Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] What's up, y'all? Welcome back to the Block Space podcast. For today's live show in Vegas for Bitcoin 2026, we have Matt Puzak of American Bitcoin. Matt, welcome to the show. 0:15 Thank you for taking the time, man. Great to be here doing live. Yeah, it's really nice to have these in-person shows, man. It, it-- the dynamic is just so much better. 0:22 And, uh, what better place than Bitcoin Vegas, where energy is still good this year. Attendance looks like it's gonna be down a little bit, but honestly still a big showing. 0:31 Um, and like we were talking about before we hopped on, just a watering hole for everyone to see all of their industry friends, get deals done, stuff like that. 0:38 [clicks tongue] Speaking of deals, y'all just recently announced an expansion at the Drumheller site, 3X Hashes. 0:43 What can you tell us about this expansion, models that y'all, uh, uh, deployed, um, and future expansion for that site? Yeah, no, I couldn't be more excited about that expansion. 0:53 For us, the, the Drumheller increase, we're going up, you know, eleven, twelve percent in hash rate. It-- to us, this is showing the market that we're serious about expansion. 1:01 You know, we started this company about a year ago, April one of, uh, of last year, and we had the mandate of growing Bitcoin per share. 1:07 And as a company with mining at our core, this was a, a very clear way to signal to the market that we, we're, we're in it for the long run. 1:13 And so while many of our peers were not, uh, expanding or they've been pivoting to AI, something we, we may discuss, uh, for us, this, this is just another, uh, opportunity to put wins on the board. 1:23 So we, we got some brand-new machines. These are some Bitmain units. Uh, it's, it's a terrific site. 1:27 Our partnership with Huday really allows us to tap into a wide energy portfolio and some killer operator expertise to get these things up and running. 1:35 So we started energizing right towards the end of Q1, and, and now, uh, uh, now we're, now we're pretty close to fully energized. 1:41 So that, that should be printing, uh, new Bitcoin for us every day, uh, from here, from here on out, and hopefully more to come. 1:47 You know, I think, uh, the, the twelve percent that, that this adds to our fleet, you know, putting us up towards, uh, an owned hash rate of about twenty-eight. Uh, respectable. I think we can go much higher. 1:56 I think the, the twenty-eight, uh, for us is a quality number, and what I mean by that is that, uh, we actually make money. Our gross margin, uh, in Q4, which, you know, which we announced was fantastic. 2:05 In Q1, um, you know, we, we've continued to double down on our efforts to be a best-in-class miner. And so Drumheller should be viewed as a case study of what the American Bitcoin team is capable of. 2:15 So for this rollout and future ones specifically, the bedrock of y'all's hash rate are these U321-EXPHs. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. The [chuckles] super cool server rack, uh, direct chip cooled design from Bitmain. 2:27 Do y'all think you will continue to go down that hydro-cooled route for your facilities, air-cooled mix? What's, what's the approach for how you, uh, are thinking about cooling? It's an excellent question. 2:37 It, y-the, the air coolers versus hydro cooled debate, you know, has been raging for quite a while, plus immersion in the traditional oil, oils or petrochemical sense. 2:45 We decided to use a hydro cooled modality for this site. Um, it was, it was a technology that we believe has really come into its own and, and has matured. 2:53 Uh, we believe that the machinery that we've got, the, the hydro cooled units here are, are pretty well future-proofed for a halving. Mm-hmm. And it's crazy to think we're already thinking about the halving. 3:02 [laughs] But, you know, it's- it'll be here before you know it. And so as, as we try and look, you know, over that event horizon, 3:08 this is a unit type that we're comfortable will, will continue to, to be in the top, um, quartile deciles that are of, of efficiency in the, in the coming, uh, in the coming quarters and will position us well for a post-halving world. 3:19 And so is, is liquid cooling something we continue to look at? Yeah, absolutely. You know, air-cooled, there, there is, there's still a place for air-cooled. 3:25 Um, you know, there, there-- we, we have an immense amount of expertise in terms of operating that type of unit. It's just a matter of making sure that we're, we're at the right efficiency levels, right? 3:33 And, and are- Right... are we, are we getting the amount of Bitcoin-- Is it, is, is the juice worth the squeeze? Um, as you, as you know, air-cooled, the, the heat of West Texas, for example, can be quite temperamental. 3:43 Uh, the, the liquid cooling, you know, on- once you get it up and running, if you, if you've mastered electricity and now you've mastered plumbing, you're in a pretty good spot. 3:50 But yeah, it is a learn by doing situation. We, we've learned what we needed to do to perform. And it seems like that's where a lot of the ASIC manufacturers are moving. I mean- Mm-hmm... 3:59 I, I've heard from-- I talked to MicroBT yesterday. Mm-hmm. They said that hydro is the future. Mm-hmm. It seems like they're prioritizing that. I know Bitmain has been pushing it. 4:05 We've, we've even heard, um, you know, kind of chattering that the S23 air-cooled model will be delayed or maybe not released- Yeah... because they're really moving into hydro. 4:15 And it kinda makes sense, uh, with what you were saying about we're already thinking about the halving. 4:19 You know, like, we're already almost in this window to where if you're buying machines today, you need to be thinking about what's going to happen after the halving. 4:26 And I've talked to some miners who say, you know, who say since the industry is moving towards kind of more specialized, uh, and honestly more thoughtful management, that, that it's converging on that form factor because the machines last longer. 4:39 Yeah. You do get, you know, they're more reliable. They don't s- they don't tend to, uh, have as many issues, like you said, in really hot places like Texas or break down as much. 4:47 It's something that I'm really curious with right now and maybe to round out this question about ASICs. What are you seeing with the ASIC market dynamic currently? 