#389: Hydroelectric Bitcoin Mining is Changing Lives in Congo's National Park with Adam Popescu
TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast
Marty Bent
4.8 • 804 Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2023
⏱️ 54 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join Marty as he sits down with Adam Popescu to discuss the impact of the hydroelectric power plant and associated Bitcoin mine in Congo's Virunga National Park.
Follow Adam on Twitter
Read Adam's article
5:11 - Why Virunga?
11:51 - Importance of energy for improving human life
13:57 - Setting the scene
20:45 - Involvement of a Belgian Prince
25:46 - Jobs provided by the hydroelectric plant
27:55 - The Bitcoin mine
30:32 - Risk of violent threats to the Bitcoin mine
38:02- The lives in Africa improved by Bitcoin
39:53 - How the Virunga mine improves Bitcoin's image
44:38 - Disagreements on the value of regulation
47:51 - Fix the money, fix the world
51:17 - Plugs and wrapping up
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So, freaks, you're boy, Marty, here to introduce this rip of TFTC. |
| 0:08.9 | I sat down with Adam Popescu, journalist, reporter, who just wrote a piece for the MIT |
| 0:15.1 | Technology Review, highlighting the Bitcoin mining operation that is going on in Varunga National Park in Congo. |
| 0:24.5 | Fascinating story that highlights the benefits that Bitcoin mining particularly can provide to energy systems. |
| 0:33.2 | I'm not going to explain everything here. Listen to the episode. It's fascinating. Not only the Bitcoin mining aspect of it, but everything going on in Congo and the quagmire of a political situation that exists there. |
| 0:52.0 | Very thought-provoking. |
| 0:53.2 | It was brought to you by our good friends at River. |
| 0:57.7 | River is a Bitcoin company built by Bitcoiners for Bitcoiners. |
| 1:01.9 | They don't trust any third parties. |
| 1:03.5 | They build all their infrastructure. |
| 1:04.9 | They built their own wallets. |
| 1:06.5 | If you hold Bitcoin on River, you can be ensured that it's 100% reserved and held in a multi-sig |
| 1:13.2 | wallet that the River team has built. They're not, they don't have any third-party dependencies |
| 1:18.5 | like Prime Trust or anything like that. They build their own infrastructure. They operate a Bitcoin |
| 1:23.6 | company. You can buy Bitcoin via River. If you DCA on River, you're not going to pay any fees. |
| 1:29.9 | They have fee-free DCA. It's a beautiful thing. You mine via River and now they have River Lightning |
| 1:35.9 | Services, which is an API that will help you build Lightning Network apps if you're an engineer |
| 1:41.3 | looking to leverage an API. River has built one for you. It's a beautiful |
| 1:46.1 | thing. River also wants you to take control of your Bitcoin. Yes, they run an exchange. Yes, they will |
| 1:51.6 | custody your Bitcoin if you keep it on the exchange, but they highly encourage you to take self |
| 1:56.5 | custody and they have a bunch of blogs in education that can teach you how to do that. |
| 2:01.6 | So if you have your go-to exchange, maybe they have Bitcoin, but they have all these other |
... |
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