Solar Powered Renewable Energy Bitcoin Mining in the US With Alexandra DaCosta

foreign this content is brought to you by uphold which makes crypto investing easy I've been a user of uphol since 2017 they're one of my go-to exchanges you can buy sell and trade cryptocurrencies and uphold you can also trade precious metals and equities they have 10 plus million users 250 plus cryptocurrencies and they're available in 150 countries as with all exchanges you can buy and sell on them but I highly recommend you custody your own crypto not your keys not your coins if you'd like to learn more about uphold please visit the link in the description welcome back to the thinking crypto podcast your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews with me today is Alexandra decosto who's the CEO of Aspen Creek digital corporation which is a renewable Bitcoin mining operator Alexandra great to have you on the show thank you so much for having me uh well Alexandra I'm excited to speak with you because um I'm certainly passionate about Bitcoin mining and especially Bitcoin mining happening in the US given you know over the years there's been a a big change a shift in the lay of the land where where miners are positioned and it's great to see the US is leading so I'm excited to learn about what you guys are doing and you know what makes you different uh but let's start with your background where you from and where did you grow up sure so I'm actually originally from Toronto Canada I went to school in Canada and then came down to the US for University and never left so it was a little bit of a winding path of you know taking the jobs I was able to get that gave me the right types of immigration status and uh now I'm a dual citizen so now Austin is home and uh what did you do before working at Aspen so I spent uh almost the last 20 years in um the Capital Market so I was on the debt side uh in Structured Products and asset Finance sales and trading so I had spent my career at places like Deutsche Bank nomura cancer Fitzgerald and then the last part of my career I was Global head of ESG and impact investing so that's where I started tiptoeing it more into the renewable space very interesting because you know historically Bitcoin and ESG have not been two things that meshed together um so what led to you you know saying I'm gonna go work in the crypto industry and obviously specifically Bitcoin mining sure you know it was it was very serendipitous um one of my uh my partners here David Yee who's our chief commercial officer uh was our head of crypto Banking and so we started overlapping on various Bitcoin mining stories that had more of a renewable Bend right so whether it was you know hydropowered Etc and what we both started honing in on um was actually just the high power utilization of mining Bitcoin which is obviously what really gets focused on from an ESG perspective particularly when that you know power source is not as clean as perhaps you would like for us it was more of a question of if you have something where 90 of the cost is mining um Bitcoin is actually power can we do something to isolate and reduce that cost of power and then in addition to that can we use this great you know consumer of power as an opportunity to stand up new power developments particularly renewable and so for us it was this kind of opportunity to really streamline the business model of Bitcoin mining and really try to isolate this incredibly volatile and Incredibly expensive input which is power and then also use it as an excuse to say can we really apply this in the renewable space and and really help catalyze even more Renewables and and how does that relationship need to exist if it is indeed possible for sure and we're seeing a call for um many of the miners and even just bigger industry players some from traditional Finance such as BlackRock and so forth saying okay we believe in Bitcoin and crypto and blockchain but we need to fix this energy issue this is still a concern for many investors many companies so you guys are certainly looking to solve that right and bringing that solution to the table and maybe you can tell us a bit about Aspen and how it came about sure so for Aspen in particular we were focused on utilizing this new company as an opportunity to catalyze brand new Renewable Power and you do that by saying AC DC is going to be the power off taker for a new in our case Solar Development so you're really starting from Greenfield on both sides and the advantage to doing that is from a Solar Development perspective there is predictability in the off taker they know that if they build it you don't need to wonder if they'll come they know that if they build it we're already contracted to be there and so that really helps financially stand up the Solar Development side there's also a lot of advantages for us because we know exactly where our power is coming from we know the rate Etc so for us we were really approaching it from uh a a symbiotic perspective right how can we do what's best for solar and how can we do what's best for us as a data center operator you are seeing a lot of pressure in the market right now on bitcoin miners to improve their disclosures to improve their energy mix I would caution and say take a step back and ask why the investors are pressuring you they're pressuring you because they are under pressure to disclose the greenness of their Investments sometimes it's because their investors actually care but a lot of times it's because there's just new regulations coming down the pipe I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing we can get into a different debate about regulations but the fact of the matter is Bitcoin mining has really been targeted because it's an easy target because it's newer it's often misunderstood and so you don't have this unbelievable voting base that is so you know connected to it and saying oh my God you can't take away my aluminum smelting plant or my cereal you know you know um Factory it's like well it's Bitcoin mining and 70 of people don't really know what it is yet so off with their heads so for us you know it's a long-window way of saying our approach to the why is because we see an opportunity to use Bitcoin mining to stand up new power and we see an opportunity for this power to positively impact our bottom line and I do believe in that because of its