4:58 'Cause you have a lot of the, uh, public miners phasing out of Bitcoin mining or at least toning down their ASIC orders and going into AI. 5:07 And I would imagine this has put some of the manufacturers in kind of a tough spot 'cause they just lost one of their biggest cus-customers. 5:12 W- If you can speak to what are some of the biggest changes you're seeing currently within the ASIC market as one of the, you know, I would say premier, uh, consumers now in the US as one of the only pure play public Bitcoin miners left. 5:26 Yeah. Basically, as a Bitcoin miner, you're always short something. You're either, you're either chasing megawatts, you're chasing machines, you're chasing money, or probably some combination of all three. 5:34 Right now, we're in a situation where the megawatts are, I think, where people are trying to find quality megawatts. 5:39 We're competing, obviously, as an industry with AI, HPC, high-performance computing for megawatts and things like that. So that's, that's where the scarcity is. Uh, conversely, with chips, there's somewhat of a glut. 5:49 Uh, you know, I wouldn't go that far. Mm-hmm. I think, you know, I, I think getting quality machines, there's still some negotiating, uh, you know, power to be had by both sides. 5:56 But to your point, the manufacturers are in sort of a uniqueMaybe challenging position. If you think about it from their perspective, they also have their manufacturers, right? 6:04 So it's, this is almost a conga line of a supply chain, and everyone's gotta keep going in rhythm, otherwise things start to get a bit jumbled. Um, they have gotten jumbled. 6:12 Uh, you know, we've, we've seen, you know, a lot of the major miners, uh, the, the marquee American ones, for instance, have pivoted towards AI. Um, you know, even if not necessarily in revenue, at least in rhetoric. 6:22 What that means was that they've, they've ceased or they've slowed down on orders for, for new machines. 6:27 Um, you know, this, this, this could create somewhat of a supply, uh, situation where, where, uh, the manufacturers are now deciding how we're gonna offload all of this, uh, all these, uh, exhaust, uh, that we've, we've built. 6:38 So for us as, as American Bitcoin, this has presented an opportunity to really structure ourselves, um, uh, to take advantage of that, of that. To, to work with these manufacturers. We've known them for years. 6:49 Obviously, we've got great relationships with all the majors. Uh, when we, when we wanna get deals done. We're not going anywhere, so we wanna get deals done. 6:55 Um, we wanna find creative ways to work together that allow us to, to kinda partake in, in growing the exhash, but also allow them to move units, which is something that is, is core so that they can continue to work with their suppliers to keep wafer allocations, et cetera. 7:08 So yeah, look, I think, I think for American Bitcoin, you've seen with the Drumheller expansions, as you alluded to, and then even our, our prior deal last summer, our initial, um, our initial tranche there, um, we, we were all, uh, very keen on finding, uh, creative structures that allow us to maybe work with the manufacturers, do some pledges of Bitcoin, et cetera. 7:26 Uh, they move units, uh, we get hash rate and everybody wins. Yeah, y'all had that, uh, Bitcoin option- Correct... for, for the purchase. I thought that was a really interesting, um, financing tool. And I'm... 7:35 I guess, sorry, I lied. Last question on this. Uh, is it getting to a point where now the miners have... You know, you said you, you wanna get these deals done. Obviously, Bitmain needs to get these deals done. 7:46 They need to make sure that they can keep up their allocation at TSMC- Yes... and make sure they actually have real deal flow so that they can put the deposits down on future, uh, you know, tape outs. 7:55 Are miners in a kind of a, uh, better position now than they have been in a lo- i- in the past, at least in terms of having bargaining power over- Yeah... the OEMs? 8:04 Like, it seems like a clear buyer's market to me right now. Yeah. Uh, machines, yes. Megawatts, no. [laughs] Right. I think that's... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 8:10 And unfortunately, yeah, as they say, Go- God does not give with both hands. [laughs] Yeah. We, we're doing better than, than I think we have in, in, uh, cycles past when it comes to machinery. Right. 8:17 And that, and that's been great. Um, you know, also, uh, on top of, uh, simply better negotiating power, I think we're, we're getting more adept at running these things. I think- Mm... 8:24 I think that the relationships to manufacturers that, you know, there, there have been some American ones that came up, uh, trying to be disruptive and, and they're doing their best as well. 8:32 Um, you know, we're, we're, we're working closely to, to create a, a best-in-class machine. You know, we give product feedback. We run the machines effectively. 8:40 Um, you know, the, the, those relationships are really worth something. 8:43 And now that we've gone up and down and up and down together a few cycles, um, yeah, I, I think we're, we're, we're pretty well situated with, with the machine side. 8:50 Again, the megawatts are probably where there's been a bit more of an industry-wide- Right... um, I wouldn't say struggle, but maybe, maybe it's a headwind or a slight challenge. Mm-hmm. 8:57 But, but on the machinery front, whether, um, whether it's, you know, with, with one of the, the incumbent players or one of the, the, the new players, yeah, there's a... 9:05 It's, it's a good time to be in the business of buying machinery. [gentle music] We are CleanSpark, America's Bitcoin miner, a publicly traded company with the largest operating hash rate, 9:17 powered entirely by self-operated infrastructure across four states. This is our proof of work. We are setting the standard for what's next. 9:30 Learn more about the intersection of energy and Bitcoin at cleanspark.com. I'm glad that you mentioned megawatts and, um, them being tougher to come by. Yeah. 9:41 Um, in the hunt for megawatts, what are y'all thinking for expansion? You know, you've got a lot of competition from, um, this whole AI bull market, right? And you had the rollout at Drumheller. 9:53 Where else are y'all thinking about expanding in the next, you know, couple years? Like, where are the opportunities as you see them? Y- for, for megawatts, you know, you follow the electron. 10:01 And so in the United States or North America, there are pockets where, where this makes sense. Now, these pockets are increasingly far-flung. 