1 00:00:07,470 --> 00:00:12,030 There's been a lot of negative attention that Bitcoin mining has drawn. 2 00:00:12,370 --> 00:00:17,090 Bitcoin absolutely is an industry that consumes a lot of energy. 3 00:00:18,050 --> 00:00:20,430 Mining is big news when it comes to Bitcoin. 4 00:00:20,810 --> 00:00:23,370 A lot of people talk about how dirty Bitcoin is. 5 00:00:24,450 --> 00:00:28,730 These big public mines are using large quantities of energy. 6 00:00:29,190 --> 00:00:33,190 But what if the narrative we've been told is skewed and there's a whole lot 7 00:00:33,190 --> 00:00:37,410 to it? The mining process and Bitcoin shouldn't be feared by the public. 8 00:00:37,710 --> 00:00:42,350 What if Bitcoin mining could actually save the world? Bitcoin mining is 9 00:00:42,350 --> 00:00:49,150 the number one most viable solution to solve some of our major methane issues 10 00:00:49,150 --> 00:00:49,949 this planet. 11 00:00:49,950 --> 00:00:54,210 We meet the local company on a mission to use it to help solve global warming. 12 00:00:55,230 --> 00:00:59,890 I do believe that Bitcoin mining could revolutionise the energy industry. 13 00:01:00,190 --> 00:01:02,370 And with big hopes for the future. 14 00:01:02,590 --> 00:01:07,310 In 10 years, you might not build a renewable energy site without a Bitcoin 15 00:01:13,050 --> 00:01:17,530 To understand how Bitcoin mining could save the planet, we need to explore how 16 00:01:17,530 --> 00:01:18,348 it works. 17 00:01:18,350 --> 00:01:21,730 But my first question is, why is it called mining? 18 00:01:26,160 --> 00:01:30,900 There are all kinds of weird words in crypto land, and mining is definitely 19 00:01:30,900 --> 00:01:31,900 of them. 20 00:01:33,160 --> 00:01:37,300 Early on, people were trying to convey the analogies with gold. 21 00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:43,280 Gold is mined, and there's some reward for doing so. You've got to put in this 22 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:48,360 work. You have to put in physical effort, energy, in order to extract gold 23 00:01:48,360 --> 00:01:50,660 the ground. So Bitcoin uses the same principle. 24 00:01:50,920 --> 00:01:55,160 You need energy to extract it, and that gets turned into Bitcoin. 25 00:01:59,980 --> 00:02:03,780 Earlier in the series, we learned the purpose of mining is to verify and 26 00:02:03,780 --> 00:02:08,479 all Bitcoin transactions, and it's done by solving tricky cryptographic puzzles. 27 00:02:09,160 --> 00:02:11,960 Computers all over the world are in a race to solve these puzzles. 28 00:02:12,500 --> 00:02:16,300 When the solution is found, another block gets added to the blockchain, and 29 00:02:16,300 --> 00:02:19,360 miner who solved the puzzle gets rewarded with newly minted Bitcoin. 30 00:02:20,500 --> 00:02:24,720 Every time a block is mined, a certain amount of Bitcoin are released. 31 00:02:25,040 --> 00:02:27,780 So it started off with each block, there were 50 Bitcoin. 32 00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:31,940 And every four years, there's what we call the halving, so it drops by half. 33 00:02:32,340 --> 00:02:36,740 So it was 25 and then 12 and a half, and so on like that. 34 00:02:39,280 --> 00:02:44,000 Right now, around 19 million Bitcoin have been mined out of 21 million. 35 00:02:44,520 --> 00:02:48,520 The last Bitcoin is due to be mined in the year 2140. 36 00:02:49,500 --> 00:02:52,180 Gold will be mined for hundreds of thousands of years. 37 00:02:53,600 --> 00:02:54,620 Bitcoin's going to run out. 38 00:02:56,560 --> 00:02:58,720 So it's very unique as a store of value. 39 00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:05,920 In the early days of Bitcoin, the network was really small. You didn't 40 00:03:05,920 --> 00:03:10,500 whole heap of computer power to solve the cryptographic puzzle. 41 00:03:11,780 --> 00:03:14,920 Back in the day, a miner could be one person on their laptop. 42 00:03:15,120 --> 00:03:18,900 But as the number of miners grew, the cryptographic puzzles became more 43 00:03:18,900 --> 00:03:21,820 difficult and a miner became its own type of computer. 