{ "episodeId": "SLP253", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream": { "name": "Samson Mow CSO of Blockstream", "role": "guest", "tag": "SAMSON" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:09", "start": 9.25, "text": "Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast. Today for episode two hundred and fifty-three, Samson Mow, the CSO of Blockstream, rejoins me on the show and we talk about a range of things. They have a new hardware wallet called Blockstream Jade, so I wanted to talk about that, as well as updates on their Liquid platform and what's going on there, as well as Blockstream mining. And just Bitcoin mining in general. This show brought to you by swanbitcoin dot com, the service by Bitcoiners for Bitcoiners. It's really easy and fast to sign up, they have really cheap fees, it's really-- the focus is on education. So you wanna make sure you send your friends and family there to swanbitcoin dot com. You can create a recurring purchase plan or you can make one time buys. They offer bank wires for larger amounts or ACH transfers for smaller one time buys. They're available in In all states and territories of the US, and I believe they're the best place to send your friends and family when they are ready to start buying Bitcoin. Send them to swanbitcoin dot com slash livera, and Swan will drop ten dollars of free Bitcoin in their account when they become a member. Unchained Capital are providing Bitcoin native financial services and multi-signature vaults. So if you are seeing the price of Bitcoin rise and you are now starting to think more about your security, well, why don't you think about a multi-sig vault with Unchained? You can Buy two hardware wallets and go and set it up for free on their website, on their platform. Or on the other hand, if you need the white glove treatment and you need some assistance, they offer a concierge service, so they will ship you some hardware wallets, they'll answer your questions, they'll do the calls with you, and deposit a thousand dollars of Bitcoin in your vault. Now, normally that's fifteen hundred dollars, but you get fifty dollars off for using the code Livera. Unchained Capital are great for also those of you interested in setting up a business account, they've got a A lot of informative and educational content as well, so you can go and check that out at unchained-dash-capital dot com. Compass is an online marketplace which makes it easier for everyone to mine Bitcoin and enhance the Bitcoin network's security. The anti-cloud mining option, Compass helps you buy your own ASIC and secure hosting at great facilities around the world. For years, we have all heard that mining is only profitable if you're investing tons of money, but now with Compass, everyone is able to tap into economies of scale and access reasonable- Priced hardware and cheap industrial power rates, and if you're unsure about how to get started with mining Bitcoin, Compu offers hardware and hosting bundles which eliminates the need for advanced technical knowledge and allows you to quickly get started mining Bitcoin with hardware you own. Visit them at mine with compass dot com and start mining Bitcoin today. Onto the show. Samson, welcome back to the show. Thanks, Stefan. It's great to be back. So, Samson, it's been a while since we've spoken and there's been a lot of stuff going on with Blockstream and Bitcoin as an industry, so, I guess let's just, hear from you a little bit. What's, kind of the latest with Blockstream and with what you're doing in the, in the Bitcoin world?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "03:10", "start": 190.1, "text": "lots of stuff. we've been busy building out, more liquid network usage and adoption, getting more people onboarded, getting more exchanges onboarded. as you know, we've launched Jade, a new, new hardware wallet from Blockstream. we continue our mining expansion. You know, just, just the usual." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:31", "start": 210.78, "text": "Yeah, that's so much, there's so much going on, and obviously it's kind of crazy. So just for listeners, this, we are recording seventeenth of February, Wednesday, and, so just last night we kind of touched over fifty thousand as well, so there was a lot of excitement over that also. but, certainly a lot more newbie people coming into the space, and they're looking for ways to learn how to custody. So I'm actually quite excited about Blockstream Jade, so maybe we should chat a little bit about that. I've, I've ordered With all the COVID stuff, there's been some, you know, delays in the shipping and stuff like that. I don't, not on, not on the Blockstream side, I think it's on the, postal side. But anyway, tell us a little bit about Blockstream Jade." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "04:11", "start": 250.94, "text": "Yeah, so Blockstream Jade is a hardware wallet that we released, maybe a month or so ago, and it's completely open source, so open source hardware and open source software. And the idea is that, you know, you could build your own if you wanted to. So it runs" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "04:31", "start": 270.7, "text": "And potentially other devices too. So you're not constrained to just buying it from Blockstream, you could order parts yourself, build it yourself, and this mitigates some of that supply chain risk. But I think a bigger driver for us to build this is just because we wanted more hardware wallet support for Liquid and Liquid assets. So the easiest way for us to do that was to build our own, and Lawrence Nahum, our chief architect, was tinkering around in his spare time, and I think this is- A year or so ago and said, \"You know, I could probably make something, really quickly.\" It took a bit longer than we thought, but still, it was pretty quick relative to, most hardware wallet development, I think, and we got it to market, and I think people are very excited to see this." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:17", "start": 316.78, "text": "One thing I really like is that it comes at a really cheap price point, so I think it's about forty US dollars. So how'd you get it that cheap? And, tell us a little bit about that." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "05:26", "start": 326.42, "text": "Yeah, so we want it to be very accessible, so I think it's thirty-nine ninety-nine, that's the introductory price. it might go up a bit in the future for our next batch, but, you know, we want to, we want a hardware wallet that is very accessible to the market, and we want to, get more people using hardware wallets Personally, I think it's better for security, and in that case, you want people to buy a couple of them, maybe three or more, and have their own custom multisig, setups down the road. So that's kind of why we wanted to price it to and make it accessible, but, you know, this isn't a primary business line for us at Blockstream. It's more about, you know, getting more adoption of Harbor Wallet usage and more Liquid, usage too. So that's why it's priced pretty competitively. We just intentionally- Wanted to make it very accessible for people." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:20", "start": 379.72, "text": "Yeah, that's certainly a great, objective that I'm supportive of. I think that's a really cool thing to see because you get a lot of new people coming into the space and they might balk at the cost of the more, some of the larger, well-known hardware wallet prices. Now, obviously, there's a trade-off here in terms of security, so let's be clear about that. But for some, I could see this being a great first hardware wallet for people, and then potentially they could even, once, you know- Things move down the line, they might then start looking at multi-signature and have Blockstream Jade as part of their multi-seq quorum. Exactly." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "06:54", "start": 414.04, "text": "Also, it's our first hardware wallet, so we didn't want to set a high price and set expectations really high. We thought it's better, you know, we go up close to cost and see how the market reacts, because, you know, it is our first one. It's not, it doesn't have all the features we want rolled out quite yet. We're going to be basically building out as we go. this week, if you're releasing the pod this week, we'll actually release support for desktop, yeah, and then, BLE on iOS is coming maybe in a couple weeks after that, and then hopefully we'll get the camera working. So it's not like it's perfectly ready to go, it's going to be, iterative, iterative process, and we're going to roll features out gradually. So that's also another consideration for the price point." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:42", "start": 461.62, "text": "Yep. And so at this price point as well, it, it doesn't, you know, it's not gonna have like a secure element and things like that, but I think as long as you're kind of open about that and it might- Still be superior for the newbie who's just bought, you know, their first, you know, maybe a couple hundred dollars worth of Bitcoin off the exchange and maybe they wanna start their journey of self-custody and this, I think, probably a great spot for them to start, right?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "08:07", "start": 486.56, "text": "Yeah, definitely. we do have a, a PIN server, so in, in a way there is something, that acts like a secure element. So if you enter the wrong PIN a couple times, then you'll be locked out and you'll need to, you know, restore from your seed. So there is that extra layer of security, even though there is no secure element, but, you know, it's cool to have secure elements, I think." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:28", "start": 507.66, "text": "Yeah, fantastic. And so, in terms of using the device, as you mentioned, desktop support is coming very soon, iPhone support is coming soon. So for now, does that mean it is Android only and basically a USB-C cable to plug directly to your Android phone and using Blockstream Green, the wallet, is that how we use it right now?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "08:49", "start": 528.86, "text": "Correct. So the limitation right now is just Android, and it, there is a little bit of clunkiness when you switch between Bitcoin and the Liquid network, but all these things will iron them out and, improve over time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "09:02", "start": 542.09, "text": "Excellent. Yeah. So I'm, I'm looking forward to getting mine. I'm obviously keen to give it a try and, you know, try it out in practice. and also, I think the other easy part is that it, if, if we're getting desktop support quite soon, I know Green came out with desktop," }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "09:19", "start": 559.3, "text": "Yeah, so, I think Green first started out, mainly like a, a web app, and then it migrated into mobile apps primarily, and, we, we've always had a, a desktop support for it, for quite some time, but we're adding more resources behind the, desktop client, so that's pretty powerful. It allows you to create multiple wallets, if you're familiar with the mobile version, it's just one wallet per network, but on desktop you can have multiple. Wallets, and you can easily navigate between Bitcoin wallets and Liquid wallets and even Testnet wallets as well. So I think it's pretty handy once we get support for Jade, because you'll be able to secure all those, with your Harbor wallet now." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:03", "start": 602.66, "text": "Oh, that's cool. and can you tell us a little bit about, I'm not sure how familiar you are kind of with the deep, maybe we're going into the tech, the technicals of Green, but, I know there was a change recently around, I think it was CSV instead of, so Green has a two of two? Can you tell us a little bit about that setup and what that, you know, what that's mo-changing into?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "10:24", "start": 623.83, "text": "Yeah, so, previously, before CSV, you had to get a backup file in case like the green service goes away, to recover your Bitcoin. But with CSV, then you can basically set up another address where it, if it times out, it'll be retrievable through that address. So it's just a way to make, people less reliant on us as the service provider, and I think it's more elegant too, because then you don't have to give your email address. to, to get your backups or anything like that, you just create your, CSV setup and you're gun-- you're done." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:02", "start": 661.6, "text": "Right, I understand. And in fairness, it's one of those things where maybe for a new Bitcoin user, they're not as focused on the privacy and they're still learning, and whereas, you know, maybe the more hardcore Bitcoin Twitter guys are more like, \"No, I want full privacy, I don't wanna have to give my email, I wanna be able to recover on my own, et cetera.\" But I think it's all part" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:24", "start": 684.03, "text": "You know, find ways that, you know, people can choose what they want, and so certainly it's a good thing you're giving, that possibility, as an option now. So can you tell us a little bit about the new setup now with the CSV? so I guess first of all, for anyone who doesn't know, what's CSV and how are you incorporating that?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "11:41", "start": 701.14, "text": "well, CSP is Check Sequence Verify, but I, I don't know how good I can explain technical, so maybe we can, we can skip that, we can skip past that, yeah, sure. I can talk a bit more about, the, the- The two of two actually. Sure, let's do that. Okay. So Green also is a, a two of two multisig, you can also do a two of three, but typically when you first set up a wallet, it's defaulting to two of two, where Blockstream is one of the signers. some people don't like that, so we're actually working on, single sig as well. So if you saw maybe a couple months ago, we launched Blockstream, Aqua, or just the Aqua wallet actually, and that is a single sig You have the capability to do single sig and that will be coming out in Green hopefully in the next couple months. And then you're not reliant on Blockstream at all. You set up a single sig wallet and, you know, you're done. But, right now, typically it defaults to two of two and, you know, you have to rely on us, and that's one of the reasons why CSV is useful because it, it reduces that reliance on Blockstream as the service provider." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:47", "start": 766.84, "text": "Gotcha. and, I haven't checked this recently, but in terms of the ability to use Green with your own Bitcoin node, is that something planned or is that possible at the moment or is it currently, it's all com- it's all going back to the Blockstream node? Currently it's all Blockstream node," }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "13:04", "start": 783.5, "text": "but if you, look at Aqua, if you look at the code, it's actually, using Electrum backend, so potentially later on you can switch it to, to use different backends, but we'll have to see." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:17", "start": 796.69, "text": "Yeah, of course, of course. And look, a-at the same time, I, I don't wanna like, impose this incredibly high, you know, requirement on everyone, like, because at the same time, you have to consider who's the user, who's the typical person who is gonna be using this, and is it better for them to just have a nice, easy user interface to, you know, start on their journey, of course. and I, I'm also excited to see what's coming. I think you, you've mentioned, and I UI and, partially signed Bitcoin transactions coming, and then, also have QR code support. So can you tell us a little bit about, what you're hoping to achieve with the QR code support there?