:16:39] Unknown:

Masks. What is,  

[00:16:41] Unknown:

is it are they very noisy? Is it is noise still an issue? No. No. So we the design constraints we did was we wanted to run next to the nightstand and still be able to sleep. So in eco mode, you can barely hear it. That's insane. Okay.  

[00:16:56] Unknown:

So that's something, though, like I mean, even for someone that's already, like, pretty fairly deep into this game, not that I'm anywhere near what these guys are doing now, but, like, for someone that's already running,   a a quote, unquote normal,   ASIC at home right now,   To plug one of those in, though, I mean, what's what it it virtually   costs free. You know, basically, I mean, your your 200 watts of electricity, that's no big deal. Get a couple of terahashes.   If nothing else, you know, point that at at CK pool, you know, a solo pool, solo mine. I mean, we've seen how many blocks this year,   have been mined by   very small solo miners. You know what I mean? With just a couple of terrahashed. I know 1 or 2 of those guys did. So, like, even for somebody that's already mining, like, the the product makes sense in my mind. You know what I mean? Like, it's it's a real win. Again, I   I can't speak too much on it because I haven't played with it myself. But but if it is, you know, capable of,   delivering on the you know, even 3 quarters of the things that, you know, we think that it can. I think it's it's a it's a real big deal. It's a big deal. Well, another I'm trying to figure out, like, what the argument is Yeah.  



[00:18:08] Unknown:

For not using his   product.  

[00:18:13] Unknown:

I'm looking on.  

[00:18:14] Unknown:

Do any of you guys have one? Can we, like, steal my animals?  

[00:18:17] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't produce enough heat for my house. Yeah. That's, like, a story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can actually if you can actually   recapture the heat. Yeah. And There's an argument to be made that the more Right. So I'm literally,   heating a 4000 square foot house purely with a 6 right now. And, when it's 20 degrees outside,   it's 80 inside. And so my my wife is like, oh, it's too hot in here. Like, just open some windows. You know, it's 20 degrees outside. It's freezing. There's snow on the ground. Like, open up the windows. It's too hot. I literally do the same exact thing. The same exact thing. Like, my windows have not been closed all winter. So  

[00:18:53] Unknown:

Well, if if we don't overload the power grid   and expose the weaknesses,   then they're never gonna invest in building up our infrastructure.  

[00:19:02] Unknown:

I did pop my transformer 5 times.  

[00:19:05] Unknown:

I popped my transformer 5 times at my house. Man, that's Like, every time, like, oh, god. That's me. Dude, that was a few 100 watts. Yeah.  

[00:19:13] Unknown:

That'll get their attention. Yeah. Gotcha. Let's,  

[00:19:18] Unknown:

let's forget John isn't on the couch right now.   You have one of these industrial miners. You know, you have, like, one of the new gen what's miners or, like, an s 19 or something,   and you're thinking about installing it in your house,   let's go through the trade offs in terms of, like, what what you're thinking about in terms of,  

[00:19:38] Unknown:

electric, like, getting power to them? I feel like that's gotta be Ecos.   You've had to learn about electricity as you're on the line. Right? I mean, no.  

[00:19:47] Unknown:

You gotta   first be aware that you there's a lot of scammers out there. Right? But there's a lot of scammers in the trades too. So you wanna be careful about who you're dealing with to come into your house and install your electric upgrade.   I consulted a   professional electrician.   They weren't licensed,   and I found out the hard way that I was getting scammed.   They did damage to our home.   I had to go back and redo   all the work that they screwed up the first time, and I went back and did it myself. Now I'm not an electrician, but I know enough to be dangerous.   And I was able to get our electrical   situated in a way that I was satisfied with,   and we were able to mine. So, you know, just be careful. Definitely get a licensed electrician   to help you out. And,   you know, you can get a lot of good advice and good experience from people online.  