10:08 I don't think you're gonna find a site in an urban core or even near one, frankly, uh, these days. I think that if you look at the, the buy box, if you will, for AI HPC, yeah, they, they want low latency. 10:19 They want the urban core. Um, you know, they, they want fiber redundancy, power redundancy, potentially some water as well. 10:25 You know, we, we are not quite as needy, uh, which, you know, if you wanna be opportunistic means that we can go further afield. 10:31 Uh, but if, if, if you wanna be a bit dismal, you could say, "Well, you know, it's harder to get those, those sites close to urban cores." That's, that's fine. 10:37 I, I think for us, we're able to go far afield and, and, and do fairly well in these more remote locales. 10:42 But, uh, you know, I think in the United States, Texas has been, has been good to us, uh, and will continue to be, to be good to us. 10:49 You know, I think in, uh, in Canada, we've, we've seen some, some great opportunities in, in Alberta especially as well. Mm. Um, we have not expanded at all in South America or, or overseas, um, internationally. 11:00 And, and, and, you know, while we are American Bitcoin, I think first and foremost we want to secure hash rate here in the United States. 11:07 I think we're, we're certainly open to exploring any, any opportunity that will have an American flagged company securing the network, so- Right... 11:13 you know, we're not, we're not totally disavowing, um, other geographies. But for us, yeah, I think, I think the United States has a unique position where the, the electrical grid is, is actually fantastic. 11:24 There, there's energy here to be had. Uh, the rule of law is strong and the capital markets are deep. 11:29 And it's really that combination of those three things that you'd have a- Hard to replicate that in other places It's very hard to replicate. 11:33 You can usually get one or two of three, but to have a lot of electricity, a stable rule of law, and a very deep capital markets is a, is a special combination. 11:41 Then, and w- with regarding, regards to Latin America, I mean, you said you'd be open to expanding there. Sure. 11:46 But is part, part of the reason why maybe y- you haven't made that push yet is for those reasons that you mentioned, but also we know, I know that, you know, Bitfarm's pulled out of there recently. Yeah. 11:54 We were told, "Hey, look, a lot of our American investors are kind of saying, 'What are you doing down there? We, we don't know how to price these areas.'" Yeah. 12:02 Do, do you get a sense that that's, uh, maybe something that would impede, uh, you know, rolling out hash rate in that area? You know what? 12:08 I think potentially, as an executive of any kind of company, y- you, you should take the risks you're paid to take. Mm. 12:14 Um, you know, historically, I've not really viewed-Myself as being paid to take risks on, you know, Latin American geopolitics. 12:22 That being said, if, you know, if it's something where we, we still need to get smart on it in order to write it, we certainly could. 12:27 I mean, pe-people have been going down to Latin America and, and doing, doing business there for c-centuries, honestly. So, so it's not out of the question. 12:34 But I, I, I really have an ethos of you wanna measure twice and cut once. And so if we're gonna do something, it's gonna be a market where we're not just there for a good time, but we're there for a long time. Right. 12:42 Um, you know, and, and, you know, the- again, the... I'll use an example. You know, Ar-Argentina has, has, has kind of started to pick up a bit. Obviously, there's been some players who have retreated from that. 12:52 But they've, they've been increasingly interested in, in leveraging their natural gas assets. That was not the case five or 10 years ago. 12:58 Um, you know, if you wanna leverage natural gas assets, Bitcoin is, is typically not far around the corner. 13:03 So there are interesting pockets, again, in, in, in South America or, or broadly even Latin America, where we could, um, we could, we could be a, an effective partner. 13:12 But yeah, I think it's gonna be something where we're gonna be very thoughtful, um, and we're gonna be... 13:17 When we find the right deal, we'll be very excited, but until we find that right deal, we're gonna be very careful. Uh, that makes sense. You just mentioned natural gas assets. You also talked about Alberta. And if... 13:26 When I try to model out Bitcoin mining in North America- Mm-hmm... 13:28 particularly over the next, you know, 10 years or so, I would imagine that a- the bulk of the mining, once these AI transitions are done, will be done around, uh, assets like that, and will probably be smaller scale. 13:40 You know, you mentioned a lot of these AI data centers need to be closer to cities. The- they're going to need massive megawatt allocations. Mm-hmm. They're gonna be pretty big centers. 13:48 But, you know, you go further out into the country, you might be able to find opportunities. 13:51 Curious if you think that those opportunities will be smaller clusters of megawatts rather than kinda the big cathedral designs we've seen in the past from Bitcoin miners, or what your thoughts are on, on, you know, that form factor versus a larger one. 14:03 That's an industry observation. I, I think cathedrals love... Economies of scale are real. I mean, true in, true in most, if not all, industries. 14:09 I, I think for us, a few large cathedral designs, something I've, I've seen and, and implemented across a, a array of Bitcoin companies in the past, um, you know, the, the... It's compelling if you can swing it. 14:19 But if you can't swing it, we do actually have the ability to be more distributed than, say, an AI HPC business could. You know, I think, I think the, the economies of scale for us are, are much more in the CapEx. 14:29 And, and maybe- Mm-hmm... in some of the OpEx as well. Uh, but, but it's not necessarily from a compute perspective. Versus a... 14:34 If you think about, um, an AI cluster, the- there is, there is genuinely some compounding effects to the, the networking of those, of those computers being next to each other. We don't really have the same- Mm... 14:45 mandate or the same need. Um, so we, we are, we are a little more flexible in our ability to, um, to do this. If- the same flexibility we have, we can, we can curtail more rapidly, right? 