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "13:58", "start": 838.32, "text": "Yeah, so a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff in development. there's always more work than there is time to do it. I mean, we still need to finish Aqua Android, but, you know, one thing at a time. with the-- So if you notice with Jade, there is actually a camera on it," }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "14:16", "start": 856.37, "text": "port, QR code. So you could do, complete air gap signing just by using the camera and QR codes. we'll probably need to do something like an animated QR code, just because there's a lot of data in, liquid transactions ex-uh, specifically, and also because of the screen size too. so maybe the resolution may not be high enough, but this is still stuff, Lawrence is working on. but the idea is that you'd have this like animated QR code that would- Scroll through, I don't know, maybe a couple screens of QR codes, and then that would be your transaction. So you could broadcast that without ever having to connect your device, and you could potentially use it with, say, Blockstream Info, because you can broadcast a transaction over Blockstream Info, a raw transaction. So you could also do the same, like scan the QR code from your device and send it through, Blockstream Info." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:11", "start": 911.26, "text": "that's a very cool function as well. So the way I'm thinking about that is if people are currently concerned Concerned about broadcasting a transaction from their own internet, and if it's broadcast off their own IP, well then usually IP addresses are a little easier to trace back down to who was the person who paid for that IP service. Whereas if in the Bitcoin world, the transaction can be, you know, composed and signed and, then it's ready in the form of that, I, I'm not sure the correct technical term, but I think it's a transaction hex or that info that you could then, you're saying you could get Blockstream- Got info to be the one to broadcast that transaction." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "15:49", "start": 949.21, "text": "Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:50", "start": 949.59, "text": "exactly. Yeah, that's really cool. I'm excited to sort of see some of these things come and, and also that is, aligned with the approach I've seen some of the other hardware wallets take. So for example, Specter, DIY, and Kobo Vault, who are also doing QR codes, and I know with, say, Specter Desktop, they, they've got the animated QR code thing going. I know, Chris, Christopher Allen from Blockchain Commerce Comments has been, did some of the work around some of that QR code stuff, so that's really exciting to see, yeah. and kind of this whole enabling this future of being able to do all these different things together, and, also we've got a chat, which, we've got to chat a little bit about, Liquid, obviously. So, I guess we'll start with the Blockstream Jade component of that, because this is now another way that people can hold, if they want to, some LBTC or perhaps, some Liquid" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "16:46", "start": 1006.41, "text": "Funny note, I'm actually holding a Specter DIY in my hand. Nice. I just got a shipment from Moritz, so timing to mention that was perfect." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:54", "start": 1014.27, "text": "Yeah, I mean, it's really cool. I've had to play around with that and I'm kind of excited to see what comes over, over the course of this next, call it, six to twelve months. I think there's gonna be a lot of development in the multi-signature space. There's, there's talk about the multi-- a new multi-signature standard to get all the different wallets to talk to each other in a goes and, see kind of the potential, and, you know, I could see Blockstream Jade being a part of people's multisig quorums, let's say, in that example. but yeah, I guess in the liquid case, this might help people who need to do, you know, exchange arbitrage, they need to send liquid, and they, they need some way to self-custody their tether, their, their, their tether, or their liquid bitcoins, correct?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "17:40", "start": 1060.49, "text": "Yeah, that's right. So, someone just posted today, James, I can't pronounce his last name, James Vigiano, and he's talking about, you know, taking funds off of exchange and, you know, only moving it, moving extra funds onto exchange when there is a margin call or, you know, when you're getting close to liquidation or something like that. Yeah. So there, there, there is a good use case here because, he even identified it, which is, Liquid Bitcoin isn't at risk of, A single custodian, right? If you put your funds on one exchange, they're on one exchange, whereas LPDC, you could, you could convert back to Bitcoin through any number of, liquid members, so you, you minimize that risk of having just one group or one party in charge of your coins. So with, Jade, then you have hardware wallet support, so you could have Green Desktop, move, large amounts of, Liquid USDT onto Green, secured with Jade. And And you don't have to worry it so much. You can technically do that already now with just, two-factor authentication, but I think having that hardware component will put people more at ease to transact and hold large amounts on, you" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:52", "start": 1132.04, "text": "know, their computers. Correct, right? Because I guess they might be concerned, oh, it's a big hot wallet risk, I want something that's like an offline device, et cetera. and it, it can also, like you mentioned, have the whole liquidation, use case. So in the case You know, you've got, you know, you need to pay back, you say you, you put up some bitcoins and now you need to pay back stablecoins. Well, this could also be another way that helps you facilitate that process of holding your liquid USDT and, you know, do the transactions there. So I can sort of see a use case there for people who, you know, need some kind of bridging between the fiat world and the Bitcoin world. Obviously, you and I would love to just be 100% in the Bitcoin world, but, Now, I think we still need ways to try to minimize some of the trust in the fiat system, kind of, but I guess, you know, that's maybe a debatable point, right? Because someone could say, \"Oh, but what about Tether? Blah, blah, blah.\" but, you know, that's, I guess, that's, something to think about, and I guess, yeah. I mean, have you got any comments on that or do you wanna-- Maybe we can chat a little bit about Liquid as well," }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "20:01", "start": 1201.12, "text": "just" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "20:10", "start": 1210.27, "text": "In the world still, and, you know, we need to suck all that fiat into Bitcoin, and it's going to be a gradual process over the, the next, I don't know, hundred years. And there will be trading, so there is a very practical use case for stablecoins and a need for stablecoins. You can't really trade Bitcoin for Bitcoin. So, services like you mentioned, Hodo Hodo, they, they're very useful when you want to, Buy, trade, or even, I think you can borrow and lend now, and they've set, Liquid USDT as their default. So I think with the hardware wallet with Jade, it'll help accelerate that trend. And just today, I think we saw fifty-five million dollars of, Bitcoin pegged into the Liquid network. So I think this is the trajectory we're going in, having this, improved way to transact and trade with, privacy through confidential transactions and even having stablecoins, confidential as well through co- Financial assets." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:08", "start": 1268.19, "text": "Yeah, so as you mentioned, I checked on, our friend Clark Moody's dashboard and I see that there are now over twenty-eight hundred BTC locked in to the Liquid Network or pegged in to the Liquid Network. So, do you have any comments there just around how Liquid is growing and, you know, what it's looking like these days? Yeah, I mean," }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "21:26", "start": 1286.19, "text": "the, the growth of Liquid is pretty much in line with the, the growth of Bitcoin if you look at historically. we're doing, probably under a thousand thousand or around a thousand transactions a day, at least when I checked last, but that's, almost the same as Bitcoin when Bitcoin was about two years old. So I think a lot of people forget, but Liquid is only about two years old, so it's still very young and it's not going to happen overnight, but it is, superior technology compared to a lot of other chains out there if you want to transact Bitcoin and you want to transact, stablecoins. It's just designed for financial transactions with improved privacy and you don't have that With other networks that transact stablecoins at this time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:09", "start": 1329.41, "text": "I'm also curious, so the idea is that Liquid isn't, I mean, it is, I guess, created by Blockstream, but I think, I guess, longer term, the hope is that it becomes more like its own network and supported by a range of other, providers and suppliers, wouldn't you say?