envirable impacts as well but I'm not doing it because there's now this big pressure from Wall Street to make us disclose um yeah that's great clarity there on you know your mission and uh the balance as well because to your point there's a whole other conversation with regulations in the government that could be had um so is the renewable energy primarily solar focused or are there other um sources as well right now we are solar uh you will see in our portfolio which is over the next three years we have optionality to develop an additional up to three gigawatts of new Renewable Power so we would stand on the other side of that it is predominantly solar you will start seeing some wind as well as battery uh in some of our later projects our focus on solar is because that is specifically where our expertise lie so our founding Partners who are solar maneuver so solar developers um have stood up you know depending on how you want to count it you know over 12 gigawatts of power in the US over the last decade so that's very much you know their focus and so where you see us is where we already have local expertise in in that space and can you tell us where your mining locations are which states and are you planning to go International as well so right now we are mining in Colorado as well as Texas I say mining we are a mix of self-mining but predominantly hosting right now um our third site will be in West Texas uh going forward you will start seeing us in other states we are focused right now on the US again because we like to focus on where we already have existing expertise you tend to see us in places where it is a deregulated Market uh from a power perspective and and you know set a little bit more clearly where it is best for us to operate behind the meter and where we have this opportunity to integrate most appropriately both with the grid as well as with our power generation not all states um are equal in terms of how they view that relationship some states for example will charge transmission or usage charges for you know the physical infrastructure if your power goes over a line from your own solar to your own data center they're still going to charge you a transmission fee that doesn't really you know benefit us with our model so you see us in states where we have an opportunity to perform outside of those those guidelines and I I've spoken to many other minors uh a lot of them are in Texas seems Texas is becoming a home for a lot of Bitcoin miners um given the respective regulations there and um you know they're more I would say poor thinking as it relates to this industry um so uh are you primarily just looking at the us but maybe in the future you might go uh other countries or so or does that too early to to talk about that I think we have a pretty large pipeline three gigawatts is a big one in the US definitely not opposed to other countries but we like to keep it simple we like to to as my husband would say row where your fastest and um you know we have our expertise right now in the specific states where we're active and then the the future states that we're looking at so for an earlier Stage Company I don't see a lot of value in trying to color too far outside of our our lines because look power in particular if you don't have very very deep long-standing expertise in those local markets from a market execution perspective a regulatory perspective a relationship perspective uh it can it can turn against you pretty quickly um can you tell us or share any stats of how many Bitcoin you're mining per day and are you holding that Bitcoin or are you selling it in the markets or a combination or both so we are predominantly hosting so I would say that's something you'd probably want to go look at our our partners with I can give a shout out to our biggest partner which is uh Compass mining they are filling out the majority of our second facility which is just outside of Houston um our other publicly traded mining Partners our galaxy as well as Neptune um so I would just direct you to them to see what their various strategies are yeah okay got it because you're predominantly you hosted yep exactly yeah um you last year raised eight million dollars in a series a funding round uh tell us about that and who participated and how you're going to be using the funds sure so that round was co-led by Galaxy digital as well as polychain capital um we had some other excellent Partners in the round but I think you know having two powerhouses like that really um helped instill a lot of confidence in what was a very turbulent time you know that round closed at the end of the summer we used those funds to help complete um our second facility so our second facility is a 30 megawatt data center that is co-located behind the meter with 87 megawatts of solar so that money really went to helping kind of complete complete that second site and round it out which was really exciting um and I know this is a bit long term but you know eventually when all Bitcoin or mine a lot of minors will uh be making money off of the fees of the network you know are you guys thinking that far far ahead or is that you know to wait way off absolutely you know we our our strategy is you know we're vertically integrated through the data center right so we we design develop own and operate the data center that gives us flexibility so you know we we are hosters right now we have a little bit of self-mining um we love our hosting counterparties but you know we have access to this power for a very long time and so you know we can and we have a very large pipeline that we're about to bring online in fact our third facility is 150 megawatt data center behind the meter with 200 megawatts of solar that's coming online this year so we're definitely going to have an opportunity to think about that and so yes the the the opportunity to you know generate extra Revenue off of fees how those fees are starting to maybe creep back up into space is very interesting to us as well any plans to go public I know a lot of uh Bitcoin miners have gone that route but I'm curious if that's on your radar if it said it wasn't on our radar you know we we founded the company a little over a year ago uh obviously it had been in the works for a while back when you know Bitcoin was at 65 000 and uh you know everyone was going public and access to Capital was was a dream so we