But when it comes down to it, like, if if you're not trained to do electrical,   you wanna contact a professional and a licensed professional so that they're accountable for what they do in your home.   And so, you know, every miner is gonna need, like, a 20 amp, 240 volt circuit.   A lot of us have these kinds of circuits installed in our home for our dryers or other large utilities   or appliances.   And,   you know, you might be able to just swap out an outlet.   And for a couple $100,   you have a professional electrician do it, and you're good to go. You can plug in your miner.   Depending on what you wanna do, you might need to, like,   upgrade your entire panel   and have a whole new electrical system installed. And, you know, that's definitely doable too, and it may not be as expensive as you think.  



[00:21:36] Unknown:

Yeah.   I I mean, I think, like, as far as home mining goes,   the trade offs or things you need to think about if you're really thinking about doing this this thing is,   you talked about the electricity, but the and I'm sure you can deal with the heat. I'm gonna go ahead and take the noise part of it.   The noise of these machines,   whatever you have in your mind if you never run a miner in your home before, whatever you have in your mind as how loud this machine is, you are nowhere near  

[00:22:08] Unknown:

you. You're way running a shop vac Yeah. 247.  

[00:22:10] Unknown:

You're way under. You're low. You're extremely low. Whatever's in your head right now, you're low. Loud. It's annoying. It is   unbelievable.   It it it's a jet engine. I mean, there's no other real way to say it. And and there is it is unbearable.   You cannot live with that.   Alright? I just say it like this. Unless you go on oil. You yeah. You cannot live with that if you're air cooling. Alright?   You just can't. Like, it would drive anybody insane. So you have to understand   that going in. Like, that's whenever I wrote Mining for the Streets, that that was the thing that I really wanted to emphasize to people. Yeah. I wanted to kinda get across the why of of why I wanted to mine, but I really wanted to try to get across to people   to really think about your infrastructure needs before   you buy this machine because these are not cheap. They're very expensive pieces of hardware.  

It's very serious. And this this electricity is 240 volt stuff. I mean, it can kill you. All this stuff is very serious.   And   so it's not just some game that you're gonna jump into and all I'm I'm a buy this machine and I'll be rich in a couple years. I know, you know, in around this space, that tends to be the way things are sold. You know, just buy this. You'll have all kinds of money in a few years.   But the truth of the matter is there's a whole lot of thinking,   a whole lot of, problems that need to be solved,   mentally before you ever bring this physical machine into your into your home. So   understand that that noise exists. It's it's you you're gonna need to deal with that. Now the way that I deal with it and the way the noise comes from the fans. Where it's as simple as that.  

The fans are trying to keep the machine cool. The cooler that you're able to run keep that machine, the low the lower the fans are able to run. The higher those fans have to run, the louder the fans get. Alright. It's a very very simple thing.   Just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy to do with those.   So,   you know, cool air in, hot air out, and and your your fans go go quite a bit,   lower and that keeps your sound much lower. And you can muffle it further using, like you we talked about the black boxes out now. That's basically a   done deal, you know, a one stop shop.  

You can just duct it out and and, you know, use your inline duct fans, get your heat out of there. It also take gonna take a lot of your sound with it.   And then this man right here could tell you quite a bit about another way to go about addressing the sound, which is using immersion. Absolutely. Help with the heat. And it it it doesn't need to be a super complex setup for immersion. My very first immersion setup was literally a $50,  

[00:24:45] Unknown:

aquarium,   and I looked for the cheapest radiator on Amazon. It was a from a 1995 Kia Sophia, $26   shipped.   You know? And so, like, my entire immersion setup was, like, $200.   Oh, yeah. You know? And so, like, it it doesn't have to be a mega setup.   You have to be careful. Yes. Absolutely. Wiring, you you don't skip on wiring. You know, make sure your cables are rated. You can get cables that are really thin that would physically plug in,   that are made for lesser things.   Don't. Make sure you get the right cables.  

[00:25:15] Unknown:

And if you don't wanna deal with any of that, you have another option. This guy. Collector panel. I knew I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it's coming. I knew it was coming. I mean, it's great to see that we have,  

[00:25:27] Unknown:

you know, companies like Upstream Data with the black box Mhmm. And companies like Futurebit,   where you just you know, makes it much easier to be a home miner. Yeah. Ultimately, when you're doing mining, right, this equation is   you have you have your fixed costs and you have your variable costs,   and then you have the return.   Right?   And   most commercial miners are looking to get a,   you know, a a healthy profit off of that, but I think most of us on stage would argue that breakeven for a   a retail consumer for a home miner is   seems like it'd be fine because you're getting k y c 3 sats.  