44 00:03:23,470 --> 00:03:30,330 As the network has grown, the horsepower that sits behind the machines has 45 00:03:30,330 --> 00:03:35,150 evolved. Now, a miner is an individual machine. It runs automatically. 46 00:03:35,390 --> 00:03:40,510 And the current Bitcoin miners only do one job, and that is solve the Bitcoin 47 00:03:40,510 --> 00:03:44,670 cryptographic puzzles, which means that they can be more efficient in doing 48 00:03:44,670 --> 00:03:46,270 that. And they're powerful. 49 00:03:46,490 --> 00:03:51,810 Each machine consumes three kilowatts of electricity, far more than their 50 00:03:51,810 --> 00:03:52,810 average laptop. 51 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:58,200 I had a workshop here in Queenstown. 52 00:04:00,100 --> 00:04:02,420 I actually blew out the power in the block. 53 00:04:02,780 --> 00:04:06,100 I just plugged in too many machines and just zapped the whole area. 54 00:04:08,120 --> 00:04:11,280 I realized after a little while that mining is a bit of an arms race. 55 00:04:13,640 --> 00:04:17,200 I got out of it because I realized this is where the big boys are going to play. 56 00:04:17,769 --> 00:04:21,029 And who am I to just be blowing out the power grid here in Frankston, 57 00:04:21,070 --> 00:04:22,070 Queenstown, New Zealand? 58 00:04:24,450 --> 00:04:26,890 How big can mining operations get? 59 00:04:27,130 --> 00:04:32,870 Huge. There can be tens of thousands of machines at an individual site. 60 00:04:34,330 --> 00:04:39,570 But Bitcoin mining isn't guaranteed free money. It's become an industry where it 61 00:04:39,570 --> 00:04:43,570 can cost millions of dollars to buy the infrastructure to mine Bitcoin. 62 00:04:47,100 --> 00:04:52,080 Big public mines are using large quantities of energy. At the moment, 63 00:04:52,080 --> 00:04:55,680 somewhere between Christmas lights and tumble dries in terms of its global 64 00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:57,900 percentage of energy use, so it's relatively small. 65 00:04:58,860 --> 00:05:03,680 But these single operations, they will be consuming a lot of energy to be 66 00:05:03,680 --> 00:05:05,800 supporting and securitizing the Bitcoin network. 67 00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:12,400 It requires energy to securitize the entire network. 68 00:05:13,830 --> 00:05:17,870 What they're really doing is they're continuously keeping this network safe 69 00:05:17,870 --> 00:05:21,750 attack by validating the blocks in the blockchain. 70 00:05:22,810 --> 00:05:27,110 So once that block is added, it can't be altered, it can't be changed, and 71 00:05:27,110 --> 00:05:29,770 that's what gives blockchain or cryptocurrency its robustness. 72 00:05:30,390 --> 00:05:34,190 Once a transaction has been made, it can't be fraudulently changed in any 73 00:05:34,230 --> 00:05:35,270 It's fully trustworthy. 74 00:05:39,450 --> 00:05:40,450 OK. 75 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:42,660 Bitcoin mining sounds pretty important. 76 00:05:43,100 --> 00:05:45,320 Do other cryptocurrencies mine as well? 77 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:49,220 So you've got different types of blockchains and they can run on 78 00:05:49,220 --> 00:05:50,580 operating mechanisms. 79 00:05:50,940 --> 00:05:55,100 Ethereum mining was very similar to Bitcoin mining. They both relied on 80 00:05:55,100 --> 00:05:59,680 work. Proof of work is basically another way to describe mining and is the 81 00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:04,480 mechanism Bitcoin uses to verify transactions, which we know is a very 82 00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:07,000 job. but uses lots of electricity. 83 00:06:07,480 --> 00:06:12,900 You have the direct financial incentive to spend lots of electricity to earn 84 00:06:12,900 --> 00:06:14,240 Bitcoin or earn Ether. 85 00:06:14,460 --> 00:06:20,200 In September 2022, Ethereum pivoted from using proof -of -work to a new system 86 00:06:20,200 --> 00:06:21,200 called proof -of -stake. 