14:54 If I, if I shut down the machines, I'm not gonna lose, you know, half of a foundation model, you know, for, for abruptly having shut down. 14:59 So there, there are certain nuances around the kind of workload that we bring to the grid, uh, that I think free us up in a way that, that, uh, AI HPC can't compete with. 15:07 Now, they- they've got, they've got other advantages. They've got, you know, fantastic revenues, et cetera. Uh, but for us, yeah, I mean, we, we, we could go concentrated, we could go, uh, distributed. 15:17 Something that some of the AI HPC folks have been exploring is BYOG, bring your own generation. 15:21 You know, where the, the, uh, public utility commissioners, et cetera, are tr- are trying to say, "Hey, if you're gonna bring this kind of load, uh, into our grid, why don't you try and find a way to bring some power along with it so you can, you can kind of offset some of your demand?" 15:33 Yeah, I think miners were early in on that one. Right. I think min- Yeah... I think we were... You know, once again, miners are ahead of the game. Bitcoin folks tend to be early. 15:39 Uh, th- this was an area where, whether it was with, uh, flared gas, et cetera, or some of these smaller, smaller plants, we, we've always had the thoughts around, "Okay, how do we, how do we partner up with generation? 15:49 You know, behind the meter, et cetera." Mm-hmm. "Are there things we can do to supplement the grid more so than just plug and play into a, you know, a, a substation somewhere?" So. 15:56 Yeah, so we've been dancing around the AI topic, but we're diving into it now. Sure. You mentioned there's... Obviously, they have a lot of advantages over Bitcoin miners. 16:03 Uh, I think the most visible one over the last year has just been mind share and market share- Yeah... in the sense of anything that had AI on it- Yeah... people were throwing money. 16:10 I mean, you know, Allbirds changed- Yes. Yes... you know, changed to an AI company- Yes... and their stock pumps. Like, this is the Long Island blockchain- Yes... uh, you know, Long Island IC blockchain days. 16:20 It, it's been kind of wild to see. But American Bitcoin and, and some other Bitcoin miners, mostly private, um, have stayed the course. 16:27 Uh, Tether's a good example, and Electron, American Bitcoin, I think the premier one in public markets. H-how do you sell focusing on only Bitcoin mining when a lot of your peers are going AI and HPC? 16:39 And, you know, what do you say to investors who say, "Well, why aren't you thinking about doing this?" Uh, this seems to be where the money is. Fair enough. 16:47 Look, when I was at Bain & Company, they told us strategy really boils down to two things: where to play and how to win. The company's called American Bitcoin. 16:55 I think for us, the category we wanna be the leader in is Bitcoin, predominantly in America, North America too, right? And so as, as I think about AI, HPC, I, I, first off, love AI. I use it myself. 17:05 Uh, it's, it's unlocked levels of productivity I would have thought impossible. Uh, i-in some ways it's almost magic. 17:10 Th-that being said, I don't necessarily want to take our business and then go compete in that, in that world. Mm. 17:15 I think we- we've really, over the past year, built out a track record of, of winning in our field, and I'm very happy with that. I'm, I'm, I'm happy with the, you know, with the margin profile of our business. 17:24 I'm happy with the low SG&A. I'm happy with the relationships we've got with our vendors. I'm happy with the growth story and the narrative. I think Bitcoin is a $1 to $2 trillion asset class, depending on the day. 17:34 You know, that $1 to $2 trillion asset class is really being secured now by only a handful of players. And, and even as more and more leave, 17:42 it, I-I think it becomes even more paramount that players like American Bitcoin step into that void. I mean, it's... This is an industry where America really does need to lead. 17:49 I mean, this is a, an asset that 40 to 50 million Americans own, a, a piece of Bitcoin, right? 17:54 We, we really ought to have American miners that are, that are delivering, um, you know, for that, uh, kind of a token holder, Bitcoin holder base. 18:02 W-whether folks wanna go in pursuit of something else that makes more revenue is, it's fine, but I view that as, as, as a trade that they- they're choosing to make, that we are, we are not. I'm... 18:10 With American Bitcoin, we're building an enduring business. And Bitcoin, uh, as I, as I've jokingly told, it's... Having my friends buy Bitcoin is like watching them win the lottery in slow motion. 18:19 [laughs] And I, and I, I, and I, and I, I'm okay with that. And that, that's the industry that I-That I signed up for. 18:24 And I, I know that in a, in a, a crypto winter, you know, you, you, you feel like, you know, you're, you're pressing against the glass and you can see people having fun on the other side. 18:32 But, you know, winter is for building. And for us, uh, we, we've just doubled down on what we do best, and I think we'll be rewarded for that long term. Yeah. 18:39 And you know, the interesting part about American Bitcoin, obviously, with the combined entity with Hut 8- Mm... 18:43 there is the AI and HPC and da- and, and, um, data center management, energy management side of things on the Hut 8 side. 18:50 It, it's one of the more interesting case studies for a public miner in that sense, or a public, uh, company in that sense. 18:56 'Cause you have these two public-facing companies, and they're each laser-focused on one thing versus the other. 19:01 Uh, can you speak to that synergy and, like, what that does for American Bitcoin specifically, uh, kind of having Hut 8 as that parent entity to, uh, usher in, uh, or to, to help usher y'all's, uh, hash rate expansion, stuff like that? 19:14 It, it is an incredibly unique structure that American Bitcoin and Hut 8 share, and, and it, and it's one that I think is a really potent, uh, advantage for us. 19:20 On the American Bitcoin side, it frees up our mind to really be strategically focused on Bitcoin accumulation. Satoshi's per share, something I think about every day. 19:28 You know, how do we make sure that each share of our company's being backed by increasing amounts of Bitcoin? Through mining, through our treasury, et cetera. 19:34 What are the things we can do to keep growing that amount of Bitcoin per share? That, that sort of ethos, that's my mandate at American Bitcoin. 19:41 On the other hand, Hut 8, you know, Asher and his team over there, they're focused on operational excellence. It's, it's a different set of KPIs. 19:47 It's, it's interrelated, and the better they are at their KPIs, the better I'll be at mine. You know, but their, their KPIs are much more focused on the CapEx and the OpEx that comes with compute. 