Episode Details

For another episode of the mining miniseries, Nic sits down with Blake King, power markets engineer at Galaxy Digital, for his second OTB appearance. In this episode: 

• Blake reacts to the White House OSTP report on crypto mining
• Does mining actually reduce the incentive for utilities to build additional transmission?
• How transmission building decisions get made
• How are ERCOT planners taking the price of Bitcoin into account?
• The merits of proactive transmission construction
• Why the existence of strong property rights makes transmission much harder to build
• Can Bitcoin be understood as the electrification of gold?
• Is there really 17-25 GW worth of Bitcoin miners in the process of connecting to the Texas grid?
• How should we think about interconnection and load queues
• Why would ERCOT exaggerate the planned scale of Bitcoin mining in Texas?
• Do miners using renewables "not count" because they displace other consumers of renewable energy?
• Why Blake expects the $/MWh revenue for Bitcoin to continue to trend down over time
• Are Bitcoin miners forcing grids into grid scarcity events?
• Economic curtailment versus formal demand response
• Are Bitcoiners overestimating the importance of demand response for miners?

Content mentioned in this episode:

• Bitcoin Mining and the Grid, Part I and Part II
• Part I of Blake King on the show: OTB 330
• White House OSTP report on Bitcoin Mining

Intro and outro: Daniel Allan's Collage #344