87 00:06:21,520 --> 00:06:25,440 Proof -of -stake is basically a different way to verify transactions 88 00:06:25,440 --> 00:06:27,680 doesn't use anywhere near as much electricity. 89 00:06:28,120 --> 00:06:31,820 When Ethereum moved to proof -of -stake, it was a huge deal for the crypto 90 00:06:31,820 --> 00:06:33,380 community and the planet. 91 00:06:34,830 --> 00:06:36,950 When that switch happened, it was called the merge. 92 00:06:37,230 --> 00:06:41,750 And that has been years in the making. There was a strong desire for Ethereum 93 00:06:41,750 --> 00:06:44,810 move to a more environmentally friendly way of operating. 94 00:06:45,230 --> 00:06:48,870 With proof of stake, it really doesn't use that much more power than, say, a 95 00:06:48,870 --> 00:06:50,470 software application on your desktop. 96 00:06:50,730 --> 00:06:56,490 That resulted in a 99 .95 % reduction in energy usage for Ethereum transactions. 97 00:06:57,290 --> 00:06:58,410 Super impressive stuff. 98 00:06:59,150 --> 00:07:03,110 No other industry can make those kinds of claims right now that they're 99 00:07:03,110 --> 00:07:05,230 up their carbon footprint by that degree. 100 00:07:10,310 --> 00:07:15,150 There's been a lot of talk about how much energy Bitcoin mining uses, but is 101 00:07:15,150 --> 00:07:16,490 actually bad for the environment? 102 00:07:18,430 --> 00:07:25,370 There's been a lot of negative attention that Bitcoin mining has drawn when any 103 00:07:25,370 --> 00:07:27,590 industry has spotlight shone on it. 104 00:07:27,820 --> 00:07:30,780 That actually provides an inbuilt incentive to do the right thing. 105 00:07:32,820 --> 00:07:37,720 There's been quite a shift towards renewable energy for Bitcoin mining. 106 00:07:38,340 --> 00:07:42,840 The Bitcoin network uses around 60 % renewable energy, and that number is 107 00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:46,820 growing every year. Bitcoin mining, it's actually doing the opposite of what the 108 00:07:46,820 --> 00:07:50,600 media claim. It's actually encouraging people to find better, cleaner, cheaper 109 00:07:50,600 --> 00:07:52,460 ways to extract energy. 110 00:07:53,050 --> 00:07:56,910 It's actually the number one user of renewable and zero emission energy in 111 00:07:56,910 --> 00:07:59,750 world right now because it has more scrutiny on it. 112 00:08:02,610 --> 00:08:06,650 One of the incredible features of Bitcoin mining is the ability to use 113 00:08:06,650 --> 00:08:10,750 energy that otherwise no one could have used because the wrong time of day, 114 00:08:10,890 --> 00:08:12,910 wrong time of year or the wrong location. 115 00:08:14,170 --> 00:08:17,290 Methane emissions are a large problem we need to solve. There are multiple 116 00:08:17,290 --> 00:08:20,310 sources of methane emissions and they all need to be addressed. 117 00:08:22,780 --> 00:08:26,780 You've got all of this methane, which is not only an environmental hazard, but 118 00:08:26,780 --> 00:08:28,820 it's a tremendous source of wasted energy. 119 00:08:29,300 --> 00:08:32,860 A lot of the sources of that methane are remote. 120 00:08:33,100 --> 00:08:36,919 You can't convert it to electricity and put it into the grid because you're not 121 00:08:36,919 --> 00:08:38,280 necessarily near the grid. 122 00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:44,900 Bitcoin is a geography -independent buyer of energy, and we've never 123 00:08:44,900 --> 00:08:45,900 had that before. 124 00:08:46,080 --> 00:08:51,080 Generally speaking, we have to create energy near to population centers. 125 00:08:51,580 --> 00:08:53,660 That's not the case with Bitcoin. All you need is internet. 126 00:08:54,760 --> 00:09:00,600 You can take that methane, convert it to electricity through gas turbines, and 127 00:09:00,600 --> 00:09:03,440 then use that to power Bitcoin machines. 128 00:09:03,980 --> 00:09:08,820 The energy is 100 % contained within the one site. There's no grid 129 00:09:08,820 --> 00:09:10,560 infrastructure. There's no gas pipelines. 