Pleb Miner Monthly EP06 (Miners defend the Bitcoin Network)

♪ Come on, shake it by the baby ♪ ♪ Do that, come, guide, know you can't control yourself ♪ ♪ Any longer, come on, shake it by the baby ♪ ♪ Do that, come, guide, know you can't control yourself ♪ ♪ Any longer ♪ - I am me, baby!

I'm here! Bitches, the kitties, cars, the beach. This is fantastic, Max. Whoo! What are you saying? - Wow. - What do you mean? What do you think I'm in Miami for? - Bitcoin 2023, baby! Ah!

Yeah, man. Look at this, baby base! Crockett Tabs, he's got an alligator on the boat. (laughing) This is great! - Mate, I'm really sorry to tell you this, but Bitcoin Miami was last week.

Unless you're there a year early. - No way, buddy. Ah, ah, this week. Yes! Keep fucking awake. This is gonna be awesome! - Oh, mate. You annoy the fuck out of me, but I actually feel bad for you here.

(laughing) What do you mean? - Genuinely you've missed it by a week. You mean no, I'm not gonna get to see any fiat chills? - I'm afraid not. - No pandering politicians? - I can confirm. What about Michael Saylor, or Max Geyser?

Can I go and kiss their asses? - Not 'til next year. - No wizards? - The magic is gone. - No. - I'm really sorry, mate. That's a real buzz kill. - Yeah. - Maybe just wait around, grab a drink.

It'll be on next year. - My bother. Might as well just start the show. (upbeat music) - Bitcoin is gone. - Might as well just start this show. (laughing) (upbeat music) - Now what's the Bitcoin?

- Bitcoin's like rat poison. - Yeah. - The greatest scam in history. - Let's get it. - Bitcoin will go to fucking zero. (laughing) - Hello, Max. - Do you feel silly? - Of course I do.

Defeated, but here I am in Miami with the sunshine. Big booty bitches. Oof. Right? - Well, I'm in the UK. Nothing that tasty to see around here. Just drizzle. A bunch of flat ass bitches, terrible teeth.

All that technology you guys have and fix your dental problems. - I'm stuck in sats, mate. We do it properly around there. - We have a fantastic show plan for everybody today. This is our sixth episode, half a year of doing the shit.

- You understand that timeline, but not when these conferences are going on. - No, I can't time it. - Shall I fill you in? What happened? - Yeah, sure. 'Cause apparently I tuned out for the past week as if there isn't everybody on Twitter talking about it constantly.

Some fucking retard on stage, basically saying he is a cuck and doesn't want to hold his own keys and he'll pay 5% to someone to do it for him. But if you fucking take his money, yeah, he's coming after you.

- Yeah? - Yeah, I'm hoored, bro. No responsibility, but hard as fuck. So there's a bit of that. A little clip that goes around. There's two cunts in wizard hats just dancing around. And then the sort of repackaged same shit that we've heard for the last five years.

And then a few selfies, all smiles and bullshit. - Do you think somebody took some selfies with their mouth halfway open, with someone's dick in their mouth? - Ew, yucky. Probably. Probably.

Last year, the only thing I paid attention to was the mining stage. I thought you're gonna say big, booty bitches again. That's today. Coinhead, Econo Alchemist, a couple other guys were up on mining stage.

That was the only one that I watched. And that was a good conversation. This year, boy, I couldn't have imagined anything I would have been interested in. Like all the people that I know that went there, a couple of them didn't even go into the conference whatsoever.

They just party for four days. - That sounds good. How about some fountain boosts, Max? - Mm, that would be nice. - On the sixth month, is it an anniversary? It's not really an anniversary, is it?

- Sure, why not? - Is it a semi? - I'm gonna semi right now. - Well, here's someone who gives us a semi. - Dwight Derp. That's the Dwight Halpert guy that won a hat and who wins everything because he enters every single Bitcoin Twitter contest.

Well, guess what? He paid back 95,000 sats. He says, "I must report my sins. "I have a problem entering pleb Twitter giveaways. "I must be better. "I will be better. "Have a few cold ones on me, ya misfits."

- That's nice. It was nice of him. - Don't know who the fuck this is. Mr. C.D. Brown III? I don't know, some come. TPS report, lol, spreadsheets for days. Niko's anal analysis, analysis is on point.

Great seeing you, John. Appreciate your time. Max, I want a combo pleb skull with mine life on it. Always some good laughs, base load, what the fuck, love y'all. - Y'all, we love you too, Chet.

That's Chet. I went to go visit him. - That's sweet. - His big giant mind life, hydro, mine. We had a good time. All mining, all the time. This other boost is from Chet as well. 21,000 and 21 sats.

Don't read this on air. Fuck off, lol. We read it anyway. Yeah, telling us what to do, we're ungovernable. Says it on the fucking show. Shouldn't I? Bonn. One, two, three, four, five sats.

I like that. Me too. It's easy to say. It doesn't every show, doesn't it? One, two, three, four, five sats. Thanks, mate. Fucking missed boosting last episode, even after I reminded myself a couple of weeks ago to do it.

Boosting now before I even listen. Lightning Bolt emoji. Way to be proactive, Bonn. I hope it was worth it. And always reliable boosting. Eight Mythrandeer. 7,777 sats. He says, black hole, son, won't you come?

And wash away the rain, black hole, son. Won't you come? Won't you come? Classic, Brittany. That's what he said. Would you like to hear some statistics about Bitcoin mining, Max? I'd bloody well love to, mate.

Well, I have just the segment on just the show for you. [MUSIC PLAYING] Statistics. Statistics. I'm a tell-you-the-basics-for-hashing-with-basics. Bitcoin mining statistics. [MUSIC PLAYING]

Statistics. Statistics. I'm a tell-you-the-basics-for-hashing-with-basics. Bitcoin mining statistics. [MUSIC PLAYING] Statistics. Statistics brought to you by linkcoin mining. And they're linkcoin lens.

That's lens.linkcoin.com. We used lens to derive our statistics here on Plebminor Monthly. Customizable charts are easy to make from hash value, price, difficulty, transaction fees as a percentage of the block reward, and the minor leaderboard, as well as the minor compare tool.

Global hash rate. Global hash rate on a 30-day moving average is 353 exahash. Our last show was 346. Linkcoin pool's hash rate is 944 petahash. That's almost an exahash, Max. You're welcome, mate.

That's what we deliver here on Plebminor Monthly. Hash rate. Over the past month, the highest one-day moving average was almost 413 exahash on May 9. Remember that date, Max? May 9, OK? We're going to come back to that.

Write it down on your little notepad. I can't write. I can't read either, so that would be pointless. Understood. Smooth the graph out a bit and look at the seven-day moving average, the highest was 370 exahash.

And that shook out over a few days, move way out, and our 60-day moving average is 350. Our last episode, it was 332. So even the 60-day moving average is getting bumped up in bigger increments.

Difficulty-- our difficulty threshold dipped a bit this month from 48.71 to 48.01 trillion. And that was an interesting happening, Max, because we got a little break on difficulty at that time.

And that was just as transaction fees as a percentage of block award were spiking. So that was a fun couple day of payouts. May 7, 8, 9, something like that. Yeah, those dates stick in my head, particularly.

And I can't remember why. Because you made some money. Maybe I didn't make some money, but I fucking should have. I think that's why I might stick in my head. Why is that, Max? We'll come back to that.

OK, we'll come back. I don't want to trigger anything with you. After those fun couple days-- no, during those fun couple days, maybe after. Then we increased difficulty to 49.55 trillion a week or so ago.

So we're up to almost 50 trillion in difficulty. Interesting fact, our first day of PLEB minor month, that wonderful festival, that great event of celebrating the PLEB minor, the stalwart that defends the Bitcoin network.

That was September 1 of last year that we started that. And difficulty was 30.98 trillion. So we've increased nearly 60% in difficulty since we started all this PLEB minor shit. That's carnage.

Right. You can almost say that to our fault, too. That's our doing. A lot of it is. What sort of percentage, if you were to guess, is our fault. 0.375. I was going to go 30%. That's bold.