19:56 There are learnings that they've had from AI and HPC that are cro- cross-applicable to Bitcoin mining and, and vice versa. 20:01 But for them, they're able to put this, this strategic focus into the operational aspects of the company. Um, we can harness that in a very, say, asset-light way. I don't... 20:10 I'm not tying up capital in substations or, um, bus bars or, or electrical equipment that, that I... I, I wanna tie up capital in, in Bitcoin in an exit hash. 20:18 That's, that's, that's what I wanna put money into, and I think that's what my shareholders want us to put money into as well. Um, working with Hut 8 allows us to, to really do that. And on the Hut 8 side, it's a dream. 20:27 They've got a, they've got a, a customer, if you will. They've got a client in, in American Bitcoin that is able to grow with them, scale with them. 20:33 I think running a, running a business where you can scale with your customers is incredible, right? 20:38 If you look, if you look at the history of, uh, Amazon Web Services, AWS, uh, in a way, AWS was levered against the success of the internet. 20:44 As, as different companies grew and scaled, you know, they, the, the amount of servers that they, um, that they procured from AWS grew over time. 20:51 I think with us and with Hut 8, you know, as American Bitcoin grows and scales, Hut 8 has a partner, has... They, they've got someone they can build for, someone they can develop for. 20:58 And that's a kind of very, uh, very nice relationship that I think separates us from the pack, and allows us, when you look at the economic model of American Bitcoin, it's like lemonades and economics. 21:07 It's, it, it is the equipment. It, it is the machinery. It is the team, um, that is kind of at the management level making sure that it is running at the optimal level. 21:14 But we're not conflated or confused with other lines of business and things like that. And as I, as I've seen some of our peers in the industry pivot towards AI HPC, it's been watching... 21:23 So been like w- trying to watch, uh, someone U-turn an aircraft carrier, right? 21:26 They've, they've put enormous CapEx and enormous investments into the, the, the human capital to run these things, as well as the machines, as well as the infrastructure. 21:34 Not, not necessarily easy to pivot, um, either the infrastructure or the culture. But for us, we've got this American Bitcoin culture. 21:40 We've got a team that's very much, uh, orange-pilled and, and ready to grow and scale. And then on the Hut 8 side, we've got a phenomenal, uh, group of guys that know how to run a bulldozer. 21:49 It's a g- it's a good combination. A quick shout-out to our sponsor, Luxor. This episode is brought to you by Luxor Commander, Bitcoin miner management software for enterprise solutions. 21:59 Commander gives you real-time fleet monitoring, bulk remote commands over your fleet, and Intelligent Miner, an automated profitability engine that runs every five minutes and adjusts power settings to live hash rate markets and energy markets. 22:11 ERCOT backtests show 10% more profitability with Intelligent Mining versus binary mining. Commander Pro is $100 per megawatt or a 25 basis point pool fee adder. 22:23 It's roughly half the price of competitors, but you can try it for free for 60 days. So if you wanna learn more and interested in getting started, go to luxor.tech/commander. 22:32 When you think about expansion, so Hut 8 got... I mean, uh, American Bitcoin got its start, you know, uh, operating ASICs within Hut 8 infrastructure. 22:41 Will you continue that model going forward for future expansion in new sites, or will American Bitcoin shoulder some of the load for developing sites, or are you gonna try to keep that separate? 22:50 The way that we've structured things to date, where Hut 8 will do the development, is a model that we quite like. Okay. 22:55 The, the way that, the way that it kinda goes down, so to speak, is they, you know, they, they'll develop for us on a pretty rapid timeline. There's a payback period built into the, the development. 23:03 There's a fee that's kind of, uh, appended onto our energy bills, et cetera. Uh, they get a, a very linear payback period. We get the Bitcoin upside. Uh, everyone is, is happy. 23:14 Again, b- back to my earlier comment, you wanna take the risks you're paid to take. They're doing infrastructure. They're taking infrastructure risk. We're taking Bitcoin risks. 23:20 I think everyone's very comfortable with that arrangement. 23:22 I- in terms of future sites and future expansions, yeah, the, you know, when, when I pick up the phone, the first guy I'm gonna call would be my, my, my Hut 8 team. I think they, they've... 23:30 Again, and, and, and not just 'cause I like them, and I, I love those guys, but also just their track record's been awesome. I mean, I mean, it's... They, they, they, they're on time. 23:38 They, they, they're very effective at what they do. They're passionate about what they do. Um, and if, if, you know, if I weren't already working with them, that's the kind of partner I would look for. So. Got it. 23:47 You mentioned Bitcoin risk, and this is a good segue into one of my other questions that I had, which was regarding Bitcoin treasury companies. Yeah. So I, I would consider American Bitcoin a Bitcoin miner first- Mm... 23:57 with a treasury element on top of it, right? Um, but it was, uh, partially marketed and billed as a treasury company, right, during the, you know, big Cambrian explosion last year. 24:07 Big difference between American Bitcoin, though, and a lot of the other treasury companies- Yeah... which are mostly capital markets plays, they don't really have operating businesses. American Bitcoin does. 24:14 I'm curious how you see American Bitcoin positioned in this Venn diagram of Bitcoin miner and- Yes... 24:20 Bitcoin treasury company, and how much of that treasury element will be a part of the company's kind of selling point going forward, given the fact that investor confidence in those assets is kinda deflated?You know, it, it, it has been very interesting over the past year to see the rise and, dare I say, the fall of, of, of the treasury model. 24:36 I, again, I, I, I don't wanna overly, um, you know, down- downplay that. I think there's been some very interesting and compelling things that have come out of that approach, and lessons were learned. 