130 00:09:10,780 --> 00:09:12,720 It all happens at the source. 131 00:09:13,040 --> 00:09:15,380 And that's one of the beauties of Bitcoin mining. 132 00:09:16,400 --> 00:09:18,620 It doesn't care where it sits. 133 00:09:20,290 --> 00:09:24,930 Bitcoin miners have this unique capacity to be the dung beetle that solves this 134 00:09:24,930 --> 00:09:29,570 problem, stops it going into the atmosphere, stops that waste, and uses 135 00:09:29,570 --> 00:09:31,770 something which is incredibly valuable to humanity. 136 00:09:32,930 --> 00:09:38,170 Whoa, my mind is being blown here. How else can Bitcoin mining save the planet? 137 00:09:38,450 --> 00:09:43,050 The unique thing about Bitcoin mining is it's a flexible load, so it means we 138 00:09:43,050 --> 00:09:45,390 can actually act as a grid stabilizer. 139 00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:52,960 In a world where there's abundance of renewable energy, you need a mechanism 140 00:09:52,960 --> 00:09:57,860 manage the peaks and the troughs. And Bitcoin mining can be very useful at 141 00:09:59,680 --> 00:10:04,260 And that was really where our story with GridShare began. With that mindset, 142 00:10:04,560 --> 00:10:06,620 balance the grid, share the energy. 143 00:10:07,820 --> 00:10:12,420 Back in 2020, a couple of innovative Kiwis recognised the potential Bitcoin 144 00:10:12,420 --> 00:10:16,180 mining could play in the renewable energy industry in Aotearoa. 145 00:10:16,940 --> 00:10:23,260 My other two co -founders had the idea of using Bitcoin mining to help balance 146 00:10:23,260 --> 00:10:28,700 the grid. Craig has built wind farms and other renewable energy projects. 147 00:10:29,540 --> 00:10:35,380 Sam has come out of the power electronics space, so he worked for a 148 00:10:35,380 --> 00:10:37,100 designed solar inverters. 149 00:10:37,660 --> 00:10:42,440 A year later, Tom joins the team, adding his energy industry knowledge to the 150 00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:43,440 project. 151 00:10:45,550 --> 00:10:50,490 I studied civil engineering. I was an engineer for long enough to realise that 152 00:10:50,490 --> 00:10:52,910 didn't want to design retaining walls for the rest of my life. 153 00:10:53,670 --> 00:10:57,470 So I then transitioned to management consulting. 154 00:10:57,690 --> 00:11:01,790 I had a lot of different clients in and around the energy industry. 155 00:11:02,410 --> 00:11:06,050 That's what actually opened my eyes to some of the challenges that renewable 156 00:11:06,050 --> 00:11:07,050 energies have. 157 00:11:09,870 --> 00:11:12,370 Solar comes on in the middle of the day. 158 00:11:13,640 --> 00:11:17,680 The price is absolutely tank because there's too much energy going into the 159 00:11:17,680 --> 00:11:18,680 grid. 160 00:11:18,760 --> 00:11:23,360 At the end of the day, demand picks up because everyone's arriving back at 161 00:11:24,940 --> 00:11:30,340 So you have this rollercoaster every single day and that's a huge challenge 162 00:11:30,340 --> 00:11:34,840 renewable energy because they have no certainty how they sell their power, 163 00:11:34,840 --> 00:11:35,840 they sell their power to. 164 00:11:38,940 --> 00:11:41,980 New Zealand is abundant with renewable energy. 165 00:11:42,570 --> 00:11:47,310 But renewable energy, in terms of its flexibility to provide the stable 166 00:11:47,310 --> 00:11:49,610 operation for the grid, it's not really that flexible. 167 00:11:49,850 --> 00:11:53,050 Wind and solar, you can't really choose when it generates. 168 00:11:54,390 --> 00:11:59,330 In addition to basically matching supply and demand of power, grids need to 169 00:11:59,330 --> 00:12:01,430 maintain a certain level of frequency. 170 00:12:01,710 --> 00:12:02,850 It's 50 hertz. 171 00:12:03,290 --> 00:12:07,570 The grid operators have to really ensure that that does not deviate too much 172 00:12:07,570 --> 00:12:08,389 from that. 173 00:12:08,390 --> 00:12:11,450 If you're a grid operator, if you have blackout... 