have had to reevaluate our strategy uh and our our Capital strategy multiple times so the playbook for not just Bitcoin miners but you know a lot of earlier stage companies was raise a couple rounds IPO um that has changed you know there's always the path to IPO candidly at this point we're really focused on doing I think what's best for the company and so the question is how are you best going to access that capital and through what channels and um you know what strategy is going to give you I think the most uh control over your destiny and do you do that through just more private raises and through you know whether it's set whether it's Equity whether it's you know JV Partnerships do you do with larger strategic Partnerships we're definitely open to all of it you know I I was saying something the other day like you know and it's not just us right 2023 is going to be very much the year of um mergers and strategic Partnerships and and I think you want to see it I think that sometimes in especially the Bitcoin mining space unfortunately we saw a fair amount of Destruction in the space um and we've learned a lot from that I think what you're starting to already see this year with a couple of announcements is um really interesting Partnerships that are strategically aligned and so you know we've definitely got our ears open to say what are we good at right we're power first that's where a lot of our expertise lie and that's a pretty useful skill to have in the Bitcoin mining space so you know where can we make these Partnerships and and at the end of the day you know we believe in Bitcoin we also believe in the opportunity to kind of reimagine the role of the data center on the grid and so I think that there's opportunity to work with you know quite a few of our peers in that space yeah it's a great point you know you got to do what's best for the company and not just because everybody's hopping on that going public train we like to your point we see how some companies uh have gone under a bit and it's tough time for for them talk to us about your 2023 roadmap what can we expect so 2023 is all lies on Project number three uh which is the one I mentioned in West Texas 150 megawatt data center so that is you know we're currently in the process of kind of our next phase there of of completing the upgrades to you know the the substation working on the switch yard which is kind of laying all of the you know Telemetry groundwork for then popping up if you will so that's what we're focused on so we're focusing on um who we're going to want to partner with at that space uh from a hosting perspective what component wants to be self-mining um you know we've been finalizing our our our actual infrastructure development plans there so that's taking up a lot of our Focus as well as honestly optimizing our first two spaces right because a lot of what we do is it you know we we're a hosting counterparty but it is also constantly managing this balance between the solar generation and the grid and our power utilization so continuing to develop out those you know power optimization expertise the associated software Etc and then I think really starting to um be very thoughtful about the role that we're playing as a captive load right so while Bitcoin mining is very much the focus when you have access to three gigawatts of new Renewable Power that you can help stand up and when you have access to that power for the usable life of the asset so that's 30 to 40 years in some cases there's got to be conversations about what else can we do with that power and it's fun to say that there's all these amazing applications and a lot of them are accurate but the proof is going to be in your ability obviously to deliver but your actual ability to figure that out from a legal perspective from a regulatory perspective from an interconnection perspective and so that's where we're really focusing is what have we learned from hooking up the first two sites in a little bit of a unique way at least in the Bitcoin mining space and and how can we start applying those learnings beyond our existing applications um on that note you know you guys are doing something very different you're bringing a solution to the table once again despite all the narratives and the regulations and so forth um are you then taking you know what your solution here and going to let's say DC and talking to some of the folks there are you participating in any conversation and advocacy of like hey not all Bitcoin miners are using such and such energy bad energy sources and so forth look at what we're doing we're doing it right has there has have you guys gotten to that point is yet we have played a role look we are in earlier Stage Company and so the limited number of personnel you see at this firm are already wearing a lot of hats and so you know that advocacy is a full-time job um I will answer it with this I think you know the the saying you know to what end and at what cost and so there are those who are advocating because they are seeking some form of regulatory either change or implementation because it's going to directly benefit them I don't necessarily have a dog in that fight right now we are finding that we are having the best results by interacting with you know our our partners on the grid by showing what we can do to be a better partner to them and thankfully is a very clear model right our ability to curtail to turn on and off at a moment's notice and send power back to the Grid in those times of strain is very beneficial to the grid and obviously any Bitcoin miner can do that what's a little bit different about our model is that when we turn off not only are we not drawing on the power that was allotted to us from the grid but we're now sending all of that new solar power so you actually really are amplifying the availability of power to the grid and for example a region like Texas that's very very meaningful because of how their grid is structured and the fluctuations and temperatures Etc so my point is if we're trying to affect change you can stand on the hill and you can yell until you're blue in the face but what are you really seeking to change and for us what we're seeking to change is an evolution of the interaction between power generation and power consumption and how do we improve that so that they can work a little bit more symbiotically how do we make