24:44 Some folks did very well, some folks didn't. But yeah, I think, I think it's an interesting approach towards Bitcoin accumulation. 24:50 And I think that is the term that I, I really honed in on for us, is we're a Bitcoin accumulator. Um, you know, uh, that- that's very specific. 24:56 I think that I, I tend to think of, um, this idea that, you know, uh, jobs are verbs, not nouns. [laughs] It's, it's not your title, it's, like, what do you do? Mm. 25:04 And, and for American Bitcoin, what we do is we accumulate and we mine. You know, we don't treasury. You know, [laughs] we like, we like... We obviously, we have treasury operations. 25:11 You know, we, we, we try and, and, and, and do different things in the market. We have an ATM, et cetera, like many of our, our peers do. 25:16 But we're, we're, we're a company that's predicated on a verb, uh, which is, which is actions that lead to more Bitcoin accumulation. Now, in 2026, the actions that lead to Bitcoin accumulation are predominantly mining. 25:26 It's, it's, it's been true for 10 years, plus, plus. That's, that's... If you wanna, if you wanna actually put in sweat equity and get Bitcoin, mining is the way to do it. 25:33 Now, there's, you know, down the road there, there's things that I think we wanna get more into. There's stuff in, in traditional, uh, finance, there's stuff in DeFi a- as well. 25:40 Those are areas where to, to term the, the, the Cambridge explosion, if you will, where I, I have to move at the speed of the ecosystem. 25:47 Uh, if, if more dApps, you know, distributed applications, go onto the Bitcoin blockchain, either via layer one or via layer two, et cetera. If there are more things that can be done if around... 25:56 I- if in or around Bitcoin that we can tap into and grow our Bitcoin stack through those activities, I'd certainly be open to it. 26:04 Um, but for the, the time being, I think American Bitcoin mining is, is a very linear way to say we're a Bitcoin accumulator. 26:10 And, uh, and, and to your point, is, is, is people ask, "Well, who are you and what do you do?" 26:14 Um, I, I, I somewhat take pride in the fact that I, I can very clearly explain on a, on a, on a cocktail napkin how we actually grow the stack. You know? 26:21 And it's, it, it, it's something that I think for the average investor, um, you know, they can understand things like gross margin. Right. 26:26 They can understand, they can understand these net income ideas and things like that. And mining is a very straightforward way to do that, and it's one that we're effective at. 26:33 Well, speaking of, of margin, hash price has been getting crushed- Mm... with Bitcoin drawing down. 26:39 It's, it's, it's been, it's been alleviated somewhat by the fact the difficulty has actually been pretty stagnant- Yeah... over the last few months. Also, Bitcoin's back up above 75, so that's helped some. 26:49 But we're still close to all-time lows. We're at, like, 35, $36- Mm... red hash per day. H- how do y'all at American Bitcoin think about steeling your operations for this winter? 26:58 And also thinking about, you know, the halving- Yes... coming up in about two years here. How do you think about designing your operations to make sure that you can survive in that low profitability environment? 27:09 Resiliency is something we baked into the core of the business. I, I think you have to if you wanna survive. 27:14 Yeah, there were, there are many miners, some of, uh, uh, who were quite successful in their day, who just didn't bake in resiliency. And so when things boomed, they did very well. 27:21 And when, when things busted, they blew up. Um, I did not really want us to be like that. I think when you think about American Bitcoin, and you think about what Bitcoin is, it's a volatile asset. You know? 27:31 It's, it's, it's a... W- I think many, almost everyone in the industry is, is a believer that in the long run, Bitcoin could go to $1 million a coin, could go higher. Again, a $1 to $2 trillion asset. 27:40 Gold, you know, when... I think when you and I discussed a year ago today, we talked about, you know, Bitcoin as the next gold. At that time, gold's market cap was around 20 trillion. 27:47 Today, it's closer to, like, 30 trillion. There's a couple extra trillion there. [laughs] I, I think that gives us some headroom, uh, for Bitcoin to get to a, you know, a much higher price. 27:55 Now, the, the caveat though with that higher price is I think we may take the scenic route to get there. You know? Mm. 27:59 If you, if you were to ask me what the long-term projections for Bitcoin are, I'd be, I'd be quite optimistic. If you were to ask me the price of Bitcoin in July, I, I, I don't know. I don't know. You know, I don't know. 28:08 I, I, I could, I could, I could use words like stochastic. I could try and give you an estimate. Um, but I don't know. And so because I don't know, I need to be very thoughtful about the risk attendant to that. 28:17 I mean, I need to make sure that there's not a duration issue with what we do. 28:20 If, if, if, you know, if I, if I believe long-term Bitcoin's gonna go up, I need to have a business that's around long enough to partake in that upside. And so if you look at the, the price of Bitcoin, Q- Q1 was the... 28:29 To your point, was a squeeze, um, in the, in the price of Bitcoin. I think we... Our operations, we, you know, we, we performed, you know, as, as, as well as we'd hoped. 28:36 But, you know, y- y- the price of Bitcoin is not within my control. And so hash price, to an extent, is, is really not within my control either. 28:43 I mean, we can have newer machines, we can run them well, but, you know, you, you can only control what you can control. 28:47 And so what, what we really did in this, in this, you know, past quarter, and you've seen now this, this rally as, as Bitcoin goes back up and hash price is, is falling, you, you've seen us be really well positioned for a, a spring or a summer in crypto. 29:00 I think it's gonna be very hard for our peers. So many of our peers have pivoted now towards AI. 29:05 If/when Bitcoin, uh, rallies again, as, as I think it is wont to do, uh, when Bitcoin rallies, it's gonna be very hard for those former competitors to [laughs] pivot back. You know, I think, I think that's... 29:17 There's a, talking business about one-way and two-way doors. Um, you know, the pivot to AI for, for most seems to have been, at least in their rhetoric, a one-way door. 29:24 So if, if Bitcoin were to double, for example, or hash price were to double, y- they've already begun the, the AI HPC retrofits and conversions. 