So in that situation, you're getting the equivalent as if you're, you know, buying Bitcoin in some other way. And even maybe if you care about privacy,   slight loss,   because it's like a a premium you're paying for privacy or discount on the opposite side that you're paying to give up all of your privacy.   But where I'm going with this   is   upstream data and future bit are   small, relatively new companies,   probably harder I mean, I know it's really hard to get a black box right now.   So the price is you might not get as good of a price as if you go to an industrial   like, an if you if you find industrial ASICs.  

So but that's not necessarily easy to source, those ASICs. So should we I think we should talk a little bit about, like, what's best practices when actually trying to to buy ASICs.  

[00:27:04] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, that's that's definitely one of the big problems. As Eco pointed out earlier, I mean, you you know, everyone's a scammer. Right? And and   in this particular area,   it gets it gets really bad. And let me tell you, some of these some of these guys and these companies whoever are are perpetrating these scams are some of them are very good. Yeah. They're very good and they're very convincing.   I know I and I'm pretty sure probably some of these guys up here have come   very close,   to sending my Bitcoin to, to one of these people. I I remember one time in particular, I mean, I literally was hovering over the send button, and I just couldn't I couldn't make myself do it. There was something that just told me no. No. No.   And it was a scam. So   all that to say,   there are plenty of people that would help you,   myself included. I know these guys up here probably if you would shoot them a message.  

Telegram has become kind of really the go to, in my opinion, for acquiring ASICs these days. There are a couple of good Telegram groups,   hardware market,   Kaboom Rex. I saw Nick Foster is here somewhere. Saw him out there. Yeah. I saw him here.   Nick is excellent to buy, ASICS from.   And the good thing about using Telegram and using these smaller,   places like like for boomerangs   and, are these guys most of the time, these guys are Bitcoiners.   So, like, they kinda they get it. Like, they're not just, you know, some random salesman selling you a piece of hardware. Like, they're they're a Bitcoiner. So whenever you, you know, hand over your name as Joe Schmo for your delivery, like, they're not gonna hey. Come on, bro. Like, I need your real name. I don't care. That's your real name, man. Your name's Joe Schmo. Nice to meet you, Joe Schmo.   You know? So, like, they're they're willing to help you preserve your privacy.  

They're gonna accept your Bitcoin. A lot of places like,   I don't mind Farm Buy. I'm pretty sure it's what? 7%. Yeah. 7% discount if you pay in Bitcoin. So those are things to take into account, but it's also worthy of note that your return on investment   would change depending on how you paid for this AC. If you use your already,   hard iron sets to buy this machine, now your return in on investment is no longer priced in fiat. Your return on investment is priced in the amount of the Bitcoin that you gave up to get this machine. It's always priced in the Bitcoin, though, isn't it? Sure. But to an extent, if you Bitcoin at? If you yes. To a degree. For sure. But if you're will if you're able to part with this dirty fiat instead of your Bitcoin,  

[00:29:38] Unknown:

then, you know Just like I did, refinance your home. Right. You know, then once you get,  

[00:29:43] Unknown:

you know, you could you could potentially, depending on what the price does, mine a very small amount of Bitcoin and have your return on investment in fiat currency if you let go of just fiat. But if you hand over,   you know, 0.2 Bitcoin right now,   to buy a machine, then it doesn't matter if Bitcoin went to 2,000,000.   You're in fiat terms. You've got all kinds of return on investment, point   1,000,000.  

[00:30:06] Unknown:

You're right.   And to kinda go off that for a second,   What we tell like, our customers come to us and they ask this question all the time. Right. And how I explain it to them is you're not mining dollars. Right? Right. It's not the point of Bitcoin mining. You're mining Bitcoin. Mhmm. And that's how we need to change that mindset of how people think about mining. Mhmm. You're not mining dollars. Forget about dollars. You're stacking stats. That's the point. And as long as you're stacking those stats, accumulating them over time, there's never been a moment in history where anybody has bought any hardware that has not broken even in Bitcoin's entire history.  