174 00:12:11,770 --> 00:12:13,130 You can lose billions of dollars. 175 00:12:13,650 --> 00:12:16,790 You can lose lives of people who are on life support. 176 00:12:18,130 --> 00:12:22,190 So their number one concern is to keep the grid stable. 177 00:12:23,310 --> 00:12:26,910 What changes frequency in a grid is changes in supply and demand. 178 00:12:27,270 --> 00:12:31,330 And so this is the big challenge with renewable energy because a cloud goes in 179 00:12:31,330 --> 00:12:37,490 front of the sun, a solar farm, for example, the supply cuts at that point. 180 00:12:37,490 --> 00:12:38,970 changes the frequency in the grid. 181 00:12:39,370 --> 00:12:43,930 and you have to be able to react very quickly to maintain the frequency at the 182 00:12:43,930 --> 00:12:44,930 right level. 183 00:12:45,330 --> 00:12:50,850 The main way that a lot of grid management currently is through fossil 184 00:12:51,330 --> 00:12:56,650 You take all the fossil fuel side away, you add more uncertainty from renewable 185 00:12:56,650 --> 00:13:01,230 energy, and then all of a sudden you do have a situation where the grid can 186 00:13:01,230 --> 00:13:02,230 become unstable. 187 00:13:03,180 --> 00:13:08,900 A Bitcoin mine can actually switch on and off very, very rapidly to be able to 188 00:13:08,900 --> 00:13:12,380 help balance some of the more technical elements to the grid management. 189 00:13:12,940 --> 00:13:18,300 Also, a Bitcoin mine can be located anywhere, and so that provides a huge 190 00:13:18,300 --> 00:13:19,300 of flexibility. 191 00:13:19,460 --> 00:13:26,040 Bitcoin mining can also really help renewable energy by buying their power 192 00:13:26,040 --> 00:13:27,640 no one else needs it. 193 00:13:28,680 --> 00:13:32,420 and really actually bolstering the business cases for a lot of renewable 194 00:13:32,420 --> 00:13:33,420 funds. 195 00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:39,220 The GridShare team could see that with the abundance of renewable energy in New 196 00:13:39,220 --> 00:13:43,520 Zealand, Bitcoin mining could be a huge support to the industry and grid 197 00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:46,020 stability. So they took their first steps. 198 00:13:46,400 --> 00:13:49,940 Okay, well, how do we actually start a business? Well, we need a power contract 199 00:13:49,940 --> 00:13:51,940 and we need a location and then we need investment. 200 00:13:53,700 --> 00:13:56,400 So I picked up the phone and called many, many people. 201 00:13:57,770 --> 00:14:01,090 The bias was, well, you guys are just Bitcoin miners. 202 00:14:02,350 --> 00:14:07,310 There's quite a lot of nervousness with it being linked to cryptocurrency. Some 203 00:14:07,310 --> 00:14:09,630 people just won't entertain the subject. 204 00:14:10,750 --> 00:14:13,210 There were some skepticism along the way, for sure. 205 00:14:14,390 --> 00:14:19,810 I had to then convince them of what we were trying to achieve, and so that was 206 00:14:19,810 --> 00:14:20,609 hard slog. 207 00:14:20,610 --> 00:14:25,770 I called energy companies, I called network companies, private people that 208 00:14:25,770 --> 00:14:26,930 thinking about building energy. 209 00:14:30,199 --> 00:14:35,860 Eventually, a CFO of a large energy company in New Zealand did pick up my 210 00:14:35,860 --> 00:14:37,100 and was keen to take it further. 211 00:14:42,880 --> 00:14:47,020 I cold -called the CFO even in the first conversation. 212 00:14:47,320 --> 00:14:48,560 I didn't mention Bitcoin mining. 213 00:14:49,300 --> 00:14:54,700 You never really know how people are going to react, but he got onto it very 214 00:14:54,700 --> 00:14:56,940 quickly. He's like, you're talking about Bitcoin mining, aren't you? 215 00:15:00,330 --> 00:15:05,290 Really what we proposed to him was to build a data centre at one of his energy 216 00:15:05,290 --> 00:15:12,090 sites and that data centre would buy power directly from their energy 217 00:15:12,090 --> 00:15:17,090 site but would also switch off when the power was needed on the grid. 218 00:15:18,690 --> 00:15:20,190 They loved the concept. 