30% of global hash rate is just down to this show. Someday, rather. Someday. You know those plebs like Putin and others. They're listening every month. And they're like, all the time. These guys are cool.

I want to get in. I'm all in. Did you hear the latest episode of PLEB minor monthly? He loved my joke. It was begging, bro. That makes it hilarious. Yeah, sorry, minors, that's my fault. Hash value is now 27,375 sats per day, per 100 terra hash machine.

That's about what we've been getting. 27,000, 30,000, 31, 32, something like that for the past few months, really. Per 100 terra hash machine. But May 7th, it peaked to 44,679 sats for that day.

Per 100 terra hash machine. Due to this next section, transaction fees has a percentage of block reward. Currently, we are at 7.94% for transaction fees as a percentage of block reward as an average.

But at the peak of gay wizardry, we were at 15, 20, 44,000 and 70,000 on May 7th. No, what do I mean? That's percentage. Don't say thousands, you dumb son of a bitch. 70% of your payout was transaction fees.

And then it dropped to 9 on May 13th and fizzled to where we are now, about 7, 8%. Party's over. And I fucking missed it. Can we talk about that yet? Is it still too soon? It's a little bit raw, but okay.

Everybody knows we have full main sponsors for this show and we love them dearly, Kaboom Racks, Alex, Alex, specifically, not Kaboom Racks. Lincoin, Peach, and fix rigs. But what a lot of people don't know is that we also have a reverse sponsor.

And this is the sponsor who fucks us and we fuck them month in and month out. Any guesses who that might be, John? Who, General Motors, negative. Oh, shit. Give me a hint here. They're very cunty.

Mm, hmm. Would it have anything to do with bodily fluids? Mm-hmm. I think I know who you're talking about. Botany fluid number three and bodily fluid number one. Yes, come piss mining. As some people will be aware, I still have a couple of machines hosted with them.

This is because they charge so much money to get these machines out that it wouldn't actually be worth it because I'm already losing so much money because I had to wait about seven months to get my machines online.

Motherfuckers, yes. I wasn't compensated properly for this. They completely fucked me, hashrate more than doubled from the time that I bought them to one they were plugged in and then pretty much doubled again.

Then I thought, hang on. Everyone's talking about all these fucking stupid Jpegs and wizards and all this stuff going on. And I was thinking, well, I don't really care 'cause I've got some minus plugs in at the moment.

So if people wanna spend these sats on these transactions, thank you very much. I'll be sweeping up those sats. So I thought, I'm just gonna have a little look and just watch these sats roll in.

And then I realized that those cunts had cut me off. So on those three days, the specific three days, which was the highest earnings (laughing) literally on those three days, nothing running.

And the reason for this is I emailed them and said, try and make payment for my hosting. I'm having an issue with the website. I've tried four or five times. It just keeps freezing. I can't put it through.

Could someone get in contact with me so that I can pay it, right? Proactive. Yeah, that's you. Yeah, yeah, that's me. And what they did is they got customer service to just unplug my fucking machines, send me a message saying, you haven't paid, which I'm like, yeah, I know, 'cause I wrote you telling you that.

We're charging you $75 as a late fee and we've unplugged you. You bitch. And they cursed at you. They did. They called your mom a fat whore. They called your mom a fat whore as well. I don't know why they did that, but they just threw, I know, really weird.

It's uncalled for. My mom weighs like 100 pounds. Oh, really? Yeah, I'll let them know. But anyway, yeah, so a little bit of reverse shilling there. Fuck you, compass mining. I could just say that, don't you know, one of their representatives does a podcast about mining as well.

Is it the chubby guy with a bulletproof vest? 'Cause he does such shitty support tickets. That would be the one, yeah. But I think he kind of made it up to you by putting the plebminer sticker and the crypto cloak sticker on his machine, on his little Zach Gallifenakis imitation show.

And he interviewed a lot of famous people recently with that sticker on the S9. Like a Jack Dorsey for one. Okay, all right. He had it with him at this conference, I guess. I've been catching up now that I'm here in Miami, interviewed Max Kaiser and quite a lot of other few famous folks

who somehow have something to do with Bitcoin in mining specifically. Well, he lost me a few hundred thousand sats over those days, but it's quite nice seeing that sticker on there. And it's quite funny, especially as we shit on them constantly.

Yeah, it works quite nicely. So, okay, I'm no longer annoyed. I've now shaken it off. Now that I've had my rant, we can move on. All right. And you had a sticker representing, and Rick as well.

Although the crypto cloak sticker is on top of the plebminer sticker. And I don't think that's right. We're on top, Rick. We're on top, you little bitch. Machine profitability and the expected amount of sats per day.

I didn't do these because we get a lot of show here. News is filled up. If you want to mess around with that, go to lens.linkcoin.com and search the minor compare tool or the minor leaderboard.

And you can fiddle around with that to figure that kind of stuff out. Statistics has been brought to you by Linkoin Mining. Linkoin has a new product. Revolutionized Bitcoin Mining with Rails, a programming language automation platform and streamliner for repetitive tasks.

It integrates with over 20,000 grid nodes and 90 regulated electricity markets across North America, taking mining and grid relationships to the next level. Simply create multiple rails, trigger them with signals like hash price or energy price and automate informed decisions in real time.

Compatibility with all major Asics, Maximilian von Bittenstein. I had the opportunity to go riding on some rails at Chez Hydro Mine in Kentucky as we spoke about earlier in the show. And I got to fiddle around with some rails.

You're not excited by that? - Well, it just, it sounds dirty. This is a clean family show and you're doing rails, you're fiddling around with things and I'm just thinking, this isn't right.

Cover your risk, kids. - That's where your mind went you sicko. I was able to do things like assign a single machine, batch assign machines to a rail. For instance, if you get like zero hash rate, you want to reboot the machine.

So you can set up a rail that says if zero hash rate, then reboot machine. You can do it to one machine, you can batch assign a whole bunch of machines. If temperatures are X, you can choose to shut them down.

One of the most powerful parts of the rail system though and then can automate mining and increase profitability is you can get data from the deregulated energy market. For instance, you can set up say Texas Urquot.

If Texas Urquot is less than $140 per megawatt hour, fire those machines up. If it's more than $140 a megawatt hour, stop operations. - Can you overclock an underclock on demand with this?

- I'm not sure that that's there yet. I didn't see that option. As we were fiddling around doing rails. We were all coked up, why not? Sure, those numbers that you can determine what is profitable and what is not profitable would be the break even electricity price section of linquine lens.

For instance, the XP Hydro is break even prices 14 cents a kilowatt hour and the Pro Plus Hydro. There are so many Hydro's by the way. It is 11 cents a kilowatt hour. - What happened to this 10 cent magic mark?

- I did, well that says 19's. - Yeah, right. - Okay. - Which is actually even less than that right now. - Ooh, but if you wanna know more about that, go to the reminder compare tool. By the way, that Hydro Mine is mining on linquine pool.

- Nice. - That's right. - And they're using their tools like body McBotface. Hold on Max, body's calling in right now. Body, are you there, buddy? - I'm here in Miami, where's the part of the app?

(upbeat music) - Max, oh no. I can't do it. (upbeat music) Do you wanna fuck the top mate? - Eh, depending on how you look at it, you're there a week late, 51 weeks early, or real.

- Yeah, for real buddy, we're sorry. I'm sorry, I'm not sorry, it's your fucking problem. - Yeah, I'd say we in the royal sense, I'm sorry, buddy, that was my screw up. (upbeat music) - No, no, it's cool you told me the wrong dates.

I am not mad, I'll cheer myself up by telling you guys I'm a joke. - All right, okay buddy, that's cool, we better announce back from that, yeah. - What do you call a cheese? That isn't yours.

- What do you call a cheese that isn't yours? - I'm not sure, but I'll tell you this, Botty. Regardless of how funny this joke is, I'll be laughing 'cause I feel sorry if you're a little right, but I'll ask, John's fucked you here.