[00:30:42] Unknown:

And that includes USB miners, whatever. Right. I mean, if you're thinking in fiat terms. Right? Right. Yeah.  

[00:30:48] Unknown:

Yeah.   So, like, if you invest in a machine, you're pretty much committed for about a year at least to run that machine. And so that's something you have to take into account is you're you're not just gonna buy it buy it for a month and then, like, oh, I'm all done. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. When when I look at buying, I look at it like I'm in this for at least 5 years, probably. That's about how long that machine's gonna last maybe before it will no longer be profitable. Yeah. But the amount that I'll make on it in Bitcoin   is worth so much more to me because I'm gonna be holding it for 5, 10, 15 years on top of that. Yeah. And having that,  

[00:31:22] Unknown:

it's priceless to me. Well, that was one of the one of the arguments that I kinda made in in the original paper I wrote was that   a home miner, in my opinion,   is making is the most bullish person on Bitcoin. Like, that they are making the most bullish bet that you can make, for a regular home buyer, for a person that's going home and unplugging a dryer and plugging in an ASIC, and figuring out a way to deal with that noise. That person   believes in Bitcoin. That's a bullish bet on Bitcoin because It's like a long term leverage. The long term yes. It's a very it's a long term investment. You know? And like he said, you can't just wake up one day and decide I'm gonna sell, you know, sell all my stats on on whatever   exchange you're on and just forget about Bitcoin. Like, no. You've made you've likely made infrastructure adjustments. You've got all this ducting. You've got this machine. You've got you know, like, it's there is no just walking away.  



[00:32:13] Unknown:

So, I mean,   while I've been sitting up here,   I think a a easy way to distill kind of the trade offs of   the trade off balance so everything has trade offs. Everything in our life has trade offs. The the easiest way to distill the trade off balance between going the industrial minor route, sourcing ASICs,   figuring out sound power,   and heat,   versus going for a more convenient   setup for something like Futurebit or,   the Black Box   is it's like a convenience versus potential return,   trade off. Right? So you're taking a little bit more risk if you go the industrial side,   but you have the potential for higher returns, and it's gonna be way less convenient   than if you go for one of the, you know, products that is focused directly at home mining. Now there's another product that has been   extremely   grown has grown in popularity   a lot lately.  

I'm pretty sure that's what White Rock does,   which is the hosted mining.   Can we discuss what the trade off is between using a hosted mining service rather than,   you know, controlling the miners at home, maybe do you wanna start? Or Yeah. Sure.  

[00:33:28] Unknown:

I mean, I'm kind of on the same,   boat with not your keys, not your coin, not your hardware, not your not your Bitcoin, not you know, you don't own the hardware. It's not yours.   You know, there there's been a long history of   cloud mining providers that, you know, they don't even own the hardware that they're mining off, and it's essentially turns it to a Ponzi scheme.   So, again, it's it comes down to   fully participating in Bitcoin. What it means is   you taking personal responsibility   and you personally running the whole ecosystem.   That means   your own hardware wallet, means your own node, means your own miner. And that's kinda where I stand on that. Love it. Yeah. I think I've I've probably  

[00:34:13] Unknown:

been I mean, I've been extremely   fair, I feel like, with hosting providers. I've actually defended hosting You defended them on my show. A couple of times. A couple of times, I've defended not necessarily   a specific hosting,   providers, but the the idea of hosting, I've defended.   Then this guy comes along and, again, ruins everything.   But, you know, my defense of hosting   is is   more just so that I mean, this is such an individualized thing. Like, everybody has a different rate. It depends on where you're living at. Bitcoin is a global currency.   And so there you know, it's very easy to sit here right now in in the United States in my you know, with my electricity running great all the time and my Internet running fine all the time and everything's good.  

And, you know, and just tell everybody, hey. Everybody should why aren't you mining at home?   But I I gotta continue to think in my mind, like, this is a global currency. I don't know who exactly who I'm talking to whenever I'm   online. Like, I could be talking to somebody that, you know, they don't have the ability to be,   or maybe they have the electricity, but, you know, they're living in a place like, what, Germany or somewhere where the the prices are just exorbitant. It's ridiculous.   So I feel like there's a place in the market for hosting. But the problem with it is,   as with, I suppose, everything else in life, I mean, greed seems to always get the best of people.  