219 00:15:22,330 --> 00:15:25,230 The next step was to decide the best location. 220 00:15:26,410 --> 00:15:30,970 We discussed several different sites, and there were several things to 221 00:15:31,090 --> 00:15:35,390 One was land, to put the containers and the infrastructure away from the local 222 00:15:35,390 --> 00:15:37,390 communities as well. It does make a little bit of noise. 223 00:15:37,770 --> 00:15:41,970 And internet connection, having good connectivity to power the mining. 224 00:15:42,290 --> 00:15:46,850 A remote site in Southland ticked all the boxes and was given the green light. 225 00:15:49,850 --> 00:15:54,230 The dam itself, the hydro, is about several kilometres back upstream. 226 00:15:55,120 --> 00:16:00,280 And it's diverted over the land and actually comes all the way up here and 227 00:16:00,280 --> 00:16:05,820 down those pipes there. And basically the falling motion or the flowing water 228 00:16:05,820 --> 00:16:08,580 spins the turbines and that creates electricity. 229 00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:14,940 There's cables underground and that flows back up the hill and into the 230 00:16:14,940 --> 00:16:17,900 substation, which converts it to power to go onto the grid. 231 00:16:18,540 --> 00:16:23,460 I put two megawatts of power on the table. Two megawatts of power is... 232 00:16:23,770 --> 00:16:27,930 Still relatively small, but it's far larger than, like, you would plug into 233 00:16:27,930 --> 00:16:31,070 house or even into a decent -sized commercial building. 234 00:16:32,770 --> 00:16:37,870 Throughout the build, there was a bunch of stressful moments. We were trying to 235 00:16:37,870 --> 00:16:39,830 construct this during COVID. 236 00:16:40,250 --> 00:16:46,910 We had infrastructure that was coming from various parts of the world as well 237 00:16:46,910 --> 00:16:49,870 locally here in New Zealand, which kept them getting delayed. 238 00:16:51,350 --> 00:16:53,110 It was a pretty big gamble, I think. 239 00:16:53,640 --> 00:16:58,340 Although I believed in the vision, I knew the economics pretty well. I knew 240 00:16:58,340 --> 00:17:00,040 downside risks pretty well. 241 00:17:00,460 --> 00:17:02,420 And I put a bunch of money into this. 242 00:17:03,620 --> 00:17:07,160 Some days I would wake up, how are we going to make this work? Where am I 243 00:17:07,160 --> 00:17:08,180 to find the investment from? 244 00:17:08,500 --> 00:17:10,099 Are we going to deliver the project? 245 00:17:12,560 --> 00:17:16,660 Personally, there were lots of things that were going through my head. I have 246 00:17:16,660 --> 00:17:17,660 two young kids. 247 00:17:17,680 --> 00:17:22,760 sort of up and leave a decent job to attempt a start -up in the 248 00:17:22,760 --> 00:17:24,339 energy business. 249 00:17:24,599 --> 00:17:26,920 I always joke around that that's sort of my midlife crisis. 250 00:17:28,400 --> 00:17:31,300 We ran into lots of challenges along the way. 251 00:17:31,580 --> 00:17:35,100 The power station is about 100 years old. It's very remote. 252 00:17:37,320 --> 00:17:42,480 There's three sets of infrastructure, so we had to essentially build and install 253 00:17:42,480 --> 00:17:44,260 all the infrastructure to get the power. 254 00:17:44,890 --> 00:17:47,170 from the power station into the miners. 255 00:17:47,990 --> 00:17:50,090 The second set was the actual containers. 256 00:17:51,170 --> 00:17:54,370 And then the third set of infrastructure were the miners themselves. 257 00:17:55,190 --> 00:18:00,130 We fit about 200 machines into a container, so it's about three 258 00:18:00,130 --> 00:18:02,430 to power two megawatts. 259 00:18:02,930 --> 00:18:05,850 When we switched it on, it was a pretty big relief, actually. 260 00:18:06,450 --> 00:18:09,430 We have remote controls for the operation. 261 00:18:09,650 --> 00:18:11,670 We can control the data centres remotely. 