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "22:27", "start": 1346.71, "text": "Yeah. So, you know, when, when Liquid launched, it's basically me picking people and selecting the members, like, who would be the fifteen functionaries that have the, the hard- Hardware, but now we have in place a governance board or several governance boards. We have an oversight board which is in charge of, you know, general governance and management. We have a membership board that vets new members to the network, who will get a functionary box down the road. So just if you don't know, a functionary box is, basically a, a one U server that extends the Liquid blockchain. So they're distributed all around the world. You can think of them like miners, of the Liquid network. But, you know, we also- We also have a technology board that helps us drive our roadmap, what we develop and bug fixes and everything like that. So the, the management of Liquid is pretty much out of our hands now. We're like the, service provider that provides, tech support to this federation." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:25", "start": 1405.38, "text": "I see, yeah. And it's one of those things where I see on Twitter sometimes you see some of that discussion and you see, obviously people have strong opinions in the Twitter world, but you see some of these debates going back and forth. Forth about no, Lightning for inter-exchange settlement and no, Liquid for inter-exchange settlement. Now, personally, I'm a fan of both for that case, and I, I, I wonder what your views are on that. And is it sort of like, maybe one way to think of it is like, for small transfers, Liquid is faster, but for high-value transfers, Liquid makes more sense in those cases. how are you thinking about that?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "24:00", "start": 1440.43, "text": "Well, I, I think you mean for small transfers, Lightning is better. Sorry, yes. Right? For large ones, yes. That's the general case, because for Lightning, you have to open up a, a channel, you have to have, liquidity in the channels. It doesn't make sense to transact large amounts through Lightning, even though it can be done. I, I just can't see it happening. There's just too much risk, there's too much hot wallet risk. Whereas with Liquid, the exchanges can effectively operate as they do with Bitcoin, they can have cold storage for LPTC, warm and hot wallets, and you're not constrained by- By, worrying about liquidity, you know, you can send, a thousand bitcoins from, BTC Turk to Bitfinex using L-BTC, and there's no worries about having enough capacity. So, I, I think there's a place for both, and I think both are great. Lightning improves privacy, Liquid improves privacy, you know, I think Lightning makes sense for smaller transactions, and it's great that exchanges are stepping up and integrating, so OKCoin, OKX has now supported it, and, you know, that's a good thing because it- Let's people, you know, transact small amounts onto exchange. But I think if you're moving large chunks of, of Bitcoin, then Liquid is the better way to do it. And Liquid also has support for stable coins too. So you, right now, you don't, you can't transact, Tether on Lightning. I think, Paolo is trying to get RGB going, but that's still a ways out. But currently, you can do LPTC and Liquid USDT, and it's going to be more reliable, faster, and Cheaper than a lot of other methods out there." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:39", "start": 1539.11, "text": "Right. And so, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense to me. I suppose the, the Lightning Maxi argument on this would be something like, \"Oh, but see, Lightning is so much faster because Liquid has the one minute block times.\" But I think there's one point I think we have to remember here, which is that, okay, so imagine you're a trader trying to arbitrage across exchange A to exchange B, and so at this moment that there is a mispricing, you would also have to make Capacity. And so maybe you could say, \"Oh, okay, fine, they would have a private Lightning network between the exchanges, and they would just have, you know, huge channels.\" But even then, you know, there's a capital cost to that, and I think it's also-- it might be the case that the channels would get, what's the word, like, extinguished or in terms of the capacity would be exhausted at the precise moment that the trader needs it to go that way, right? What do you think?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "26:31", "start": 1591.09, "text": "Yeah, pretty much. Like, you can exhaust the channel if it" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "26:37", "start": 1596.99, "text": "You know, it, it's good because it's good for people moving small amounts, then you don't have to do a main chain transaction. But there is an upper bound to the practicality of using Lightning. And, you know, sometimes people critique Blockstream and say, \"Oh, you guys are anti-Lightning, and you're, you're fighting Lightning.\" But they forget that we work on c-Lightning, which is one of the main Lightning implementations. So it, it's just kind of funny watching that happen. We think, there is a place for everything, but use" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "27:08", "start": 1627.95, "text": "Of course, yeah, and, yeah, so certainly listeners who are maybe if you're newer, just make sure, yeah, make sure you're aware that Blockstream is also contributing to c-Lightning and, you know, Rusty and Christian Decker and Lisa, some of the, you know, they're contributing at the protocol level of the Lightning Network as well. So it's not like Blockstream is only pushing Liquid, they are pushing both, Lightning and Liquid. but, yeah. Yes. Thank you. Just so that's clear. But I mean, just, I think all my longtime listeners know that, but I think some of the newer ones are, that might not be so clear to them. so, I mean, we have seen, a bunch of exchanges recently either open up Lightning support or commit publicly to say, \"Yes, we're gonna have Lightning support.\" So I know Kraken have done this, OKCoin, as you mentioned, have committed to this, Bitfinex have had it for a long time Exchanges." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "28:01", "start": 1680.59, "text": "I can't think of any, the big ones, as you mentioned, are Kraken and OKCoin, and, you know, I think a lot of people are also pressuring Kraken to support Liquid. I, I know internally we've talked to a lot of people there and a lot of people think, \"Yeah, we should do that,\" but, you know, we're actively engaging to see when that could happen. But I think it'll benefit a lot of people. the guys at BTC Turk, that's the, the biggest exchange in Turkey So Kraken users and they want to arb that market and they, they really want to, Kraken to support Liquid. So we facilitated a call and we'll see where that's going, but hopefully, you know, they will support it and OKCoin will support it too. And it's all, it's all to facilitate the cause of hyperbitcoinization, so it's all for a good cause." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:49", "start": 1729.02, "text": "Of course, that's right. and I wonder as well, I mean, in your place in the industry, obviously you're very well connected and you've got a good insight into what During twenty seventeen, during the crazy bull run, we saw a lot of demand on chain. Now, could be, could be argued that there was, you know, a spam attack ongoing, but I'm sure a lot of that was also just legitimate people trying to transact on chain. So I'm wondering, what's your view this time around? Let's say over the next, call it six months or even twelve months, do you see it like we're at a level now where enough people have Lightning and Liquid and that, you know, maybe that will have an impact on the, fees or" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "29:30", "start": 1769.68, "text": "I think there will be some impact, but, we need a couple more big exchanges to support Liquid. actually, not the, like, a lot of them already support Liquid or are members of Liquid, like Okcoin is a member, but we just need them to integrate and expose it to their users, and that should help, because I think a lot of inter-exchange transfers or even to derivative exchanges like Deribit or BitMEX, that is what drives up the fees, because, you know, if you're moving large amounts of Bitcoin, you don't really If you're paying a hundred dollar fee or a couple hundred dollar fee at that, for that matter, because you just want it to move quickly, and that generally will drive up fees for the average user. So the, the more the exchanges can support Liquid and to a lesser extent Lightning, then the better it is for everyone, that you're reducing the stress on the main chain for these transactions. Like right now, I think Bitcoin transactions are, well, I think a couple days ago at least, were over a hundred sats per vbyte, right? And that's It's pretty pricey, even liquid transactions are getting up there. It's like, twenty, almost twenty cents per transaction now. So, you know, down the road, if we believe that, Bitcoin is going to keep going up in value, like as we're talking right now, it's like hovering around fifty K and it's a bit distracting, but, you know, if we hit a hundred K this year, which I think we will, and then we go to a million dollars a coin down the road, I won't say when, then fees are going to go up just because of Bitcoin's value. So we need all of these technologies, you know, Liquid will reduce the cost and add efficiency, but still, when it's a million dollars a coin, Liquid transactions are gonna be pricey as well. So you'll need, you know, Lightning on Liquid to support that demand and use case." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:18", "start": 1877.5, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. CoinKite dot com are the creators of the Coldcard, one of the most recommended hardware wallets by Bitcoiners. I think it's the best in the market. There's a whole range of awesome features like the ability to use it airgapped, or the ability to bring your own entropy, or the ability to use it as part of a multi-signature setup. So you can literally never plug this device into a computer, and you can just plug it to the wall or to a phone power bank or use a cold power, and then you shuttle the wallet over using micro SD card. 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Lend at HodlHodl is a global Bitcoin backed lending platform, so you can either earn interest on your stablecoins or you can collateralize your Bitcoin and get some liquidity without spending. This is all done in a peer to peer way using a unique multi signature escrow for each deal. So if you've got stablecoins, you can go and create some offers and earn interest by lending. On the other hand, if you have Bitcoin and you need some liquidity, you can borrow stablecoins and then keep on hodling So with this platform, you set your own terms, you put up offers depending on how long you want to borrow or lend and the interest rate. Go to lend.hodlhd.com. Back to the show. Right, and it's funny that over the years, in the early years, people were paying massive fees in Bitcoin terms, but they were cheap in fiat terms. And so what's happened is over time, because of the optimization, because of SegWit, batching, Lightning, et cetera, fees have come down a lot, yep, in Bitcoin terms. But we should anticipate that they, as you say, they're gonna keep going up in fiat terms." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "33:36", "start": 2015.92, "text": "Exactly. Like, I, I was actually quite surprised when we had that run up in December that, you know, it wasn't that Not bad, we weren't that backlogged. So I think we've made progress, but we have to keep making progress and keep driving people to use, off-chain solutions to, you know, keep the Bitcoin network viable." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "33:55", "start": 2034.97, "text": "Do you think this time around it will be easier to get exchanges and other large, you know, users of the Bitcoin blockchain to optimize and use the new technologies, or do you think it'll be sort of a similar story where it's kind of, they get dragged kicking and scream-screaming into it? And in fairness to them, maybe- Maybe that's not their priority, right? That maybe that's not where their main revenue comes from." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "34:16", "start": 2055.5, "text": "Yeah, so it's, it's really interesting, a lot of exchanges aren't incentivized to optimize for their end users. Like if you look at the landscape, a lot still haven't supported SegWit and they're, they're lagging. I think a few of them only added support very recently, but- they, they generally pass fees onto their end users. I know that BTC Turk pays for their fees for their users, so that's why they're very much, driving to get liquid adoption because they, they're eating those costs themselves, so they want people to use Liquid, but, I don't think it'll be as bad as before, because I think generally people are more aware now that they do need to embrace these solutions. Like if you look at, the adoption of Lightning, then it's a step forward, right? Like They're didn't, we didn't need a UAS or something like that. They're just opting in to provide support and integrate the technology. So hopefully it's not going to be a battle, and I think as Bitcoin price goes up, they just need to do it or else fees are going to get increasingly prohibitive for their users. Like, it's a perception issue too, that, if you have some noob and he bought some Bitcoin and he's gotta pay fifty bucks to take it off, even though it's not- It, it, it, it could be cheap in Bitcoin terms, it's still high in fiat terms, and this problem just isn't gonna go away because Bitcoin is just gonna keep going" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:40", "start": 2140.1, "text": "up. Right. And it's also funny because, well, not funny, but it's just more like we all see sometimes people complain on Twitter saying, \"Oh, I had to withdraw from the exchange, and that, you know, was such a high fee,\" and they, they sometimes blame Bitcoin when really it's like the exchange who had, like, who didn't use a more optimized, way of interacting Exactly. Yeah. So I'm also curious as well, do you see it kind of like there's gonna be a few more dominoes to fall before Liquid becomes like really more, I guess, mainstream or lots of exchanges wanna all support it and, get all those inter-exchange connections going?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "36:18", "start": 2178.23, "text": "Yeah, I think, if we can get a couple more derivative exchanges to add support and maybe OKX and Horbey, then I think we should be in a pretty" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:30", "start": 2190.03, "text": "good place. Awesome. So let's also chat a little bit about mining. So I know, Blockstream mining has been, advancing a little bit. Can you tell us, what's the latest with Blockstream mining?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "36:42", "start": 2201.74, "text": "well, we've been plugging away. We first, started our mining operations shortly after I joined in twenty seventeen, and we have about three hundred megawatts between the US and Canada. we're still building out a lot of that capacity. It just takes a lot of time. You have to buy a lot of transformers and equipment." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "37:02", "start": 2222.12, "text": "Big purchase of MicroBT equipment, about twenty-five million worth. So, yeah, it's still growing and we're making" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:09", "start": 2229.28, "text": "steady progress. Yeah. Do you have any views on, you know, what, what kinds of mining equipment you're looking at, what you like, and why you like MicroBT?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "37:18", "start": 2237.67, "text": "Well, MicroBT is just very reliable hardware. we've done a lot of, testing of it. we've, we get some of their models before they're released to the public and we put them through the ringer. So, I, I find they're There, generally, I mean, the, the competition is, not, strong. I think e-Banking is, close second, maybe. Bitmain had a lot of issues, with their previous gen, we haven't touched their newest gen, but, their earlier gen had a lot of problems with, quality, like heat sinks would just fall off, and I don't know, maybe that was just due to their, infighting, and no one's, no one's looking at quality control as Jihan and Miku" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "38:02", "start": 2282.12, "text": "That hurt their perception, I think, in the marketplace a lot, and i-it's doubtful if they can regain their dominance now. I think, Mike OBT has managed to, leapfrog them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:14", "start": 2294.02, "text": "Right. And it's interesting, from what I can hear, it seems like there's a little bit of a mining, mining equipment squeeze on. So it's hard to-- it can be hard to get the equipment because so many people are trying to run to get demand, right? Or trying to get mi-equipment." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "38:28", "start": 2308.05, "text": "Yeah. I mean, it, it's, it's Then people want in, because they do the calculations and they see, \"Oh, wow, if I bought the miner, I could, you know, I could make a, a tidy profit on, on mining Bitcoin instead of buying Bitcoin.\" But then there's a lot you have to have in place. You need that infrastructure, you need to have your mining farm, you have to negotiate your power deals, you need the equipment, and it's not easy to get the equipment. Like, right now everybody's constrained, from the foundries for, from getting the chips themselves. themselves to make the miners. So, you know, it, it, it pays to-- it really pays to understand Bitcoin and to get in when it's not so hot. Like back in twenty seventeen, when I was sourcing power for our mining operation in Quebec, you know, I did that before the big gold rush, and, you know, a lot of people weren't that hot on Bitcoin at that time, but then w-with the run-up, then suddenly everyone was looking for power, and even the landlords were trying to squeeze you, trying to extract To extract rent from you and try to get every single nickel and dime they can out of you. So the best thing to do is just get into Bitcoin when it's boring and it's dead." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:46", "start": 2385.53, "text": "Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense to me, and it's, I guess it's, it's also about getting your power arrangements going because obviously the power, and the electricity price is a huge deal in terms of how profitable you will be. I've also- Seen this funny dynamic where people are using older mining equipment now because all of us, because of the massive price run recently, all, really old equipment is now profitable again." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "40:12", "start": 2412.01, "text": "Yeah, S9s are profitable again. So, you know, the mining equipment never, becomes obsolete, it just becomes obsolete for certain price points. So, you know, people want to buy old stuff because they can't get new stuff. So, it's kind of a funny market in that sense, hang on to your old miners if you have them, because you never know, one day they might be super profitable to run." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:35", "start": 2435.34, "text": "You gotta huddle those miners, guys. Huddle everything, huddle Bitcoin, huddle miners. So Yeah, so from what I've heard, the dynamic there is almost like if you have a higher cost of electricity, you might need a newer, more efficient miner, whereas if you are, using, older miners, you might only be able to make that work with really, really cheap cost of electricity. And so that's sort of that dynamic there where it's almost like the newer equipment goes to the people who have the highest electricity price, and then over time it sort of flows down, like water down the mountain, it sort of flows in- The direction of the people who have, as it ages, then it ends up with the people who actually have the cheapest possible electricity price. Is that similar to what you have seen?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "41:21", "start": 2481.21, "text": "Well, I think in general, even people with, low power costs, they want to buy the latest gen stuff too, right? It's kind of like when you buy an iPhone, if you're gonna buy an iPhone, you buy it when it comes out so you maximize how long you can use it for before Apple obsoletes it again. So it's the same with the miners. If you're gonna Right? Because it'll last longer. but, you know, even if you have cheap power, you still want the latest gen because you're maximizing your profit margins at that point. Oh, of" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:51", "start": 2511.26, "text": "course, of course, yeah. I think I was just referring more to like if you're gonna have that conversation around when should you upgrade, you know, because if you've already got miners, and it's kind of now you've got a few years old equipment, that kind of thing, right? yeah." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "42:05", "start": 2524.99, "text": "But, you know, there's lots of people with free power. There, there are clever ways to get free power in the world, and, you know, those guys will buy old miners, you know? It's, it, it costs nothing to them, and they get money or Bitcoin. So there's always demand." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:20", "start": 2539.9, "text": "Yeah. And the other funny one I've heard is that because of how crazy it is and this market, it's like it literally matters how quickly you get the equipment. And so if you can get the equipment delivered really quickly, then, and plug it in That's like huge amount of money saving, because otherwise you're just leaving money on the table." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "42:38", "start": 2557.88, "text": "Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:38", "start": 2558.24, "text": "exactly." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "42:39", "start": 2559.38, "text": "And the challenge right now is that, deliveries are stretching out to end of the year now, and, a lot of the- Manufacturers are just not taking orders. They just, they don't want to, overpromise and they don't want to be able to-- they don't want to be unable to deliver. So if you go to some of the manufacturers now and you say, \"I wanna buy some miners,\" they'll say, \"Yeah, we can't sell you any right now.\"" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:03", "start": 2583.44, "text": "Damn, yeah, 'cause I guess most of us are used to the world where, you know, if you wanna buy something, you just go to the shop or you order it online and, you know, in a few days You just, even if you were gonna pay more for it, you wouldn't be able to get it unless you, I don't know, bought a second hand machine of someone else." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "43:24", "start": 2604.22, "text": "Yeah. The challenge I think is that, we are too small as an industry in terms of, like, when you look at, the foundry level of business, you know, they do business with Apple, with, you know, Samsung or Samsung does their own, but, you know, they, they, they want big orders and they want consistent orders. So there might Demand for ASICs to mine Bitcoin, but they just won't do that business because it's not stable, right? They want that, quarter after quarter reliable customer that's gonna buy in volume and sustain their business. They don't want to cut off those customers and supply you because Bitcoin's hot this year, and the next year, okay, Bitcoin's dead again, and now you don't wanna buy anything, so, you know, I lost my big customer. So that, that's the nature of the, the market, and I think it'll improve over time, but, you know, we And we need more people making miners and, ASICs so that we have that sustained constant demand." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:25", "start": 2665.06, "text": "So let's say Bitcoin, you know, goes five x or something like that from here, how would that sort of change, the, that dynamic there? Would it, would at, like, say, at fi- say at like another five x from here, would that then start having serious, you know, that would presumably have very serious, implications in terms of how much demand there is for miners and- Then in turn getting access to Chipfab, right?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "44:51", "start": 2691.01, "text": "Oh, well, I, I think it's more about, it's less about the price spike and it's more about sustained demand. So, we need to- Let me think about this. We need to have, constant demand for equipment, and then we'll be able to, like, the, the, not we, but the ASIC manufacturers, the industry broadly, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They'll be able to go to foundries and say, you know, we always wanna buy, I don't know, five hundred million worth of chips every quarter, and then they'll start allocating more pipeline to, you know, ASIC makers, my, ASIC, Bitcoin ASIC makers. So that is the, the key, having sustained constant demand versus spiky and dippy demand." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:37", "start": 2736.76, "text": "Right, I see. And, I mean, as an example, let's say we, you know, we spike to five x and then we crash down to, I don't know, whatever, a hundred k or whatever it is. You know, I, I wonder then, is there an argument there as also that, you know, over time, the, you know, fine, we have bull and bear cycles in Bitcoin, Play less cold, perhaps." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "45:57", "start": 2757.08, "text": "Yeah. Yeah, maybe that will do it. or the other thing that could happen is that the demand, the, the, the paradigm of demand changes, whereas it's not about mining for profit, but it's mining to secure your Bitcoin. So if you look at the big companies like MicroStrategy that are buying billions in Bitcoin, there, there should be rationally some equilibrium where they say, \"Okay, now we're gonna mine Bitcoin too, \"because- It's a big risk to sit on this big pile of Bitcoin and not be securing the network. So every quarter we're gonna allocate, twenty-five million just to buy miners and to mine Bitcoin as well. for, for those of us like you, you and me, have gone through those, the wars, you know, we know what it feels like to be threatened by, by m-malicious miners, even if they don't have the power, but to, to feel that threat and to have them standing over you saying, \"You know, we're gonna do this,\" and that Good feeling, and I think, there, there needs to be some education around that to a lot of the new players that have come into the space and educating them on the need to be a miner, because then you're actually participating in the network and securing it." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:09", "start": 2828.95, "text": "Yeah, that's a really good point because it's like defending your investment. So one way you might defend your investment is, you know, putting up some funding for, Bitcoin development, whether that's Bitcoin Core or Lightning or something else, and then, as you're mentioning, another way is to put some money into mining or Into, yeah, these different, aspects of it, and I think MicroStrategy really have been one of the leading, I guess, examples of a company going hard on Bitcoin, and so perhaps there'll be others who follow them as well. So as MicroStrategy keep increasing their, the size of their Bitcoin stack, it starts to make more and more sense for them to actually start playing in the mining game, maybe not directly on an ROI for the mining, but on a protection of the investment, sense." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "47:53", "start": 2872.99, "text": "Yeah, I mean, if you- Have Bitcoin, it doesn't make sense to, it doesn't make that much sense to sell your Bitcoin to buy miners, but if you have cash flow, which a lot of these public market companies do, it makes sense to reinvest that cash flow in miners or mining facilities, secure the network, and effectively get Bitcoin for securing the network. I, it may, depending on the market conditions, difficulty and whatnot, it may not be as effective cost-wise versus buying Bitcoin, but at least then you know- No, you've, you've protected your investment to some extent, but that is what I think will smooth out that demand curve when you have people mining just to secure the network versus mining for profit purely." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:38", "start": 2917.78, "text": "So I wonder though, how far away is that kind of understanding in terms of the common narrative? Right, so maybe MicroStrategy are a leading company in terms of buying Bitcoin, and other companies might start to follow them, you know, in the months to come, but then it might take some time for them to come around to the mining idea and other companies. Companies kind of on a bit more of a delay from them, right?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "48:58", "start": 2938.16, "text": "Yeah, but it's not as crazy as you'd think. Like, one of our customers at Blockstream Mining is Fidelity. So it is happening, it's just, who's next? And, you know, I, I think Michael Saylor will do it. It's just, he's busy with a lot of other things, he's busy stacking, but he'll come around to it." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:16", "start": 2955.99, "text": "Yeah. And what are your thoughts on the whole future of North America mining? So there's been, Now and again of, oh, China mining, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. You know, I'm sure you know the story. But, what are your thoughts on, that idea of, the mining distributing out?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "49:35", "start": 2974.9, "text": "I, I think it's important that, you know, much like Liquid, we try to keep the functionaries very dispersed, geographically and geopolitically. I think it makes sense for Bitcoin too. And that was one of the reasons why, Adam and I thought, you know, Blockstream should get into mining" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "49:54", "start": 2994.5, "text": "North America versus having it mostly in China. And, you know, there are numbers out there where it's still like seventy-some odd percent in China, but I think it's actually lower. We're probably down to about sixty or so in China versus the rest of the world at this point. but that's, that's, just my feeling. The issue is a lot of people, even if they're mining in North America, they might be still using a pool that's considered to be based in China. So then people, do the math and they say, \"Okay, All centralized to China, but I think it's better than most people think it is." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:29", "start": 3028.56, "text": "Yeah. And in terms of underlying factors or, I don't know how to put it, but people might argue, \"Oh, see, China has cheap electricity and that's why it's just gonna stay that way.\" Do you see any counterarguments there? Is there some other competitive advantage that North America can bring?