- Yeah, I'm gonna guess though, Limburger cheese. - Not chow, cheese. (laughing) - I didn't think it was that funny. - No, I didn't, don't run tight, I'm a robot. You try telling a harm-a-phone joke with my physical limitations, not chow, cheese,

don't act like you didn't get it. - Okay, all right. We won't act like we didn't get it, body, but it was funny. I said it's pretty good. Our next segment is Bite Size Bitcoin, but before that, we'd like to talk about our sponsor FixRigs.

Max, would you like to hear about the repair process that FixRigs has? - I would. - I'd like to tell you about it. First thing you gotta do is ship it to their secure facility strategically located right here in Miami, Florida.

- Big booty bitches! - Upon receipt, they will test it. By running a comprehensive diagnostic test from their state-of-the-art equipment, do quickly identify any and all issues with your machine.

Then they will price it. They'll send you an itemized estimate to address all the repairs. And what will they do then, Max? - They're gonna fix that rig. No doubt, once you approve the estimate, they get to work repairing your rig in their facilities and you'll be able to log in, check all the real-time updates

so you know exactly what's going on with the machine through the entire process. Do we pay it? - No, we established this last time. You don't pay. You don't always free. Totally free if you just mention big booty bitches.

- Is that our show code now? - It is now. No, you gotta pay them. - You gotta pay before they plug. - They're gonna hold up their end. They're gonna fix that rig. Then you pay for them fixing that rig.

Then it will be plugged in and tested. Then you can maximize your ROI. Isn't that right? - No doubt, Max. - That's right. After that, you'll hash it. After your baby is thoroughly tested, they carefully repackage it, securing your rig for its safe journey home.

Mm, love that fixed rigs. Follow them on Twitter, @fixrigs. Today's bike-sized Bitcoin is about pool payout structures. - To begin with, what is Bitcoin? - One bit, 47. - A lot of people are familiar with lightning and liquid is effectively a layer two.

- But one, two, nine. - What is taproot? - Chlorine taproot, that's the first new protocol upgrade since Zagwet. - Difficulty adjustment. - How do mnemonic seed words work? - UTXO management.

(upbeat music) - The recent boost in transaction fees have meant better payouts in general for miners who mine in a pool or have hit a block lately. That's a maybe for the last part. A lot of strange blocks have hit the time chain, but I digress.

With certain payout structures, you may have greatly benefited from a day of high transaction fees, or you may not have. It depends on your pool and its reward structure, and who you're hosting your miner with.

In this episode of Bite-sized Bitcoin, we will be discussing the payout structures different mining pools use, how mining rewards are distributed, and their characteristics and benefits as well as explore their implications on earnings and risk.

I won't say anything cheesy like let's dive in. But maybe let's take a plunge, or perhaps a refreshing dip. I got it. Let's swim in the vast ocean of mining pool payout structures and navigate the currents of rewards and earnings.

Before I begin, I want to warn you, there's a lot of F's, P's, and S's in this segment and a dash of plus, so bear with me. As we all know, the two main elements that contribute to a miner's revenue, the block reward and transaction fees in the block.

The two revenue sources need to be distributed among miners in a pool. As we also all know, current block reward is 6.25000000 Bitcoin, and the transaction fees have been pretty sweet. Some days, 70% of total payout.

The most common pool payment methods are PPLNS, PPS+, and FPPS. PPLNS, or Paper Last N shares, is a payment method where the pool pays the miner only when a block is mined. The payment is proportional to the miner's contribution between the last block mined by the pool and the current mined block.

It's important to note that the pool may only pay miners who were online until the moment the block was mined. PPLNS usually includes the transaction fees in the miner's reward, but this isn't always the case.

Transparency is crucial, and the pool should share transaction fees with the miners. One notable mining pool that implements PPLNS, Paper Last N shares, reward structure, is brains. However, there's a certain risk involved for miners in PPLNS pools.

If the pool experiences bad luck or encounter software issues, miners may not receive any payment. In PPLNS, the miner assumes the risk, but the reward is determined by their hash rate compared to the overall hash rate of the pool.

Brains users operate within the risk-reward scenario, aiming for favorable outcomes despite the inherent uncertainty. It's also fun to watch those blocks pop and have really good days. PPS+, or pay per share, plus transaction fees, cute little plus there.

PPS+, is a payment method that pays miners based on the luck of them winning a block for every share they submit to the pool. The payment happens regardless of the pool's success in mining a block.

The miner's revenue is insured to the maximum of their potential in winning a block, meaning all the risk is on the pool's side. The plus, in PPS+, signifies that the pool only pays miners the transaction fees when a block is successfully mined based on the PPLNS standard.

So the risk for the block reward lies with the pool. While the risk for the transaction fees fall on the miner. As with the PPLNS, the pool must publish its overall hash rate for miners to verify their transaction fee earnings.

A notable pool that uses FPPS+ is F2 pool. And lastly, the newest method, FPPS, full pay per share, payout structure. FPPS rewards miners for each share that contribute regardless of the pool's success in mining a block.

It guarantees miners a steady and reliable income irrespective of a block luck. Additionally, FPPS includes transaction fees as part of the payout. This means that miners not only receive the block reward, but also a share of the transaction fees generated by the pool.

One notable advantage of FPPS is its audible nature. Ensuring transparency and trust. Linkcoin is one such mining service that uses FPPS. Linkcoin users benefit from the assurance of consistent and verifiable payout that FPPS provides.

But you have to find your jollies in something other than pool luck. Maybe ratting some rails. By employing FPPS, Linkcoin mining pool offers miners a payout structure that reduces uncertainty and provides a stable income stream.

Miners can rely on the pool's calculated rewards based on their hash rate and the average transaction fees. This audible system instills confidence in miners and eliminates the need to trust the authenticity of the pool.

Most of the plebminer crew uses either brains or linkcoin, some with Cano because geeze there do to hit a block, or they point at a solo mining service for solo Sundays. While brains adopts a PPLS reward structure where miners face risks associated with pool luck and pool performance, you do get to share in the good times.

When pool luck is way up, brains is fun to use honestly. And high luck days are high payout days. I always get a kick out double blocks. Linkcoin mining pool users benefit from the steady, reliable and auditable payouts that FPPS provides, ensuring transparency and fairness.

The guaranteed fixed payout lets you budget better. Additionally, if there's a good day of transaction fees, it's nice to know you're gonna get a piece of that pie and not have to hope that your pool hit those big transaction fee blocks.

Max, John, are you there, mate? I'm here, mate. Good reading, live. That was live, yeah. I thought that was nice. I only fumbled a few times. See, that would normally take me about a half hour.

It makes you more human and approachable 'cause I think a lot of people have this feeling like, oh, you know, these guys, they're perfect. They never fuck up, they never do anything wrong.

Ah, I get that all the time, yeah. And they just think, oh, they are human. I mean, ish, they make the odd mistake. I like them more. I didn't think that was possible, but I do. So keep it in.

It's a good point. I like me more now, too. Didn't think that was possible. What of all the purple, purple, PPL? And that's PPS, PP, FF, PP, PP, which is your favorite put. You know, I kind of said that there at the end.

I like brains. It is kind of fun. You have those days, you know, you get these telegram messages on your phone and when brains hit the block, people put it on Twitter, brains hit a double block.

It's fun and you look at your payout that day and it's a really good payout and they've had really great luck. But then you have those days and I think people are experiencing those a little bit more with brains 'cause their hash rate has dropped where you'll go long stretches without hitting a block.

And that depresses people because we're only humans and a lot of us are chasing a high. So when that high is not there, you get all pissy and depressed. You go to find another rail. Yeah, right, get on them rails.

Get off doing rails and get on rails. Yeah, I'm gonna write that into an ad read. That's a good one. It's really good, really good. I don't really think I care as long as it's the same-ish at the end of the year.

Like I would never be sat there going, "Oh, it's in a block, yay." You wouldn't. No, that's never happened in my life. I would just look at the end of the month and be like, "Oh, some sats have come in."

And also I'm small enough that it doesn't matter. I'm not like, "Oh, okay." You know, it really makes a difference day to day if I hit a block or not. Whereas like, I assume people with like massive overheads, that sort of smoothing out probably helps them quite a lot.