29:33 So I, I don't think they're gonna be doubling their, their hash rate overnight to try and partake in that- Mm... uh, uh, hash rate upside or, or hash price upside. Whereas for us, for sure, I mean, we're, 29:43 we're not going anywhere. And, and so, you know, if Bitcoin stays at these somewhat depressed levels compared to the, the peak we had last year, okay, well, we can survive. 29:51 Um, you know, and when the time comes for Bitcoin to, to rise, which we do believe it will, uh, we, we've had no duration mis- mismatch issue. We're, we're well, very well positioned for that upside. 29:59 This episode of Blockspace Live is brought to you by Ligos. Hedge funds are reeling asset managers, and lenders are in the throes of the 101025 liquidation events. 30:17 But with Ligos, you always know that your Bitcoin is safe. 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So one thing I'm curious about 31:06 when approaching a low hash price environment is Bitcoin miners can do a few things to hedge energy costs and they can kind of hedge Bitcoin price if they play the market right. 31:16 Hash rate derivatives are kind of a burgeoning financial field. 31:19 I'm curious your thoughts on miners using those right now as a way to try to alleviate the pain of the market and whether or not American Bitcoin is using or would use something like hash rate derivatives in the future as part of their financial strategy. 31:34 Listen, I think if you've got a keyboard, you want all the keys, right? So if people are going to put some derivatives out there as things we can use, then that's great. 31:40 Those were not options on the keyboard for a long time. And now the liquidity is still forthcoming and we need to have better market making, et cetera, spreads are wide, things like that. 31:50 But instruments that allow the transfer of risk are fantastic. 31:52 I mean, things that allow me to really shape the structure of the business in line with my worldview and maybe want to protect downside here or cap the upside there or whatever. 32:01 These are things that things like hash rate derivatives really enable. I think Bitcoin derivatives and Bitcoin options were something that are now finally pretty solid. 32:09 You can do all sorts of stuff on Bitcoin at scale that you couldn't really do in a pretty compliant fashion over the past few years. Now you can. I think hash rate derivatives will be the next thing there. 32:20 I think it requires an additional complexity around hash rate delivery and things like that. It's not quite as easy as just Bitcoin. But I think it's an important tool. 32:29 And so if miners want to be buying and selling hash rate, again, it's all about risk transfer. And so being able to hedge energy is fantastic. Being able to hedge Bitcoin price is great. 32:40 If you can do hash rate as well, it is kind of the missing piece of the puzzle to start to control a few of the factors. Because right now, I mean, if things slip in certain directions, you can't really lock in. 32:52 We're not really in the mood right now to lock things in. But I'd love to have the option. And so it's something that I really welcome for the revolution of the industry. 33:02 Well, speaking of like not wanting to lock in hash price right now, which makes a lot of sense, right? So for 33:08 context, right, for these hash rate derivatives for our listeners, you know, you can basically lock in a certain hash price BTC or USD denominated if you're a miner and then get payouts under that hash price for a specified period up to six months with luxures at least. 33:22 But obviously right now might not be the most attractive thing. And if I were going to make a bull case for Bitcoin mining right now, I would actually look at all time low hash price. I would look at the AI pivots. 33:32 And as long as Bitcoin's price doesn't just totally puke, which it could, we're actually probably a pretty good setup to bounce, right? So I'm curious your thoughts. 33:42 What do you think will happen over the next few years in terms of hash rate? Because when I look at the market currently, again, I see some dedicated miners like American Bitcoin still buying hash rate and expanding. 33:51 But I see, you know, 30% of 20 to 30% of the US hash rate in public miners that is looking to go offline sometime within the next four to five years if they can, you know, pivot to AI and HPC. 34:03 Do you think we're going to see historically low hash rate growth over the next few years into the next halving? To me, it's kind of a leading question, but like I can't see it any other way. 34:14 It is something I think about a lot. It's an excellent question. Network difficulty. Yeah, I think I think we grew accustomed to years of just relentless, you know, growth, growth, growth, growth, growth. 34:25 Every two weeks that a difficulty adjustment would come and it was rarely positive. I mean, you would you just you would see the difficulty of your day to day going up over there. 34:35 There's no other industry that really has that sort of ratcheting effect. Now, we've seen a quarter or really two quarters now of a flattening of difficulty. Yeah, there's there's again, I think there's a few factors. 34:46 So let me just go through those here. There's there's the there's the AI HPC pivot, some of the miners. So there's simply less was American public companies that are buying hash rate. 34:57 There there is a potential slowdown in the compute itself. There were there were the I mean, the years of the ASA came out difficulty obviously skyrocketed. There were advancements. 35:06 I think I think when people really shifted from air cold to a liquid cold modality, whether it was hydro or immersion, I think that also contributed to the jumps. 35:14 But, you know, and then I think to your point, there's just kind of AI HPC aside, the hash price is not compelling for for even maybe some new pure place. 35:24 It's just if you were to underwrite a brand new Bitcoin mine today with no background, I think trying to marshal the several hundred million dollars that it would take, plus the know how to actually do it successfully is 35:35 a tall order for a lot of folks worldwide. And so so, yeah, hash rate and network difficulty may not be able to keep up with the price of Bitcoin in the way that it used to historically. If Bitcoin were to double 35:49 hash hash rate, it's elastic, but it's on a delay and it's just very tough. Getting machines online is just going to be very tough. I think between trade supply chain and trade issues, megawatt issues. 