Jan 20, 2022
In this latest installment of the mining miniseries, Iris Energy cofounder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts joins us to talk through their approach to mining. In this episode:
- How Dan came to work in mining
- Backgrounds of the Iris executive team
- Which thinkers influenced Dan in his Bitcoin journey
- Why Iris focuses on sustainable energy and on only entering energy markets where they will not drive prices up for households
- How Iris chooses geographies to operate
- How Iris found abundant underutilized power in British Columbia
- Why Iris’ entry to British Columbia actually drives down energy prices for regular households
- Why Bitcoin mining has better location agnosticism than aluminum smelting or hydrogen production
- How Bitcoin miners are more flexible loads than other datacenters
- How Iris is geographically diversified in Canada, Texas, and Australia, and why geographic diversification is so important
- How flexibility from Bitcoin mining replaces peaker plants burning fossil fuels
- Why the oversupply of power is an issue for many power markets
- Are Western miners being sufficiently responsible in finding low carbon energy sources
- How Dan thinks about political risk at the state level
- Can the world accommodate Bitcoin’s power consumption growth if the price goes up tenfold?
- What plateauing efficiency gains for ASICs means for Iris
- Why Iris doesn’t see itself as a pseudo Bitcoin ETF and does not seek to hold Bitcoin on its balance sheet
Sponsor notes:
- Compass Mining is the world's first and largest online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware, hosting, and ASIC reselling. Start mining your own bitcoin by visiting compassmining.io