262 00:18:12,440 --> 00:18:16,700 So I monitored the phone app pretty much continuously for the next 24 hours, 263 00:18:16,740 --> 00:18:19,920 making sure that nothing was going to fall over. That since calmed down a 264 00:18:19,920 --> 00:18:20,919 bit. 265 00:18:20,920 --> 00:18:25,280 The actual mechanism of the mining is really straightforward. 266 00:18:25,600 --> 00:18:29,940 The computer servers are running. We get Bitcoin paid into a digital wallet 267 00:18:29,940 --> 00:18:35,180 every day. We basically then sell that every day for New Zealand dollars. 268 00:18:35,660 --> 00:18:38,580 We don't hold Bitcoin for any length of time. 269 00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:43,460 So the money that we earn goes to paying the power bill and then the rest of 270 00:18:43,460 --> 00:18:47,560 it's just running the business, paying salaries, insurance, other things that a 271 00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:48,560 regular business does. 272 00:18:48,860 --> 00:18:54,360 We had a lot of feedback after going live and so we went and had a meeting 273 00:18:54,360 --> 00:18:59,660 the locals, explained the vision, explained that we're just three Kiwi 274 00:18:59,760 --> 00:19:04,620 we're not some nefarious international conglomerate sort of thing and actually 275 00:19:04,620 --> 00:19:05,620 had a really good outcome. 276 00:19:06,600 --> 00:19:11,700 You know, I think we're quite a big benefit to the generator here. We do 277 00:19:11,700 --> 00:19:13,960 about a third of the capacity of the power station. 278 00:19:14,340 --> 00:19:19,920 However, we can switch off within a moment's notice. And so if there is 279 00:19:19,920 --> 00:19:24,300 required on the grid, we switch off. That power goes into the grid when it's 280 00:19:24,300 --> 00:19:25,300 needed. 281 00:19:27,980 --> 00:19:32,440 Pretty proud, actually, of what we've done so far. We've only been doing this 282 00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:36,760 for a couple of years, and so I think we've come quite a long way in that 283 00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:38,480 Was it stressful? 284 00:19:38,620 --> 00:19:40,960 Yes. It was very stressful. 285 00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:45,980 We're a start -up. We've got family and friends, investment money that has 286 00:19:45,980 --> 00:19:49,960 basically built this. We still don't have much money. So, yeah, every day I 287 00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:53,640 challenge myself on why I did this, but I think it's a success. 288 00:19:57,070 --> 00:20:02,350 I definitely don't think Satoshi had the energy -useful Bitcoin in mind when 289 00:20:02,350 --> 00:20:07,430 they wrote the white paper, but that's another evolution of Bitcoin, right, 290 00:20:07,490 --> 00:20:10,910 which is the ability to help us transition to a more renewable world. 291 00:20:16,590 --> 00:20:21,570 I do believe that Bitcoin mining could revolutionise the energy industry. 292 00:20:22,780 --> 00:20:27,240 So much so that in something like 10 years, you might not build a renewable 293 00:20:27,240 --> 00:20:29,080 energy site without a Bitcoin mine. 294 00:20:38,540 --> 00:20:42,860 We profile some of New Zealand's most innovative projects in the crypto space. 295 00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:48,740 How might technology give us a way to create a system that looks like a, felt 296 00:20:48,740 --> 00:20:50,420 like a, spoke like a... 297 00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:55,700 We meet one of Altiero's pioneers using crypto to elevate community. 298 00:20:56,560 --> 00:21:00,160 Decentralization can empower people, give them more choice around their own 299 00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:01,160 destiny. 300 00:21:01,180 --> 00:21:06,140 And find out how NFTs can allow us to own our own artificial intelligence. 301 00:21:06,660 --> 00:21:12,060 We wanted a way to empower people to take more control and ownership of AIs. 302 00:21:12,380 --> 00:21:17,300 The avatars themselves, the players, they're NFTs and the brains are NFTs.