I like them both. I'm not trying to be wishy-washy here. But of course, I'm mostly on linkcoin simply because of our relationship. I'd like the steady payouts of linkcoin. There's so many tools in there to look at how your mining operation is run.

But I'm such small-scale that it doesn't really matter that much for a larger operation. I think that they would prefer linkcoin simply for budgeting and auditing reasons. Up to you. But that's my suggestion and I put it in there.

Linkcoin, brains, Kano if you're a gambler. - This is the one, it's like solo mining. - Kano is two choices. You can do an FPPS payout structure, but they only have like, oh shit, six peta hash right now, something like that.

But they haven't hit a block in 540 days, something like that. - Cool, okay. - So you can pool mine with them within that six peta hash. And everybody keeps saying, "Oh, it'll do it to hit a block or do it to hit a block."

Statistically, I don't think that's how it works. If you're a gambler, that's how it works. - Okay. - Go up to that slot machine. Some old lady been on it for five hours. She gets up to take a piss 'cause she forgot to put her depends on you.

Go and jump on that slot machine. - Good point. Did I just compare everybody that's been on Kano to an old lady pissing in her pants? - I think you did. - Read your boost, bro. - Okay. (sighs) Where do they go?

That doesn't sound very good, does it? It's like, "Read your boost. "People have sent you money. "Hard-earned sat." (laughs) (sighs) Fine. Let's get to these guys. - Okay. - Oh, here's one of them.

Bing, 4,000 hard-earned sats. Oh, fuck it, gotta read this shit. Them damn M50's got me building a shed to mine then. Not to be confused with behind mine. Gotta keep the peace in the household.

Yin's fuckers are a joy to listen to. Well, it's a joy recording and sending out she was well-banged. - Yeah. Next one's Norman Remnant, 4,200 sat. And he says, ♪ Father ♪ (laughs) Bon.

(sighs) There you go. Barn miner and shed miner. I think we have multiple shed miners in our little crew. - Do it? - That's love them sheds. The next one is old Bitkle. Travis Bitkle sent 3500 sats.

He says, "Upgrade your miners with an AC Infinity fan "and Njard Bird from Zack Biggity Biggity-Bombsda. "Go fuck yourself." Sweet, Norman Remnant. 1069 sats. Undiagnosed ADHD checking in.

I've got a little ADHD story for you that you won't wanna hear, but I'm gonna give you anyway, okay. In the UK, if you're diagnosed with ADHD, you can get up to 60,000 pound gram for your business just 'cause you have ADHD.

Where do you sign up? I have it. So I'm gonna go and get diagnosed and they're gonna go, ooh, I mean, we said 60 gram was the top. We're gonna change that cap for you. It's a million pounds.

If it's really bad for you. Yeah, I'm gonna go and stack. (laughs) 60 grand. So for anyone who's listening who's in the UK, if you are ADHD or special needs, go and get checked, go and get your 60 grand and buy some A6.

And if you do buy some A6, make sure to go to Alex from KaboomRacks. Not anyone else, Alex specifically. Or me and Sean will kill you. Straight up, dead. By the way, I think all of our UK listeners are special needs in some way or another.

Can't confirm. Norman Remnant again, 1069 sets. Make cannabis great. Make cannabis great again. It's gonna be incredible. You're gonna smoke so much weed. You're gonna be so high. You're gonna love it.

It's gonna be the best weed you've ever had in your life. And hashing to heating sounds like he has just had a nice smoke. And he says, hash love. Hash love baby, hash love. We're gonna hash some love with some action news.

(upbeat music)

♪ So look energy market up there ♪ ♪ Do you have any field fire manager ♪ ♪ And your actors match beside it and John Deere ♪ ♪ And now, let's run about three action news ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ Do you want Alex? ♪ ♪ Do you want Alex? ♪ ♪ Do you want specifically ♪ ♪ No one else just Alex? ♪

♪ Or we will fucking kill you ♪ ♪ My shaddies do, do, do, do ♪ - Up close and personal. We're not gonna do it American style. - Ah, yeah. - It'd be knives, buy it from Alex specifically, or you'll die.

But matter of matter, the action news is sponsored by Kuboombrax Alex. That's some real special marketing there, actually. I think we're on to something threatening marketing. - Yeah, 'cause normally it's enticing, isn't it?

It's like, oh, I'll tell you why you want this product or service, 'cause we're great. Here's the reasons we're great. Everyone loves us, whoa, we're really nice, and we're gonna do everything that we say, and we're just like, no, we fucking buy it from Alex, so we're gonna kill you.

- Yeah, yep, we're like, oh, you can, we're gonna get in people's heads. All right, they're on their phone. They're about to do this deal. Send me an invoice, such and such. - Mm-hmm. - Fuck, I don't wanna die.

I don't wanna die. Nope, I can't do it, cancel the transaction. Chinese girl, who's actually a guy, cancel it. (laughing) I don't wanna die today. - Yeah, I don't wanna get rucked and then die.

(laughing) That's actually usually the way that happens. - Yeah, so avoid death and avoid the rucking and go to Kaboom Racks, Alex. There you go. But I also have an actual ad read, and it says, are you in need of some new gear, parts, or brokering a deal to trade in old machines?

Alex is the epitome of integrity, expertise, and efficiency. He will ensure every transaction is seamless and transparent. Alex is equipped with a profound understanding of the Bitcoin mining scene.

Ensuring his customers have access to the latest cutting edge developments and technological advancements, like the soon-to-be-available Universal Mining Control Boards by Epic Blockchain.

Max, will you recall the Intel story that we had on Action News Update? - Yeah, there was-- - There was a game up. - Got intimidated out of the game, but we got some updates for you. The company that was gonna work with them to build a miner was Epic Block Scale.

No, Epic, Epic something, Epic Blockchain. (laughing) And the Intel chips are called Block Scale. They were gonna produce a miner with those chips. A major component of a miner is the control board.

If you go back to our Bite Size Bitcoin on mining server components, so skillfully conducted in red by Max, Bit by Bit and Steam, the control board is a very crucial part of the mining machine.

And Epic Blockchain has released their own control board, so that's kind of neat. You'll have no dev fee with the board, so your initial purchase is what you pay, and you're not gonna pay a reoccurring, or constantly occurring, dev fee.

Altair Technologies recently did a little review of the Bitmain compatible board. I've got a one-time purchase fee, but no dev fee, and those are typically like two to three percent. The interface appears to be a VINISH type clone, which is easy to use, and everybody's familiar with it.

Monter logs refresh automatically, and they state that you can currently set frequency across all chips, but they suspect that an auto tuning feature will be forthcoming. The most exciting element of this, the most exciting part of this is they're gonna release the what's miner board.

- Doesn't matter to you though, does it? - Maybe it will someday. - Who are you? - Don't you paint me into a corner, Max? Paint yourself into a mite, shell. No, I didn't, I can... - Ooh, I love S19s.

Oh, I wouldn't even think about what's mine up. - I don't like you anymore. By saying that, you've admitted that you once did. That makes me feel a woman fuzzy inside. - Shit! You got me.

- I'm gonna do what number three says this 10 or 15 times a day. I don't wanna live here. I'm gonna go live somewhere else. Good luck. - See ya, that's what we say. - See ya. - Don't let the door hit you.

We're the good, lower split you. - You'll flunder in the chicken coop. - Oh, that's probably where she'd go. She let them damn chickens out yesterday. So that's exciting with the, that board coming for what's miners because everybody has been saying the same thing for years and years and years when what's miner.

- When what's miner? - Yeah. - Now, soon. - Very soon. I mean, I saw a picture of the board. Alex tweeted that out, so it must be true. And that's what you get with Alex. He is on the cutting edge of technology.

Brains has also released a board. That was one of the exciting announcements the other day in Miami, not this week. The brains board. So not to be outdone. Brains has released a control board as well.