sure that new power is going to places that really need it it probably involves new transmission and we're having better luck kind of getting there by doing but look we are you know you will see some of our data and a lot of the information that that's on the hill we are very closely tied with a lot of people who are on the hill right now and I think we really do need better education about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency the problem is is anyone really willing to listen and the final problem is that your voice and your interests and your role as a minor or as a Hoster is very different from your role for example as um a custodian and it's very different from your role as an investor and it's very different from your role even as an energy provider but unfortunately right now those voices are kind of getting muddied right so they go oh AC DC Bitcoin miner hosting counterparty you must be related to FTX it's like yeah not even remotely but as long as that's where this dialogue's going we'll just be over here working on our power contracts and I think that's really you know probably my personal stance more than anything but um there's only so many hours in the day so we're going to focus on on our power strategy for sure and then to your point you know you guys doing it right working with um the local governments and so forth let them become Advocates of the work you're doing versus joining the herd in DC uh not that there's anything wrong with that but to your point it's a very muddy it's very noisy now a lot of people have been have a sour taste in your mouth after you know the FTX debacle and they kind of to your point lump everything together but we have to you know get that Clarity again exactly um on that note though uh you know over the years we saw China ban Bitcoin mining a lot of miners came to the US uh mining is booming in the U.S if from the mining pool data that I saw the US is leading right now and it can tend to fluctuate from time to time any concerns of a Bitcoin mining ban um I don't think we're going to get there but is is that like a risk that you you all think about like hey what if Elizabeth Warren gets her away or something right uh that could be impossible Massachusetts yeah um it's always a concern I think we feel very good about operating in Texas but you also have to think about the relationship between mining and the energy sources from which it's drawing and what good and I use that term loosely but what are the advantages for the state in which you're operating and so there are states that are going to be friendlier to attracting new types of businesses there are also states where things like Bitcoin mining can actually be more complementary to the grid than other states because of how those grids are actually set up and so that's I think where we're really focused is again not playing this like Hot Potato game of where is it going to be banned where is it not going to be banned but taking it a step further and saying where am I going to be additive and where am I going to be as one of my clients said a long time ago you know referring to Bitcoin mining as the the raccoon of the energy space you know and I always loved that because it's like such a great picture but they're not always wrong right and so raccoons are kind of a pain so if someone's going to perceive you as a raccoon you're probably going to have a harder time you know setting up shop so I think that that's where we're trying to to approach is like is a band worrisome yes but if we're interacting with the Grid in a way that is complementary whether you're mining Bitcoin or you're an aluminum smelting plant or you're a green hydrogen facility going forward you need to make sure that your relationship with the grid is complementary and I think all climate texts are showing that they're going to need a lot new a lot of new power sources you're going to do a lot of new you know transmission lines so it's starting to be more complementary I think is going to get you furthest so that's why I have more confidence in our strategy and worry a little bit less but yeah I mean there's definitely some states where I put it back to what I said earlier um focus on what's important to those States and if the extracurriculars that you know accompany Bitcoin mining are not high on that State's list if New Power Generation sources are not high on that State's list or if from a tax perspective they can't have a material impact on you know those local communities you know it may not be the best fit um um you know at a larger theme from a macro level uh we we still need a lot of clarity in the United States and there's a lot of moving parts and components because you have other assets outside of Bitcoin right and there's a question of what's a commodity what's the security um but also the SEC has not approved the Bitcoin spot ETF as yet you have members of Congress on both sides of real who are now waking up to this and they're becoming Advocates but we don't have the numbers yet um so what is your take um in addition to you know possible Bitcoin mining ban and then the global competition we're not the only horse in the race here you got uh these other countries Russian all these other people mining Bitcoin as well um do you think the United States I guess the long-winded question here do you think the United States can get it right soon maybe this year we can get some comprehensive regulations and okay here Bitcoin miners here's what you can and can't do and uh crypto currency digital assets nfts here's what you can and can't do and things along those lines oh that's a good question uh it's it's two very different questions um so you've got the financial regulation right whether it's you know Commodities security Etc uh that's a very interesting power struggle um I don't know what upside there is for me in trying to figure out who's going to really win that battle but I think the fact of the matter is that it is an industry that has more and more investor dollars flowing into it yeah and it needs some form of oversight there is risk there is leverage right it would be ridiculous to just assume that you know that doesn't need any kind of guard rails even just from you know tax reporting perspectives right you're looking at the big accounting firms struggling to make sense of it all so Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies they're not going anywhere right so it's time to kind of address it and say let's pick up a horse right and let's just call a spade a spade it's either going to be commodity it's going to be a security I have my own opinions about that but whatever box that is just put put it in and let's move on with that from a Bitcoin mining space I really don't think that we're going to get a ton of clarity I don't see a US ban on it I really don't I think that there's far too much infrastructure that's been developed there's far too much frankly good that's coming out of it right even with everyone bellyaching about Bitcoin mining whether it's the energy uses or the fact that this shouldn't exist and it's just a fad and it's not a store of value all of these statements that I personally don't believe in um but interestingly enough I don't know that I would have felt this strongly about it a few years ago because I really like five years ago I didn't understand it to the degree that I do now but I also misunderstood just how much we use the infrastructure underline the blockchain right if you were to say to someone fine we're going to put a huge moratorium on Bitcoin mining we're going to ban all blockchain the amount of daily channels that would be closed off it's unbelievable and I think that that's something that day-to-day regulators and politicians and everyone else standing on their soap boxes is not recognizing right we've crossed the Rubicon there's no going back so to ban it is only going to put it into other hands right I mean it's Bitcoin it's in everyone's hands I get it but the point is I think that the US is not going to do something so drastic how we're going to start arguing about what's allowed what's not allowed what regulations need to occur what disclosures need to occur I think that's going to be a moving Target for a really long time and again I think it matters of what are we solving for are we legitimately solving for using Bitcoin mining as an opportunity to actually improve our grid if we were then I actually think you'd see Bitcoin mining as a really great Catalyst for kind of this this free market response to there's a demand for power so let's actually now start building more transmission lines if we're going to just try to squash it and regulate it away I think we're kind of missing the point a little bit here yeah um I'm hoping they can get it right but to your point it probably won't be for years um and at the end of the day I I don't think the US wants to lose the battle over crypto as well in a way that other countries can surpass them um we got it right with the internet and and that did well for us economically and obviously Innovation and so forth it it seems there's more pushback on this at this point um but hopefully they can get it right hopefully you know we could all come together uh and and pass the clear regulations the guard rails and let Innovation flourish I agree with you and I think at the end of the day it's just coming down to um sometimes a lack of understanding look Bitcoin it it really I I know it's been over a decade but from a a general populist perspective it really has just kind of been shot out of a rocket right and you hear that it's up and then you hear that it's crashed and you hear that it's up and you hear that it's crashed and um when you're not really kind of living it on a daily basis it's sometimes hard to understand why it could possibly be behaving that way other than it's fake right and then you you start seeing things like nfts and again if if you're moving from a different generation or you're just not in you know this this kind of day-to-day world you don't necessarily see that around all of these new terms that you've never heard is infrastructure that's actually improving the security of financial transactions and it's making Financial transactions cheaper and so that's I think what's really interesting that if we could take a step back and say forget Bitcoin you know let's talk about actually how the security of it works and how else we can use that infrastructure I think that we might have a lot more buy-in right and that's where we come back from a power perspective um if we think about our power needs in the U.S over the next 20 years and we would like to see more of them be renewable well wind needs to be built where there's more wind and solar needs to be built where there's more sun and that doesn't always happen to be right next door to a city which is how historically power generation assets were built they were built right where they were needed and so we're going to need to think of transmission Solutions Bitcoin mining is starting to do that right we're starting to go where there's an advantage for us where it's cheaper for us to access power or from a regulatory perspective it's easier for us to access power you can learn a lot from the Bitcoin mining space and start applying those learnings to things that currently are on the top of the political agendas so that's where I'm I'm really hoping to your point that we get it right because we got the internet right and had we shunned it we could have really been laggards and so maybe you don't necessarily like what you think is making the headlines in our space right now but if you took a look under the hood I think that there's a lot of common good that's going to come from this latest Innovation you know Revolution coming from from really from mining if you're being honest and something that's interesting and it's happening in El Salvador we're seeing other sources of energy are going to be used to mine Bitcoin volcanic energy and it just opens up a lot of opportunities for monetization of energy and creating jobs and boosting the local economy and so forth so I'm really excited about uh the future of Bitcoin mining and you know like things you guys are doing which has been in a very Innovative um you know what are your thoughts on on you know just a non-traditional energy source is being used for to mine Bitcoin I think it's it's think it's great I think it's doable I think I think lovely if you can use that term but what's just so wonderful about Bitcoin mining is that it is a very forgivable load right um when so load being something that is drawing power with Bitcoin mining you can turn it on and off and you're not interrupting anything you know sequential