And, you know, people begin   all of a sudden selling,   you know, hardware space that they don't have. They start, you know, telling they start,   with their presales, go a little bit further out, a little bit further out, and the next thing you know, you're delayed a little bit and then you're delayed a little bit longer. And, I mean, I think anybody in here that is at all aware of, you know, the whole Compass situation,   right now, had we've seen it play out.   I wouldn't call it a scam in the same way that I would call cloud mining a scam, but it is in a sense   somewhat of like an affinity scam type. You know what I mean? In in in certain sense, I still think it can be done right.  

I don't think it has been to this point.   But, again, I'll say to this man's credit, you know, if his product does the things that it does, I would like, first of all, I would like to see him have some competition.   And second of all and that's, I mean, not the best product in the world. We don't need more, you know, love if there's, you know, dozens of companies. That should. You know? We need we need this out to millions of people. And Yes. To get that scale, it's Absolutely. But, you know, that solves a whole lot of the issues that we all talk about. A lot of the the inherent centralization   around ASICs,   the way that these big huge   places like this would just be filled with miners that it can be taken down with, you know,   we've got to   to continue to keep this thing decentralized and permissionless. And for my money, the best way that we can keep this,  

[00:37:14] Unknown:

as decentralized as we can, as permissioned as as we can to let people get in and acquire Bitcoin if they want to is to try to put an ASIC or a miner in, in every home. And that's what I've been working on with my tanks is to, to actually design a tank that's very simple, easy to use, single AC. Just pop it down. You've eliminated your noise. Anybody can do it. Mhmm. It's not an overly complex setup. You can run it in the house. You can run it, you know, put a radiator outside easily and get that heat out of your house if you don't want it. Yeah.   But to actually get ASICs in houses   that you can   run reasonably and have your own node or and have your own ASIC at your house that you control, I think that's just  

[00:37:54] Unknown:

know, that's where my passion is. There there is no there is no complications.   Time to get started.  

[00:37:59] Unknown:

Awesome. So, I mean, guys, we're we're a little bit tight on time. You wanna just wrap up with some final thoughts? Ikana, Alchemist, we'll start with you.  

[00:38:06] Unknown:

Yeah. I would just say that   mining at home is more possible now than it ever has been. There's more innovation going on around you than   at any time before this. There's more support out there for you. And if you're interested in it, just, you know, feel free to reach out to me or anyone else in the community. There's a lot of people willing to share their stories with you and help point you in the right direction. Thanks, Iko.  

[00:38:30] Unknown:

It's it's a lot easier than you think.   Don't let it scare you. Like, oh, this is too much. Like you said, there's a huge community out there. Absolutely do it.   Absolutely do it. Will you get rich tomorrow? No. Will you see absolute benefit from it? Absolutely.  

[00:38:45] Unknown:

Thanks, Cornida. Divert, final thoughts? Yeah. I mean, these guys kinda already summed up everything, so appreciate you taking my final thoughts.   But no. Seriously, it is it is easier now than it has ever been ever, and and you should not get overwhelmed. It can be done. It does make sense   for a lot more people than they think. So I would advise you do your own research. Check out a calculator. If you need help,  

[00:39:10] Unknown:

holler at us. Thanks, Denver. John, final thoughts.  

[00:39:15] Unknown:

Bitcoin's about empowering yourself.   Just make sure   you take full advantage of it. Just holding Bitcoin is not enough.   Take   run the hardware,   have the nodes,   fully participate in the system to make sure Bitcoin remains a decentralized asset and does not end up getting controlled by the few once again. Extremely well said. Yeah. I would I would just add, you know, it is  

[00:39:38] Unknown:

it is a movement about personal responsibility,   and personal responsibility will always be the more difficult option.   But it's up to you if you wanna if you wanna take that route. With all that said, I wanna thank our panelists. I wanna thank you guys for joining us.  

[00:39:53] Unknown:

It's it's not happening tomorrow. Let's try to make it happen.