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "50:44", "start": 3044.39, "text": "It's actually not true. The, the cost of electricity in China is probably on average higher if you, if you factor in the seasonal- Cost changes. So there's a wet season in China, and that's when the cost really drops. But then when it's not wet season, then it's pretty high actually, compared to North America. North America, if you're good, you can get, you know, around two to three cents per kilowatt hour, and that's better than China on average. So the, the cost factor isn't really the primary reason, I think a lot of it has to do with, economies of scale and efficiency. So the miners are manufactured in China, you can service them in China easily. There's a really robust logistics network in China to move them from point A to point B, you can set up in China very rapidly. If you wanna build a mining facility in North America, it could take you six months or a year, but if you wanna spin up something in China, you know, it's weeks. so a lot of it has to do with speed of, you know, everything in China, but I think we'll see that becoming less of an issue. I, I know some of the manufacturers are planning to set up manufacturing plants in North America, so that, that's like their global expansion strategy, and that means you could have, you know, repairs in North America, assembly in North America, and maybe eventually down the road, you could have foundries in North America too." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:13", "start": 3132.61, "text": "So is there anything that, let's say, US or Canada- Indian politicians or regulators can do to ease that process? Do you see any, ideas on that along that, that line?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "52:25", "start": 3144.94, "text": "Oh, I think, I don't know. I, I, I- I, I have more faith in the free market than, regulators trying to help it along." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:35", "start": 3154.65, "text": "Yeah, so for you, it's more just a matter of seeing the competitive pressure and seeing now there are, you know, more, entities and mining operations coming up in the-- in North America. Yeah, I" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "52:46", "start": 3165.94, "text": "think it'll happen organically. It's just like, you-- if you're setting up in-- setting up in North America, you have to be prepared for higher CapEx initially, but in the long run, it'll pay off because power costs are generally lower. And there's a lot you can do in terms of automation to lower your costs for, you know, labor and OpEx. you know, there's not cheap labor in China, but if you can optimize and have, Smarter systems in place, which is what we're trying to do at Blockstream, then you can lower your costs a great deal." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:17", "start": 3197.1, "text": "Yeah, that's really interesting, hey. so in terms of, I guess the North America, mining, scene, is that like in terms of Blockstream mining, is it, are you focusing on North America particularly, or are you looking elsewhere also?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "53:33", "start": 3213.45, "text": "Well, right now our focus is mainly in North America, but we're open to other locations too, you know, wherever there is, cheap power. Power and conditions that are favorable, we can definitely take a look at those." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:46", "start": 3226.34, "text": "Yeah. And in terms of, I guess, North America, is it also that there's, you know, there's a lot of capital there, obviously. So is that also one factor where maybe a lot of the investors in North America might be keen to invest in an, in an operation that is, more local, let's say?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "54:02", "start": 3241.87, "text": "Yeah, I think, it's definitely a factor. People like to invest in things that are close to, close at home and nearby, but I don't think I mean, if there was a, a site in Australia, then I'd happily go there and, you know, grab lunch with you and set up a farm." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:19", "start": 3259.33, "text": "Of course, yeah. A-and I mean, it seems that, that there's, there's all sorts of different approaches going. So there are some people who are more just trying to, you know, get deals going with their local power plants, and then there are others who are saying, \"No, we'll try and find renewables, or we'll be able to make it ourselves.\" how do you sort of see the split there" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "54:42", "start": 3281.54, "text": "Well, generally new-renewables are cheaper, so you're generally gonna see more use of renewables. the question is really, really your preference, right? Like, a lot of our power in Georgia is nuclear, so do you think nuclear is renewable? I think it's kinda renewable. It's not burning coal, right? So it's not polluting the environment, I think it's quite green actually. So it, it really just depends. I mean, some people will try to, find green energy to mine with, but I, I think as long as you're not Using something that's very polluting, then it's okay. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:16", "start": 3316.2, "text": "and I wonder what your take is on that whole, what percentage of, you know, Bitcoin mining energy usage is being renewable versus non-renewable? Do you have a, a, a thought on that or anything you can share?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "55:29", "start": 3328.66, "text": "I would say it's probably like sixty, seventy percent renewable, just because hydropower is just so cheap. I mean, Some of the renewable power is pretty, pretty BS. Like wind energy, it's green and renewable, but there's a huge dimension of, non-renewable stuff that is used to create those wind turbines and maintain them, right? Even, solar power is green and renewable, but it's highly ineffective cost-wise to set up a solar farm to mine with, like, at this point. but, you know, generally I think renewables are cheaper. Like, obviously there are people still burning coal, to mine, right? But, I think it tends to be generally cleaner stuff that is cheaper, so they will tend" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:20", "start": 3380.09, "text": "gravitate towards that. Right. And I wonder to what extent that is government subsidy driven, because it seems to me that there is a very large-- Around the world, there's all sorts of kind of government sub-- government subsidies for the so-called renewable energy, even if they're not as- As, you know, scalable or overall sort of, maybe effective as the non-renewable stuff." }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "56:41", "start": 3400.85, "text": "Yeah, I think it definitely would play into it, I don't know if any s- Specific instances of, subsidies helping Bitcoin mining. I know that in the past, Bitmain has tapped into some government subsidies and, used it for mining when they weren't supposed to, and then those got shut down. I haven't heard anything like directed towards, helping the industry or an industry, but, you know, that's typically lack of foresight. Like if you look at Canada, we have massive amounts of extra, excess power that could be used for mining for many purposes. Like, I don't know if you have it in Australia, but we have, crown corporations, which are basically government-owned corporations, and, and those can generate profit, so you could set up a crown corp to mine and, and I'll pay off the debt or something. But, no, that's not happening. We just waste the power." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:34", "start": 3454.04, "text": "Yes, definitely. So Samson, that's probably a good point to finish up here. Where can listeners find you online?" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "57:40", "start": 3460.12, "text": "Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:41", "start": 3460.56, "text": "I'm on" }, { "speaker": "samson_mow_cso_of_blockstream", "time": "57:41", "start": 3461.0, "text": "Twitter at excellion, e x c e l l i o n, and you can find more info about Blockstream, just by following at blockstream. We're on LinkedIn and Facebook too, and if you have questions, there's lots of information out there. We have help guides and blog posts about our tech all the time, so feel free to check it out." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "58:00", "start": 3479.91, "text": "Get the show notes at stephanilivera dot com slash two five three for this episode. Make sure you subscribe in a podcatcher application so you know when new episodes come out, and I will see you in the citadels." } ] }