Brains has released their B, C, B, 100 control board. That's Bravo, Charlie, Bravo, 100 control board. It's pre-installed with brains. Tech engineer was down there in Miami and he tells me they will have connections for four hashboards on that control board.

So maybe Zach Baumstuck can do some interesting things with that. They released two batches. The first 400 limited series is shipping in July. I got myself one of those. And the second batch ships this September.

The limited edition batch is sold out. So if you order one now, it won't ship. Like I said, 'til September. Max, you are muted. - It's just sneaking out a yawn. - Oh, sorry to interrupt your yawn.

- It wasn't you, it wasn't because you were dull, I promise. - No, is it the control boards that are dull? - No, they're really interesting. Tell me more. (laughing) - Oh, well, well, dear listener.

Max, why do you think that everybody's releasing control boards all of a sudden? - Efficiency. - All right, I'll go with that. I'll go with that a little bit. I'd say much of this is in relation to the fact that there are three control boards available for Bitmain products.

Don't know if we mention this in our mining server component, Bite Size Bitcoin, but they are Zilinx, Zilinx. Can't pronounce it. It starts with an X, it's the good one. It's the one you want.

Then you got the less cool Beagle bone and the dreaded AM logic. You get the luck of the draw. If you get stuck with an AM logic, you are. So to say, Beagle boned. - Why do they differ? - This is on the same machine.

You order an AM machine. - On the same machine. From what I understand, it is a supply chain issue thing that Bitmain just kind of gets what it gets. Or there's more conspiracy theory related thoughts on that that because the AM logic board can't be given aftermarket firmware, that Bitmain kind of owns you.

But I would have to chalk it up to Bitmain products and they do goofy shit. - So what percentage of people get this Zilinx? How do you say it? - Zilinx and what get AM logic? - I've made my attempt to say it.

I'm not gonna do it again. - Zilinx. - Zilinx. - Zilinx. - Zilinx. - So what percentage get the one you want and what percentage get the one you cut? - I think the newer machines more often than not are gonna come with an AM logic board.

- Ah, okay. - Hence everybody's like, well shit, let's make some money and make our own control boards since most of these machines are gonna come with a control board that we can't put our aftermarket firmware on it.

Therefore we don't get to take advantage of the dev fee that we have benefited from for so long. - What does it cost to change one of these? - The brains board was 100, about 100 bucks total.

I think it was 80 and then was shipping. I think I paid like 90-something bucks. - Okay. - And that was for the limited release one. I had to have the limited release. I must have the best. - You have to.

- Yeah. - Uh oh, chickens are out. I probably should go get them. - Let me pause this, Max. - Fuck's that. - 2000 years later, a few moments later. One eternity later. Eventually. - All right, we got a heavy news day here, Max.

So we're gonna rush it up. We got Block. If you'll also recall an action news update where we told you about Jack Dorsey's Block doing their open source mining. They released their mining development toolkit.

I remember. Well, Max, Block was recently presented with an opportunity to acquire a substantial volume of Bitcoin mining ASICs from Intel. And they've completed a purchase agreement. So that's exciting news for open source development.

We got control boards coming out. We got other people making machines, getting their hands on some ASIC chips. Maybe soon we won't be so dependent upon foreign sources of supply chains, even though all the shit's made in China and Yale.

- It does feel like that though. There's a lot more options over the last year. Or over the last six months, really, hasn't it? - Yeah, yep. We could probably take credit for most of that.

- Oh, definitely. - So, Max, you'll remember the action news update. We were broke the story of Intel shuttering its ASIC manufacturing. For Block, the acquisition of the Intel chips will enable them to expedite their mining system development toolkit, resulting in a quicker time to market.

Block states they can now concentrate their design team efforts exclusively on cutting edge three nanometer ASIC development to support their three nanometer ASIC development. They have recently fabricated a prototype of their completed five nanometer design.

They state that the milestone is an exciting achievement as it permits them to test and validate their design work on authentic silicon and experiment with various design options. Block anticipates receiving the prototypes this autumn.

Like the word autumn. Do you say autumn or fall? - We would never say fall, but we'd say autumn, not autumn. - I don't say autumn. - I'll say how you'd normally say. All right, let me try to be authentic.

- Well, I wouldn't say autumn. Does it sound like a fruit? - Yeah, no, I think you would. I think that A, you are a fruit and B, you would say. - You go spring, summer, autumn, winter. - That's what you'd say.

- Probably, but I wouldn't say autumn at all. - Spring, summer, autumn, winter. A, you, or autumn, autumn. Yeah, autumn. - Right. - Anyway, Block anticipates receiving the prototype of this autumn, which will serve as the valuable contribution to their three nanometer ASIC development efforts.

- I thought five was the limit, not anymore. The sky is the limit. - I remember years ago listening to some talk where they were talking about how we'd hit a point where things were gonna plateau, or they thought because five nanometer was the limit or as close to the limit as possible.

And so, ASICs would be lasting longer before becoming obsolete, blah, blah, blah, blah. That was like four years ago or something to be fair, but yeah, and I think we have reached that point.

If you look at the growth in technology, it has kind of plateau over the past couple years with the five nanometer chips. So, I mean, theoretically, can you go all the way down to one? Where does it stop?

- Nobody knows. - Not even you? - No. - Believe it or not, the first time I didn't have an answer for you. Get back to me this autumn. We got Nico Smid's Substack. Just a short review on this one and the latest Nico Smid's Substack, it's titled "Transaction Fees Save the Day."

He says, "Ashrate growth is stalling." Yeah, sort of. And ASICs are plateauing. Did I say that right? - Definitely not. - Platoing, right? Platoing. "Ashrate is struggling, but minor is benefited from a spike in transaction fees, except for max, caused by the continued ordinal inscription craze."

At the end of the article, he brings up some changes. Bitmain is making to their production. This brings us to our next story from Will Foxley in the Compass Mining Blog. I know, I know what you're gonna say, Max, but this is well written.

I'm not saying anything. Bitmain has made some changes to their machines and they're not good ones. He says, "They have a lack of peripheral interface controller. That's the pick controller on units, meaning individual hashboards cannot easily be controlled, much like us, ungovernable hashboards.

The use of aluminum plating on one side of the hashboard causing increased chances of units overheating and consolidation of all components onto one side of the board causing increased likelihood of hashboard errors."

He says from the manufacturing, "Well, here you go." He says, "From the manufacturing change, we can identify a few possible outcomes for Bitcoin miners running newer generation units. Without a pick controller, units will not be able to continue under hashing on one or two boards.

So you can't individually tune things under clock to increase efficiency, do all these cool things that you can do with aftermarket firmware. The aluminum plated hashboards will have a significantly higher failure rate in warmer temperatures than those built on printed circuit boards.

Aluminum plated hashboards will have a higher servicing needs due to increased chances of traces, chips, or other parts stripping an error. And non-bitmain ASIC repair shops, like FixRigs, will have a higher difficulty in repairing ASICs due to the use of the aluminum plate, which is substantially increases the difficulty

of replacing malfunctioning chips. - Yeah, not gonna stop those sneaky fucks at FixRigs. They'll be fixing them regardless. - We'll figure it out, yeah. To me, that says, "Okay, well, we want everything funneled back to Bitmain."

- Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what it sounds like. Less functionality, lower quality, higher failure rate, higher servicing costs. - Doesn't sound good. - It doesn't sound good. - It sounds like modern cars.

- Yeah, it does, yeah. - Oh, only we can fix this and oh, the whole unit has to come out. - Oh, no, we can't replace it bold. We need to replace the whole unit. - Yep. - Yep. It must replace the whole headlight assembly unit, which costs $500, brilliant.

Does this mean what's minor will be following suit? Or there'd be a divergence here. - I have no idea. I would imagine what's minor will continue with their quality. I mean, if you're what's minor, you would say to yourself, "Hey, Bitmain is doing all this stupid shit that's pissing people off.

Let's not do that." - You'd think you would. - This week, Max, we don't have a base load update or a barn minor update. - Oh, for fuck's sake. - Slackers, yeah. They were drunk all weekend, Miami.