let's say right you're not losing any work it also doesn't take an hour and a half to power up in an hour and a half to power down and so let's just put our thoughts and our values about Bitcoin aside for a minute right we support it but let's pretend you don't fine then let's just make this a science experiment you have something that is enabling you to utilize intermittent power sources and not really get upset and destroyed by that there's not a lot of things that allow you to Tinker on a small scale as well as a very large scale right Windstone 700 megawatts right we've ours are 30 there's about 350. we've got one that's a six megawatt there's a lot of people that are home miners you can interrupt that load no matter how big or how small and of course you gotta treat the the miners with respect and there are certain conditions they prefer but you can learn a lot from that tinkering and when you start tinkering on a bigger scale not only are you starting to learn maybe how we can start introducing batteries some form of heat Reclamation technology so that any escaped heat can now be used for fish farming or breweries for greenhouses for you name it you you have the foundation of a really really important science experiment and I think that that is the magic of Bitcoin mining as we've just not AC DC discovered it as we've been discovering in our role as trying to use it as an interruptible load in our case helping to use utilize the data center as this um bi-directional node of of grid on the power but when you think about it from a Global Perspective the things that we're learning in that interruptability of the of the load and then how you could maybe use an interruptible load with different types of power sources and then how you physically build it how you would legally paper that how you would work with The Regulators how you would work with the grid that's really cool and there's a lot of amazing developments that are coming out of that that you're going to start seeing being applicable to massively important Technologies right when you look at green hydrogen when you look at green ammonia even if you look at little things like household draw of power there's some really cool Technologies out there you see them a lot in Europe where they're little I don't know if you've seen them and I wish I could think of one of the company's names but they actually kind of do like little micro um uh flutters to your home energy usage so this thing will literally help rebalance the grid by very quickly turning on and off your home's energy you won't even notice it but it'll be just enough that if all the homes in the neighborhood do it it helps to rebalance the grid those types of Technologies are very similar to what we're doing and so when you start thinking about okay how do we how much can we interrupt a specific load in order to help the grid and does it have to be for three hours at a time or if everyone did it for four seconds at a time would it have just as beneficial as an effect those Technologies are really really important and I think are going to play a massive role particularly in developing countries where energy is often more interrupted and those energy sources are less either Dependable or typically more renewable so you only got solar part of the day it's it's going to be really interesting to see you know what version of our Post-It note right the The Accidental Discovery comes out of this for sure tough question for you do you see central banks holding Bitcoin as they do gold uh given that Bitcoin is digital goal in the future I think they should um I really do I think that the conversation of some kind of localized digital asset I I think it might be missing the mark a little bit um I guess the question is why does a country hold gold right where did the gold standard come from um probably another podcast but we're just going to assume that we agree with the gold standard and that we're supportive of the security um behind it and we're supportive of this notion that everyone agrees that gold is going to be our backstop method of currency right if you believe in that then you should probably believe in Bitcoin being the alternative store of value obviously your security comes from the decentralization of that not the buried in a deep hole surrounded by armed guards centralization of the security but from a uh a scarcity perspective right there's only so much mind gold there's only so much Bitcoin from the security perspective but I think my personal opinion is that it should be one single currency the way that it is one single precious metal right you don't have every country holding their favorite Stone right we've all agreed that it's gold so I think that honestly it it makes the most sense to pick a horse and in this case I think Bitcoin that's my personal opinion you know you've got the proof of work you've got the security you've got the limited you know float it seems to me to make the most um sense from a uh as close as possible to gold and if we're trying to replicate that I I can't I guess said another way I can't really think of an alternative right you can you can you can print more dollars you can fake more dollars um I I can't personally think of a different alternative other than maybe clean water as well you know something else that's that's limited and uh but that's gonna be a hell of a lot harder to hold so right and also not as verifiable as the as the blockchain right I I can know what bitcoin's moving I can also know you know to a certain degree or this wallet belongs to I don't know the Russian Central Bank and this belongs to the FED in a way and you can verify that simply with blockchain analytics tools excuse me exactly yeah um so out of Bitcoin you know you had this entire industry and asset class that was birthed um and and that led to Smart contracts and tokenization and different blockchains being created and then defy and so forth um I know your focus is on bitcoin and Bitcoin mining but what are you what are your thoughts on how things have expanded you have all these different use cases now it's really exciting you know I think what's been maybe unfortunate over the last couple of years is that especially last year is that um we saw the effects of um a little over eagerness uh we saw the effects of mislabeling right is yield really yield um and so I think