The Frontier of Bitcoin Mining with Lee Bratcher - WBD620
The Peter McCormack Show
Peter McCormack
4.7 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 17 February 2023
⏱️ 77 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Lee Bratcher is President of the Texas Blockchain Council. In this interview, we discuss the important work of the Texas Blockchain Council in educating decision-makers and providing a link to Bitcoin businesses, which has helped Texas to become a global leader in Bitcoin. We also talk about the risks of introducing any form of CBDC.
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Texas has become the US's home of Bitcoin, maybe the global home of Bitcoin. A state whose motto is friendship has extended its hand to those seeking to mine and develop Bitcoin. Why is this? Texans are independent, hard-working, freedom-loving people. As our guest Lee Bratcher states on the show: "The ethos of Texas just matches up with the ethos of Bitcoin."
But, there is a more pragmatic reason why this has happened: Texas's economic history shows a state that embraces opportunity. And with Bitcoin mining, we are seeing perhaps one of the biggest opportunities to present itself to energy grids. Governments across the world are seeking to transition to more renewable and volatile energy sources. And, as we have seen, Bitcoin mining provides a range of tools to help grids in this transition.
Texas's grid operator, ERCOT, has embraced Bitcoin mining, and as such, it is reaping the benefits. Bitcoin mining is making the Texas grid more resilient to peak demands, it is facilitating the build-out of stranded energy sources, and could potentially help keep energy prices low. A welcoming regulatory landscape and collaborative approach to planning are resulting in Texas working towards being the home for 20-25% of the global hashrate.
But, Texas has not woken up to the utility of Bitcoin mining on its own. The fact the state has a dedicated Bitcoin advocacy group is a critical factor in this story. The Texas Blockchain Council was set up to make Texas the jurisdiction of choice for Bitcoin. To that end, it educates lawmakers, acts as a conduit between the state and Bitcoin companies, and actively defends Bitcoin against attacks from senators in DC. It's another inspiring and motivating Bitcoin story.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This industry has so much potential to be a demand-side battery for any grid, but especially the Texas grid because we have so much of it and we have so much |
| 0:13.1 | strained of energy because of transmission congestion that it could be |
| 0:17.3 | revolution it could do for the Texas grid what batteries will do for grids in |
| 0:22.2 | the Northeast or in Western Europe. |
| 0:24.0 | Hello there, how are you all doing? |
| 0:27.0 | You're doing well. |
| 0:28.0 | We just finished our WBD live yesterday. |
| 0:30.0 | It's a great event. |
| 0:31.0 | Thank you to everyone who came out. |
| 0:32.0 | Thank you to Junseth for being part of it. |
| 0:34.7 | Thanks to my man rich role for coming out, come and watch it. Also, Luke Martin, W.B. |
| 0:40.2 | Zero. One came out. Loads of other people. Look, really appreciate it, really appreciate you all. |
| 0:45.0 | It was a really good event. We learned a lot from it. If you want to find out about our next upcoming |
| 0:48.8 | events, we've got one coming in London and one in Miami, go to what Bitcoin did |
| 0:53.0 | dot com hopefully see some of you there anyway welcome to the |
| 0:55.9 | what Bitcoin did podcast which is brought to you by Gemini the only place I'm |
| 0:59.2 | using for buying Bitcoin I'm your host Peter McCormack and today on the show I've got Lee Bratcher |
| 1:03.6 | from the Texas Blockchain Council. Now when we were out in Austin I called up with |
| 1:08.2 | Lee I wanted to talk to him about mining what's going on in the state |
| 1:10.9 | and also some of the fuckery going on with Elizabeth Warren writing to |
| 1:15.2 | Pablo Vegas and complaining about everything to do with mining. It's going to dovetail nicely into the |
| 1:19.6 | movie we've been making about mining and that's coming out on March the 30th so please go and |
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