So I got nothing from that. I do have a little energy update from a guy named Uploading Logic. He just switched to a Texas supplier and he sent me some information about Texas rates. Apparently people in Texas residential rates pay 6% less on average.

And they're paying about 13 cents. US national average is now 17 cents. Which sounds crazy to me because I did a bite-sized Bitcoin last summer on cost to mine. And I think at that time, it was like 12, 13 cents per kilowatt hour.

So within a year, we've gone up on average with four cents a kilowatt hour in the US residential rates. - Yeah, I won't be shedding a say if you might. - Yeah, I know you're right. - Not great.

But then I guess everyone's kind of in the same boat. - Yeah, most people are in the same boat. - So what are you thinking? Is it gonna be the only off-grid and that these data centers aren't gonna survive?

- No, I think the data centers are gonna survive and it's just harder and harder for plebminers on residential rates. - Oh, those are residential rates? - Yeah, those are residential rates.

- These load will always say load shapes. And I like to say at Hashluts, all of our girls have great load shapes. What the power company wants is consistency. They generally don't want this, you know, all up and down.

So if you have a good load shape and you can present to them, hey, this is what we can take. They're gonna play ball with you a little bit more. And for the most part, residential users don't have great load shapes.

- Okay. - So a message to all the home liners, getting shape. Speaking of getting in shape, we've got an update from Bitcoin Vuegle. Title of this article by Max Shaft is Black Trans Mind Blocks Only.

Marathon Mining announces a new DEI initiative. In a groundbreaking move, Marathon Digital Holdings has unveiled a new diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative in the mining space. The company has launched a mining fund exclusively dedicated to working with Black Trans Bitcoin miners.

This bold step comes on the heels of Marathon's previous success with their green block initiative. This is great news. All right, Fred Teal, the CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings expressed his excitement about this new DEI initiative.

We are committed to fostering a more inclusive and diverse mining ecosystem. Specifically working with Black Trans miners, we aim to address the existing inequalities in the industry and provide opportunities for underrepresented individuals.

If any of you can help us find Black Trans miners who would also really appreciate the connection. It's really progressive. It sure is, I appreciate it. The announcement has garnered attention and sparked both support and skepticism within the crypto mining community.

Nick Newman, CEO of CASA, a DEI-based Bitcoin and Ethereum custody solution, you know who they are, Max, applauded Marathon's initiative, stating, "I think it's a fantastic idea. "It's important to create a new level playing field "and support marginalized communities within the crypto space.

"We couldn't be happier to see others in the space "beginning these initiatives. "However, the introduction of a mining fund exclusively "for Black Trans miners has also raised questions and concerns.

"Some critics argue that this initiative "may create divisions within the mining community "and may not be the most effective way "to promote inclusivity or to mine blocks. "An anonymous Chinese miner, "who has become Marathon's new founding partner, "spoke out in support of the initiative.

"I believe in the power of diversity "in a need to uplift underrepresented communities," the miner stated. "By partnering with Marathon, "we can create meaningful change in a power Black Trans miners "to thrive in industry.

"We feel we are best suited to help these initiatives "because our success in supporting "the Chinese Uighur community." Well, that's good, supporting the Uighurs. Marathon's move comes at a time when the tech and finance sectors are increasingly prioritizing DEI efforts.

Companies are recognizing the importance of fostering diverse and inclusive work environments to drive innovation and success in the diverse world. Newman added, "Watching these bold moves take shape "and industry inspires us to consider "how we can more deeply integrate DEI into our work.

"At this point, we're even considering launching products "specifically for the Black and Trans community "to ensure to have access to not only mining, "but industry best custody solutions."

That's brilliant, fantastic. As I said before, progressive is what we need to see here. There's just so much racism and hate in this space, and it needs to change, yeah. I know I have used my white privilege to discover more blocks.

Me too. If you put in the get block template command that you are a white man, you're sure to get more blocks. That's in the code. It's 21% isn't it? I can't share that with you. Not on air.

We'll talk afterwards. Either way, it's significant. It sure is. I'm happy about this initiative. It's time to even the playing field. This has been "PlebMiner Monthly, Action News." (upbeat music) Next section is "PlebMiner on the Wild."

"PlebMiner on the Wild" is brought to you by Peach Bitcoin. Peach is a peer-to-peer Bitcoin exchange app that makes it easy and private for users to buy and sell Bitcoin directly with other plebs.

Unlike traditional exchanges, Peach allows users to buy real Bitcoin without having to trust a third-party exchange to hold their fund. So you have what I said, Max, real Bitcoin. Yeah, I think it should be renamed.

So you have Bitcoin, and then you have Bitcoin KYC, a bit like Bitcoin Cash or Bitcoin SV. Only one is the real Bitcoin. I like Bitcoin, Bitcoin KYC, and Bitcoin IOU. Bitcoin Cucked. Well, we don't have that with Peach.

You get real Bitcoin. Peach's interface is designed to be user-friendly and easy to navigate. Users can set up the app quickly and easily can confirm. Be sure to use referral code, what? PlebMiner nailed it.

Be sure to use shield code, plebMiner. Shield alert. Come on, set that in the... Might have. Buyers and sellers can set their own prices and select from a variety of payment methods, increasing the chances of finding a match.

Peach also prioritizes privacy and security, with all transactions being processed through escrow to ensure that both parties are protected. Users can communicate with each other within the app's chat function, ensuring that all communication is secure and private.

Peach is your go-to solution for a convenient and private Bitcoin trading experience. At Peach, they understand the importance of privacy and security, just like we understand that Peach users are not only intelligent, but also astonishingly good-looking, much like the ungovernable misfits in PlebMiner communities are.

That's not false advertising, either. No, that's straight up, we're super handsome. All of us. Today's PlebMiner wild is Jason Vaughn. - Today, we have the privilege of observing the elusive and often misunderstood PlebMiner.

If you listen closely, you will hear the unmistakable sound of its mating call. To others, the sound is offensive, but to the Pleb, it's arousing beyond measure. These creatures survive by scouring the Earth for energy and scavenging hashrate from others whose over exuberance costs them dearly.

The PlebMiner may not be at the top of the food chain, but make no mistake, its ingenuity, scrappy nature, and unquenchable thirst for sounds, make it a force to be reckoned with. - This episode's PlebMiner in the wild is Jason Vaughn.

Jason has been mining Bitcoin for nearly a decade, which makes him really old in Bitcoin years, a term I stole from hashing the heating. Jason has a story to tell about mining found and lost, but never forgotten.

Jason Tale tells the story that you can take the miner out of the mine, but you can't take mining out of the miner, especially a PlebMiner. Welcome to the show, Jason. - Good to be here. - I'm glad to actually press the record button this time and do everything right.

You were a guest on the PlebMiner month finale, and I give Max a lot of shit for not being able to properly edit that, but we just didn't have all the audio, so we had to shit-can it. But here we are, all set up, properly prepared.

I wanna start your story off with how you started mining. Like I said, you've been mining for a decade, and that's a long time in Bitcoin years. So tell us your story how you got to begin.

- Yeah, basically, I've been a computer tech guy in my whole life, ran a computer business, and me and a bunch of the employees just started kind of mining at home. One of them, one of the guys that told me about Bitcoin and this Bitcoin mining he was doing, then I was like, what the hell is that?

And he tried to explain it some, and I didn't even care. It just was a fun, geeky thing to do. And so started setting up GPU rigs in my basement, my house, and started mining Bitcoin through nice hash, basically.

And then ended up graduating from GPU rigs to some of their early ASICs and mining shitcoins as well. A bunch of Litecoin, a bunch of Dogecoin. But I never really understood Bitcoin back then.

It was just, for me, it was just kind of a fun thing to do until about 2017 when I started really digging deep down the rabbit hole and started to understand the fundamentals behind Bitcoin and how I was gonna change the world.

And kind of at that point, I was like, I need to stop working on computers and start working on Bitcoin mining at scale. And there's a facility that already started a Bitcoin mine in Bonner, Montana, just outside of Missoula where I lived.

