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Blockspace Podcast: BitGo’s $2 Billion IPO, OpenAI’s Data Center Cost Dispute, ZBD Raises $40 million, and Farcaster Founder Steps Down

CoinDesk Podcast Network

CoinDesk

Tech News, Business News, Daily News, News

4.7698 Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2026

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

BitGo went public, the first crypto IPO of 2026! Plus, analysis on inflows into digital asset products, Bitcoin gaming app ZBD raising $40 million, and longtime Ethereum social media app Farcaster announced its founder is stepping down. Subscribe to all things Blockspace: Podcast, Newsletter, Events Welcome back to The Blockspace Podcast! Today, Charlie and Will to talk about a massive week in markets and compute. We break down BitGo’s $2.1 billion IPO valuation and why the New York Stock Exchange’s move toward tokenized securities and instant settlement is a game changer for TradFi. The duo also discusses Blockspace’s acquisition of Bitcoin Layers, Zebedee’s $40M Series C, and the controversial exit of the Farcaster founding team. Finally, we look at how OpenAI and Microsoft are handling grid upgrades and why Coinbase is building a "Quantum Avengers" advisory board. Timestamps 00:00 Start 01:58 Blockspace acquires Bitcoin Layers 02:43 OPNEXT is back baby! 03:10 $2B ETF inflows 04:39 NYSE blockchain & 24/7 trading 08:27 Open AI & MSFT pinky swear not to not raise power costs 13:33 Saudi's Humain secures up to $1.2B to expand AI infrastructure 15:20 ZBD raises $40M 18:18 Coinbase announces quantum thing 19:11 BitGo prices IPO at $18 per share, set to begin NYSE trading 24:47 Cry Corner: Farcaster shuts down 👉CleanSpark, America's Bitcoin Miner! CleanSpark (Nasdaq: CLSK) is a market-leading data center developer with a proven track record of success. We own a portfolio of power, land, and data centers across the United States powered by globally competitive energy prices. Sitting at the intersection of Bitcoin, energy, operational excellence and capital stewardship, we optimize our infrastructure to deliver superior returns to our shareholders. Monetizing low-cost, high reliability energy by producing a global emerging critical resource – compute – positions us to prosper in an ever-changing world.

Transcript

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0:00.0

BitGo going with its IPO. They were doing a roadshow, and they were raising at basically just under a $2 billion valuation with shares pricing between $15 and $17.15 a pop little history in them. They were founded in 2013. They have been around obviously for a while.

0:15.5

BitGo's probably most well known for wrapped Bitcoin, which was really important during DFI summer.

0:21.6

I don't take too many shots, but they're not that profitable.

0:25.6

Did you look at like how much their net profit is?

0:28.6

It's like one or two percent margin total or something.

0:31.8

Well, it's a custody company.

0:33.1

It's a custody because like, you know, how much can you make on custody?

0:35.6

But yeah, it's, you know, compared to like other IPOs, this is probably in its own category of it's, it's, God forbid, an actual business, but not some kind of, like, crazy, like, speculative, crazy valuation on it.

0:51.1

Hey, welcome back to the Blockspace podcast presented by Clean Spark. I'm joined with Charlie Spears this week. Colin is off in Nashville. Getting a bunch of recording sun for us. We'll look forward to those. On this week's show, we have a slate of news items to get to, including Open AI, joining Microsoft in his pledge to not push data center costs too high up

1:12.6

on resident consumers' electricity. Also have some funding announcements from Zebedee, which

1:18.6

raise $40 million, Coinbase announcing a quantum advisory board, BitGo going with its IPO,

1:25.6

and much more. But first, a word from our sponsors and then on to the

1:30.0

conversation. Charlie, we had a lot of news this week, not a lot of mining news, but we are

1:39.6

going to branch out a little bit, talk about markets, some compute, and then we'll finish with a few

1:43.6

notable stories that we both thought were worthwhile. But off the top, we got to talk about some

1:48.7

block space news, so we'll hit that really quickly. We got a lot of news. Blockspace news at the front,

1:53.0

though, because we have not one, but two announcements. Two announcements. So first one is Blockspace

1:58.0

purchased Bitcoin layers. It's a data aggregation site that was most well

2:03.2

known during, I'd say, like last cycle, kind of weird to say that that was last cycle, like

2:07.1

2024. They're crazy. It's 2026 now. 2024 was its own cycle of sorts. They were most well

2:13.4

known for tracking, analyzing, and collecting data on Bitcoin L2s like Strait Alpin, Lightspark,

2:20.9

etc. So we bought that asset and in the future we'll be rolling out a lot of different

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