The State of Bitcoin Mining with Amanda Fabiano & Jaime Leverton

“It’s really only been this calendar year that all public miners started to hold almost all of their output… miners used to be the source of incremental liquidity of bitcoin into the system, but now that so many miners are holding, it is restricting supply.” — Jaime Leverton Location: New York Date: Thursday 9th December Companies: Galaxy Digital; Hut 8 Mining Role: Head of Mining; CEO Satoshi’s white paper introduced the principle of bitcoin mining as both an incentive for creating new blocks, as a means to distribute coins into circulation, and as a means of encouraging nodes to remain honest. Mining is, therefore, the bedrock for Bitcoin. Yet, it is poorly understood even by the most experienced Bitcoiners. The manufacturing of mining hardware is currently dominated by a Chinese duopoly, which in turn depend upon just two Asian semiconductor companies. Whilst the market for mining hardware is more decentralised, a sizable proportion of ownership is in private hands. Thus, it is hard to get reliable data on the size of the market in terms of hashpower, machine units, and mining costs.  Combined with bitcoins volatility, this significant uncertainty makes the financing of Bitcoin mining a complex market. Added to this are the difficulties caused by trade tariffs on Chinese goods and the current drama of ubiquitous supply chain issues affecting chip supplies and freight logistics. Finally, mining companies are in the firing line over perceived environmental impacts. Yet, despite all of these headwinds, Bitcoin mining is a thriving business in both the United States and Canada. Investment is at an all-time high, innovation is driving operations to maximise the hash rate, and the wider world is waking up to how it supports the energy grid and rural communities. In this interview, I talk to Amanda Fabiano, Head of Mining at Galaxy Digital and Jaime Leverton, CEO Hut 8 Mining. We discuss the current ASIC and mining markets, running operations in an uncertain industry during uncertain times, ESG FUD and the future of mining. This episode’s sponsors: Gemini - Buy Bitcoin instantly BlockFi - The future of Bitcoin financial services Sportsbet.io - Online sportsbook & casino that accepts Bitcoin Casa - The leading provider of Bitcoin multisig key security. Exodus - The world's leading Desktop, Mobile and Hardware crypto wallets. Ledger - State of the art Bitcoin hardware wallet Compass Mining - Bitcoin mining & hosting ----- WBD441 - Show Notes ----- If you enjoy The What Bitcoin Did Podcast you can help support the show by doing the following: Become a Patron and get access to shows early or help contribute Make a tip: Bitcoin: 3FiC6w7eb3dkcaNHMAnj39ANTAkv8Ufi2S QR Codes: Bitcoin If you do send a tip then please email me so that I can say thank you Subscribe on iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | SoundCloud | YouTube | Deezer | TuneIn | RSS Feed Leave a review on iTunes Share the show and episodes with your friends and family Subscribe to the newsletter on my website Follow me on Twitter Personal | Twitter Podcast | Instagram | Medium | YouTube If you are interested in sponsoring the show, you can read more about that here or please feel free to drop me an email to discuss options.