And I knew the owners of the property where they were leasing their space and ended up getting in connection with that company, which was at the time called Project Spokane, which was a 20 megawatt Bitcoin data center.

Got hired on there towards the end of 2017 and became a scale miner at that point. Just oversaw the day-to-day operations of that facility up until we closed. So can you describe what that facility is like?

20 megawatts is a lot of power. It's a lot of machines, a lot of heat. What do the facility look like? - In today's terms, 20 megawatts seems like nothing. We have these gigalot facilities going around and-- - Sure, but I don't interview anybody from Riot.

- Yeah, yeah. Well, and honestly, back then, when Project Spokane first started in 2016 in Little Old Bonner, Montana, it was probably one of the largest known Bitcoin data centers in the northern hemisphere.

They just weren't at that scale. And so we were kind of really doing things on the fly and learning as we went. Today's data centers are all high-capacity, high-density. Back then, it was all low-density.

We were just trying to figure things out, spread the miners out to kind of keep them cool. And we're in a quarter million square foot building with 60 foot high ceilings that we thought we'd never be able to heat up that size building with 13,000 S9s found out really quickly that that was not the case.

Bitcoin miners put off a lot of heat. And so then we started throwing basically through 3.4 million CFMs of fans on the rooftop to exhaust that heat. But it was a learning experience for sure.

And it was just kind of on the fly as you go. Today's data centers, a lot of these places know how things should be run and how things should be installed and hot air, cold air, separation and all these things.

Back then, man, we were just learning on the fly. So it was really the Wild Wild West of scale mining for us. - Well, that's appropriate. You're living in the Wild Wild West. - Yes, for sure, for sure.

- So you have a story to tell about that mine and I wanna read something to you and maybe this will spark some emotion for you. - Cryptocurrency mining, zoning regulations. The operation of specialized computer equipment for the purpose of mining one or more blockchain-based currencies such as Bitcoin.

This activity is also term proof of work involves the solving of algorithms as part of the development maintenance of a blockchain, which is a type of distributed ledger maintained on a peer-to-peer network.

All things that we like to hear. Typical physical characteristics of cryptocurrency mining include specialized computer hardware for mining operations as well as equipment to be cooled hardware and operating space.

For the purpose of the associated regulations, cryptocurrency mining does not include the exchange of cryptocurrency or any other type of virtual currency, nor does it encompass the use creation or maintenance of all types of peer-to-peer distributed ledgers.

Then they define renewable energy. The intent of this is a zoning overlay to mitigate the negative effects of proof of work blockchain processed used in cryptocurrency mining operations. This includes but is not necessarily limited to very high energy usage.

It's 20 megawatts, qualifies there, noise pollution and the disposal of electronic waste. The high energy consumption of cryptocurrency mining operations runs counter to Missoula County's objective to reduce its country.

Oh boy, here we go. Here's a part where you and I are gonna get mad. Reduce its contribution to climate change. Equipment at these facilities has the potential to create noise pollution that negatively impacts nearby residents, businesses and wildlife.

(laughing) The deer were really pissed off. In addition, electronic waste from cryptocurrency mining operations contains heavy metals and carcinogens that have the potential to damage human health and air, water quality, if not handled correctly.

Jason, how does that make you feel the reading that? To be honest with you, I'm numb to it now because I dealt with it for three years, but it's infuriating. It's just lack of education, lack of wanting to understand.

The funny thing to me is that they say Bitcoin mining was running counter to their goal of 100% clean energy by the year 2030. That's Missoula County's goal. Our facility was already 100% renewable energy from day one in 2016 when we first opened up.

We were always buying hydroelectric power in state. We were in the middle of, we're knee deep in the middle of an expansion to 60 megawatts. We'd already signed long-term PPAs for, guess what, 100% hydroelectric power in state.

So we were already years ahead of, a decade ahead of the county's goals, but yet they went after Bitcoin mining. How did that process work? They passed that ordinance and how long was it from time of passing the ordinance to going to meetings and telling them otherwise to the mind being shut down.

So it first started, the very first time that we had gotten notification that there was gonna be a public hearing regarding this was June 14th of 2018. There was a public hearing to initiate discussions of possible zoning regulations for cryptocurrency mining.

I think the majority of it was brought about by noise issues. When I first started on the company in late 2017, the Bonner community was complaining greatly about the noise coming from all the fans.

You know, those 3.4 million CFMs of fans that we threw on the roof, they were complaining about the noise and that kind of got us on the radar ultimately. But we ended up spending a quarter million dollars out of our own pocket to take care of that noise issue by doing research and development

to have new fan blades designed and changed out. And because we were planning on being here long term, and we didn't wanna have these negative effects with our neighbors, we're planning on being this area for a long time and trying to be good neighbors and took care of that on our own.

But that kind of put us on the dartboard, so to speak. And then when they found out how much energy use we were, we had, they flipped. That just basically all came down to the energy use was really was about.

That zoning actually in June of 2018 did not pass. They voted on it and did not pass at that time. However, sorry, in September of that year, it didn't pass after a couple of hearings. But in March of 2019, they revisited it again.

And this time had their county planners put together these fancy pamphlets with all this bad stuff about Bitcoin mining and everything it's doing to destroy the planet and all the fires that it causes and all the electrical waste that it has.

And basically at that point forward, there was a new commissioner on board and they enacted the zoning that year in 2018. What that did for our facility, the zoning didn't actually, we were grandfathered in with the 20 megawatts that we had.

But like I said, we were already millions of dollars spent on this expansion that we were planning on doing, which was initially to 40 megawatts and then another 20 megawatts to 60 total.

But we were, we were already millions of dollars into spent on this expansion. And when they enacted this zoning, it basically said that, hey, the rules have changed to the game. Like all of this stuff that you've permitted for and that you've been planning for and spending capital on is no longer viable.

You can't do that. You have to meet these new requirements of purchasing 100% new renewable energy, which means you basically, they had to create your own 100% clean renewable energy to run your facility or you had to offset that by purchasing 100% clean renewable energy on top of what you've already purchased.

They didn't really have a pathway for how to do that at the time, but it was just, there were renewable energy credits, which are BS, there was a grip that we can't put, we'd have to cover the mountains like solar panels to even come close to 20 megawatts.

- And that's good for the environment. - Yeah, oh yeah, exactly. It was just a shit show. And basically, they passed it in 2018, which halted our expansion. We had basically put on the brakes to that.

We couldn't continue with the expansion and continued trying to figure out what do we do. We continued to operate as we were at the 20 megawatts. In 2019, they extended that zoning. We were hoping that they were, we'd come to the table and try to talk with them and figure something out, but that never occurred.

They never bought us to the table. Instead, they reached out to all these other bitcoins, supposedly Bitcoin mines and got all this other data, but they never brought us to the table, the people that were right here in their backyard.

And they extended the zoning in 2019, which then was really hard on us, because again, we had already spent millions of dollars on expansion that was just lost. And then 2020 rolled around, and we all know what happened in 2020.

May 11th, the having occurred, basically cutting miners' revenue in half, and that was May 11th and May 13th. We just could no longer pay the power bill and had to kill power to the data center.

Bitcoin was $9,304 that day. Yeah, '93, '04, I wrote on the wall, the day we shut down, we were gonna come back stronger than this and everything, which unfortunately never happened at the time, but I marked that date down on that building.

It's still there to this day. Really? Three years has passed since then. What was the date? Was that in March, she said, of 2020? That was May 13th of 2020 when we killed power. Holy shit, you just passed the three-year mark on that.

But something exciting has happened in that time. The state of Montana has gotten smart about Bitcoin mining. Can you tell me about State Bill 178? Yes, basically, Senate Bill 178 was a bill that I had reached out to Dennis Porter, it's Toshi Action Fund, September of last year.

And just said, I'd seen what he was starting to do, and just said, hey, have you looked at all into what happened in Missoula, Montana? This was kind of a first where a county used zoning to basically control somebody's power consumption.

And he was kind of blown away by that. And then I never really heard anything back from that. But then earlier this year, I saw a tweet online from Satoshi how the Senate Bill 178-- From Satoshi himself.