that conceptually the you know Layer Two and lightning and you know various uh I'll say offshoots of of the kind of the original blockchain technology I think it's really exciting um and I think unfortunately it was relatively inevitable that we were going to see some folks you know whether they intend it or not but run away with some of these opportunities and and over inflate them and so I think what's really unfortunate is that a lot of the whether it's the Lunas or you know you pick something that really went quite soaked last year um it's really shaken investor confidence and because we are still such a nascent industry um it has really kind of thrown the baby out with the bath water uh and and kind of made everything in in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and digital assets and use the buzzword but um seem implausible uh and and I think that that's really a shame because we are starting to lose or I think for a while we lost sight of all of the incredible advancements that are taking place um you know and now you know ordinals is is at the tip of everyone's tongue and how that's going to you know affect the blockchain in particular um but but I think that overall it's unbelievable to see the amount of um infrastructure digital infrastructure that's being built to start seeing it being applied in in other sectors seeing you know the blockchain being utilized in um you know Health uh research right research and development for really obscure um diseases so you can now you know we have this wonderful company um here in Boston where they're really able to kind of like democratize the r d uh life cycle um by saying look instead of having to raise a hundred million dollars to be relevant to you know name the very large pharmaceutical or or Healthcare Company it actually only takes two million dollars in order to do these trials and so if we can track that progress on the blockchain and we can invest on the blockchain we're actually able to make much greater advancements with much smaller quantums of dollars that's an unbelievable breakthrough that I think is often getting lost in all of the fireworks of you know kind of some of the I'm just going to call it silliness for lack of a better word yeah and and you know it's the tech is moving fast and because a lot of The Gatekeepers it it's decentralized but for the most part right and a lot of Gatekeepers out of the way anyone can almost launch a token and and on one aspect of it it's great because you get more entrepreneurs more innovators but then you also got scammers who come and try to take advantage of it and scammers exist in every industry and every Tech blooming Tech or new tech um and you know what happened to FTX that was just old-fashioned fraud like I love Bernie Madoff um but then you had your Celsius and so forth and Lunas so it's just this is why we need the regulations right to to gatekeep a bit but let the Innovation flourish as well let the good actors be able to build and do their thing um yeah I agree I think you know the the tokens from me remind me a lot of um the the trials and tribulations of the derivative space so you know my background was um in the debt markets and you know um a lot of derivatives there a lot of CDO squared and Cubed and you know uh racks and everything that you know everyone read about and you know in the big short and too big to fail and that was you know unfortunately or fortunately for me fortunately because it was a wonderful group of people but the the environment that I grew up in and you had derivatives that were created for two reasons sometimes it was in response to exposure that clients wanted and sometimes it's in response to someone's bright idea right that if if we can do a derivative off of this we can make twice as much money or this is a way for us to offload risk that we don't really want and I'm not saying that it was all you know um misguided but it I think we especially in this new tokenization world we really have to understand why does the token exist and does it exist because someone wants access to a new sector of the market right um is via tokens Can we invest in earlier stage companies and get shares of those companies in a new way does that help Japanese and is that something that the investors want or to your point is the token just a scam trying to ride the latest wave and I think that that's where we're at is that anytime there's these new Financial Technologies because let's be honest every 10 years there's a new one either you don't understand it and you get caught offsides or you do understand it but it breaks anyway the the that that first that first breaking is kind of the thing that seems to be the constant and it seems like we're there with the tokens as well there's a purpose to some right there's a lot of talk of green Bitcoin there's been a lot of talk of tokens and why they need to exist um I think there's a lot of value if there's someone that legitimately wants to seek exposure to it and has no other way to do it maybe there's a fit but if it's a token for the sake of it because you think you're going to ride the wave and monetize the wave it's probably going to have either a bad or at least not a good impact on the broader markets um kind of a curveball question for you so the crypto industry has been primarily male dominated there have been more women entering the industry which is a great sign it's a breath of fresh air to have someone as yourself being CEO versus you know a lot of the male faces and so forth um you know what's it like what has been your experience um you know uh being a woman in the industry and being CEO as well and you know what would you say to other women who are looking at the industry and looking to enter as well that's a good question you know I for better or worse I've always spent my career in male dominated Industries so I don't know what that says about me or or the industry so you know uh it's it's nothing new for me but it is a shame I will actually tell you that my impression of the Bitcoin mining space because that's my only focus and in hosting let's say there's a lot of women and they are absolute powerhouses right Amanda Fabiano head of mining a Galaxy also on board you know Amanda Cavallari is now also on the board of clean spark you know Jamie leverton CEO of Hud eight I mean hot 8 is just stacked with women um there are and I'm naming three of many you know Patty trompadour and spirit 3D goes on and on and on so on a per capita basis there's actually a lot of women in leadership roles and I've literally just left off eight wonderful women that I you know saw most recently so no no offense there um but I actually think you'd be pleasantly surprised I think what's pretty cool about the I'll call it crypto space I know I keep jumping around with my terms but I'm trying to be all-encompassing is that because it's decentralized because it's all about Innovation good ideas everyone is welcome and everyone is supported uh I remember my first real kind of crypto conference that I went to right and I come from Wall Street where it's like I hate to say it but it's you know it's khakis and blue blazers for the most part right um and I remember going to this conference and I like I didn't know if I was at a concert if I was at Comic-Con if I was at a Wall Street thing like you had it all yeah and it was awesome right because it's it's just like it is it is decentralized to its core um but you're right there is still what seems to be this kind of male dominated side to the industry and I think especially the vocal side and I think that that's maybe where we're getting it wrong is that Bitcoin and this is something I've been getting used to lives on Twitter so I mean I didn't think I was that old you know I'm in my fourth decade uh I feel out of it um and but I do see that a lot of these a lot of the voices are are few and loud and I think it's a little bit misrepresentative because I would actually argue it's a pretty pretty supportive group but you know what I would say to to more women getting involved is you know age up on it right like um it is cool to see more and more women coming into seats that are you know Innovation driven and Technology driven and especially with my overlap into my interest in in climate text and earlier stage Technologies some of the most interesting climate tech companies um and software companies are coming from women um and I've been super fortunate to be able to be part of some wonderful female CEO and Founders networks and just kind of women supporting women I think you're going to see a huge change and you didn't ask this part of the question but you know as a mom of two awesome boys um this post-covered hybrid environment I mean you see me I'm I'm sitting in my home uh there's a frog and a lizard on the other side of this wall that I hope we're still in their cages as a woman and as a working mom this has been unbelievable to to be able to have some access to a hybrid environment and I do think that yes you have to be on site for Bitcoin mining but again this this space is a lot more creative and willing to Buck the trends um and so I do think that you're going to see women that often will leave the workforce when they have little kids and feel that they can't do it all from a scheduling perspective you're seeing more of them being able to stay and I'm definitely one of them um this is not for the faint of heart this has been one hell of a year and I think having the ability to be able to balance my life whatever sad attempt I made at it um I think it's more possible in this industry than a lot of Industries I honestly wish more traditional Finance would follow suit um good stuff yeah and to your point I've seen more women entering the industry which is great to see uh because it was you know when I got in like 2016 it was a lot of crypto Bros and crypto Twitter of course which still continues it's uh not that World um I actually enjoy and the funny thing is like there's a lot of wonderful information you know it's no uh I'm not throwing shade on Twitter but um that's for me been really I think the biggest learning curve is where um you get your information from where the access to information is yeah it's a wonderfully collaborative Community this crypto planet um people really are willing to you know of course chirp a lot um but they're also willing to be very transparent and really put it out there I'm just so um new at where I'm supposed to be getting my information from wait are but are you on Twitter what's your handle uh I am on Twitter uh so we have ACDC underscore HQ and and you just put me on the spot the hardest question is what's my Twitter handle I think it's Alex underscore DeCosta be out there I'll link I'll link to it so you know people can follow um awesome I got some wrap-up questions here for you um if you could create your own metaverse what would the theme be about the hardest question if I could create my own metaphor where would Alexander escape to if you put your Oculus on and yeah wow that's a cool one um this is a super cheesy answer I think it would have to be right here I'm trying a picture of kind of somewhere that would have a really amazing perspective I mean I can say you know vacation and go to Asia and I could say that it would be you know being able to still live in Canada a lot of the time but um I made a conscious decision to leave my last career I made a conscious decision to you know take a risk and to join a whole new group of people that I didn't know in an industry that I was new to and um I I honestly this this might be it this is this is pretty cool that's awesome um got some rapid fire questions for you favorite food probably sushi favorite musician or band Tragically Hip favorite movie Dumb and Dumber really I'm really building myself up here that's one of my favorite like you know it's one of those I I grew up in a night so I watched Dumb and Dumber it's just so good like it never gets old uh favorite book Fountainhead uh when you're not you know doing any Bitcoin mining activities where you're doing for fun as a hobby I am doing anything I can with my friends and family so it usually involves being outside skiing swimming just uh just you know again this is gonna sound dorky but you know just being present and having an opportunity just to just to be grateful that we've we've got such good friends and family doesn't really matter what we're doing I could be freezing my my tail off outside right now I'd still be pleased uh well Alexandra pleasure chatting with you I got to have you back on as things progress um with AC DC but uh thank you for joining me so much for having me

2023-02-19 07:22

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