Yeah, I passed through this house out of the Senate, sorry. And I was like, what is this bill? And I started looking it up, and I was like, holy shit. Like these guys have put together a bill to protect Bitcoin mining in Montana.

And this bill would basically negate what Missoula County had done. And so I reached out to Daniel Zolnikov, who was the state representative, who sponsored the bill, and Dennis personally, and had a bunch of back and forth with them, and learned more about the bill, and what was going on, and ended up going to the Montana State Capitol

several weeks later to testify in front of the House Committee regarding the bill. And that bill passed the House as well. With some turmoil at first, but Dennis and them did their job and got things back on track and it passed the House.

And then the second of this month, Greg G and Forte, the governor of Montana, signed the bill into law, which is super gratifying to me. I'm super excited to be, I'm legally mining at home now.

You know, I still mine at home, but I'm legally mining now, you know? So I was, you know, I was a missed bit, and was still mining illegally at home, but now it's legal. And the opportunity now to open up, you know, another potential scale facility in Missoula County is on the board now anyways.

It's kind of a big FU to the Missoula County commissioners. And I can be happier about that. - If you guys open up a facility, definitely send them an invite for a ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The Missoula County Board of Supervisors. You know, it's funny, we did a story on action news update a few weeks ago, and I give Max an outline of what the story should be, and he kind of puts his little spin on it, and he calls me and he says, "How am I supposed to say Guillain Forte?"

I said, "You're terrible with Italian names." - I did a heart attack. - Yeah, I listened to that. He did, he did decent saying it. - I had to coach him on it. (laughing) - Zone the call. - Yeah, okay, okay, well now.

- A little inside baseball. - Yeah. (laughing) - I wouldn't say obviously, 'cause I don't know, but I assume you don't have a million dollars in capital laying about to restart another Bitcoin mine.

How are you personally involved as far as talking to people, getting awareness out there of the hydro rates that you have within the county? What do you think you can do as somebody that has experience in mining in that county to bring mining back?

- Ultimately, I try to do consulting on the side for my fiat job based around Bitcoin mining, and I'm interested in trying to get Bitcoin mining back here at scale. Yeah, I don't have the capital to do it myself at scale at the moment, especially the way the world is right now and inflation, but I'm excited the opportunity.

And Missoula's a great place. The reason that projects Spokane had first chosen this location was cheap power because Montana is one of the largest providers of electricity in the US, specifically hydroelectric power, and something like 46 or 47% of that power gets shipped out of state.

So it makes sense to sell that power in state. Montana has a cool climate, the majority of the year, so it's a prime location for Bitcoin mining. And this, Senate Bill 178, I think, will help attract people here again.

Missoula County was kind of a one-off. I don't know if anywhere else in Montana was against Bitcoin mining, like Missoula County was. It's kind of a blue, well, not kind of, it's a blue city in a red state.

But our 20 megawatt facility was great for the community. We brought in a ton of money, a huge tax base. We were good neighbors. It brought in really high paying jobs in a low paying city.

So I'm hopeful that we'll get some scale miners of some sort here again. But in the meantime, I'm plugging away at bled miners, man, like get these miners in your houses, get them heating your house in the winter, subsidize your power bill with Bitcoin.

And we just had our first Bitcoin only meetup last week, which was a success. We had 12 people show up, which that's half of Montana. Yeah, exactly. But it was exciting. We used to have some crypto meetups here in Missoula, and I always was the Bitcoin only guy, and I hated going because it was just all about shitcoins and stuff.

And so we decided it's just time to get a Bitcoin only meetup. And it's been successful. And we have several of them around the state now. We have a monthly one in Helena, in Bozeman. Sarah Jett is doing the one in Bozeman, right?

Yep, she sure is. And she's facilitating the one in Billings as well. And Josh Schultz is heading up the one in Helena, and he's really active as well in getting these meetups together all over in Coeur d'Alene in Idaho.

But our goal is to have kind of a Bitcoin meetup every week in the major cities here in Missoula, or I'm sorry, in Montana. And so far we have four of those cities. So we got one each week of the month.

We've staggered them so that there's one in every city. Each week of the month. So now that kind of this bill's been passed, we're hoping to start attracting more people here in Montana and get the people that are here on board with Bitcoin.

Well, that's excellent. I think that's a good place to wrap it up. If you're in the Montana area and you're not part of an existing Bitcoin meetup, contact all these people, Josh Schultz, Jason Vaughn, Sarah Jeter, get out there and start meeting up.

If you're a large scale miner, reach out to Jason Vaughn. If you're interested in settling down in Missoula, I'm sure nobody has more experience in Bitcoin mining in Missoula than you do Jason.

I really appreciate you being part of Pledminer in the wild. You're a vital part of the Pledminer group, all the old original Pledminer month people, the founding fathers. And you're definitely a founding father of Pledminer so I appreciate getting to talk to you again and we'll have to do this again.

For sure, go Pledminers. Yeah, brother, love it. Thanks, Jason. We'll see you. Have a good one. Ooh, Jason Vaughn has had it hard. That was sad to him. But it's a story of perseverance and endurance in the end.

He didn't give up. He didn't like become disenchanted with mining. He kept on doing it. He never gave up his residential mining. His home mining, his Pled mining stayed in the game. That's pretty impressive.

I agree, the game is long. You're going to have ups and downs. You're going to have successes and failures just like anything in life. As I always say, keep calm, then mine on. But he never gave up that fight.

And he reached out to the Satoshi Action Fund as we reported on Action News Update, went to the state capital there in Montana and testified in front of a bunch of shithead politicians and apparently one or two listened to him and listened to his story and it was compelling and rich enough for them to take action.

I would be very excited to go to that local, I think it was Missoula, the Missoula Town Council and say, hey, I'm mining Bitcoin. Fuck off. Can't stop, won't stop. It was pretty cool. We quite often will shit on the idea of trying to convince politicians and all these retards to listen, but misworked.

So maybe we should shut the fuck up. You gotta hit it from all sides. That's what she said, no doubt. Well, thanks, Jason Vaughn. We appreciate you being in the plug miner in the wild this month.

It was good to hear your story and hopefully it inspires people to keep on, to not give up just because there's one setback or roadblock or hurdle. You just don't say, well, fuck all, I'm done.

That's what we've been doing for the last six months. It's been roadblock after roadblock dealing with you, but we're at the six month mark. And I have to say, it's been worth it. Seems like we've got quite a good gang following this now and yeah, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who's been helping support,

boosting and sharing and liking and everything else that people have been doing. It's been pretty amazing to watch this grow. It is exciting. It keeps us going. Of course, we thank the sponsors, Linkoyne, Fixrigs, Peach, Kaboom Racks, Alex.

Thank you guys for sponsoring the show for the past six months. We hope to continue doing business with you great sponsors, but more than anything, it's called Pledminer Monthly. So I thank all the Pledminers.

And like you said, Max, the boosts, that's what really keeps you going, is those boosts. They may not be a lot in Sats, but they are in the long run. But more so, they mean a lot in the heart and soul.

And I like to see us in that top 10 on Fountain. Keep us up there, Fountain. Keep the app up. Is it worth us retiring now on a high? And I'll run this past, you don't sort of shut it down too quickly.

- I think it's fair to say with the most popular Bitcoin mining show in the world right now. - Yeah. - But the issue with that is with this great success, we're also causing the hash rate to rip.

In many ways, we're then actually hurting our listeners because we're so successful and so good and so influential, actually on a state level now, that we are in a way hurting our listeners and we fucking love our listeners.

So do we end it here or do we keep going? - It's a tough one, Max. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Additionally, with great power comes great responsibility. And perhaps we need to, we need to, I think that's all I got right now.

(laughing) I'll get back to you. We'll see. Stay tuned, plebs. - Well, that's it for me, Max. - Yeah. - So we might see you next month. We might not, we're going to discuss this off air. If you want us to stay around, make sure you boost us, you fucks.

And we might see you on the next one. Thanks again. - Thanks for tuning in. - See you next week, fuckers. - Fuckers. (laughing)