36:01 I mean, it's fuel sky rocketing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The price. Yeah. I mean, basically it's putting on 36:10 putting hash rate on the on the network and NAS has I'm not sure ever been this difficult, which, you know, as a marquee American miner. Great. 36:19 I mean, these are competitive modes that have just sort of structurally emerged. You know what that means for the network overall. We'll see. 36:25 But but to your point, network difficulty will probably we've been flat for a bit. There will continue to be some advancements. 36:32 New machines will get put online because new machines are getting made and those machines will find a home somewhere on the planet and they will turn on and you'll see that in the tape. 36:39 But yeah, the marquee order or the banner idea of we're going to go to 100 eggs a hash. I don't know which American of the former leadership of the mining industry, United States. 36:52 I'm not sure who's going to who's going to break 100 right now or break 150. 36:56 And so if you were to do a sort of a model, well, you know, these guys want to do this and these guys want to do that.I think you're gonna come a bit, a, a bit short. 37:03 And again, there's overseas mining concerns as well, and those folks will continue to put machines online. So I, I, I do think people continue to come, and there'll be further advances made, et cetera. 37:11 But yeah, it's gonna be a really interesting difficulty environment going into the next halving. I mean, it's been wild recently. 37:17 We've seen crazy swings and also the most successive and the most, uh, the, the largest cluster of, uh, negative difficulty adjustments- Yeah... since the China mining ban. 37:27 It's, it's been really interesting to see the early stages of this AI pivot and, uh, play out, you know, 'cause it's, it's not like we haven't even had a lot of the hash rate come- Right... offline- Right... 37:36 from the big public miners. We're kind of in this, uh, phony war period, right- Yeah... where everyone is just- Phony... 37:42 there's a slowdown because everyone's kinda standing around seeing what's gonna happen next- Yeah... because none of the public miners are buying machines outside of American Bitcoin, a few other private miners. 37:52 It's, uh, it's really kind of a fascinating time. 37:54 Y- y- the game theory is really inter- I mean, I, I love our industry, but the g- the game theory is fascinating in this specific instance too because to your point, like, people have, uh, categorically stopped g- stopped going on offense. 38:04 They've just sto- I mean, you just, you weren't seeing these massive new sites, the incursion. It, it's just not happening really. 38:10 I mean, again, American Bitcoin, hey, we grew the fleet, you know, that, that double digits, uh, last quarter. That was rare, and I think we were the only one to do that. Um, so the offense has basically stopped. 38:19 It, it, it's gonna be those fleet liquidations and th- that defense, and that, that's gonna take another year. 38:25 I mean, folk- you know, i- i- if you've seen Indiana Jones, right, there's a scene in the very beginning where, where there's a golden head, and he's got the bag of sand. Yeah. They're trying to do this flip. 38:34 Y- and that is a little bit what [laughs] I think some of these AI HVC pivots are trying to do. 38:38 It's, you know, you spend a lot of time building these gorgeous cathedrals for mining, and you, you're going to invest tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions of dollars to turn these into AI HVC cathedrals, which is fantastic, but you [laughs] you know, at some point you're gonna have to shut off those Bitcoin mining machines. 38:51 Yeah. And we're, we're gonna, we're gonna notice. [laughs] I mean, the, the, the, the day you really cut the cord and pivot to AI HVC, I'm gonna see that- Yeah... in the tape. Yeah. 38:58 And y'all are gonna be popping some champagne bottles. [laughs] Exactly right. [laughs] Okay. All right. Yeah. Cheers to AI, you know? So, so look, I, I can't, I can't help but w- w- winters are not always fun. 39:07 Uh, winters are for building. But, uh, but I'm, I'm feeling very sanguine. I've got this bittersweet optimism. Uh, I, I truly have high conviction in, in what we do at American Bitcoin. 39:14 I have conviction in Bitcoin overall. I have conviction in the ability of American miners to, uh, maintain leadership. And yeah, I think the best is ahead of us still. 39:21 So sp- okay, so that leads into a question to cap off this future of mining- Yeah... in an AI world, right? So y- you still have confidence in the leadership of American Bitcoin miners. 39:31 What do you foresee the industry looking like in four or five years once a lot of these mega miners have either totally pivoted or, um, are halfway through their pivots, right, most of their hash rate's offline? 39:42 W- what do you see as the future of the mining industry in the US- I-... when these big players leave the market? It, it, the, the, the, the singular, um, catalyst that I think will, will... 39:52 and it will happen, it will change the, the mining industry, will be the transaction fees. 39:56 I, and I don't know if that's a three-year or five-year or 10-year thing, but, but it, it, it is gonna come down to network usage. 40:01 And, and I, I'm aware that, you know, there'll be layer twos and they'll, there'll be things that are trying to slow down, you know, the congestion of the network, which is the downside of the usage. 40:09 But that is going to be the time where Bitcoin mining as an asset class is rerated. 'Cause right now, mining is really, uh, still predicated upon the block subsidy, right? 40:18 We're, we're, we've got a certain amount of Bitcoin per day. It's mathematical. You know, you, you, you pointed out the halving is, is upcoming in a few years. 40:23 Uh, w- I can, I can tell you how much Bitcoin will be in the, in the subsidy for the next century, honestly, at this point. So that, that's... Now, what, what that Bitcoin is worth, that's more debate. 40:32 But the amount of Bitcoin that is gonna be mined is mathematically certain. The transaction fee amount is not mathematically certain. Mm. And that to me is very interesting. 40:39 And I don't, again, I don't know, I don't profess to know if that is something that is gonna materialize before the next halving or after it or the one that follows, but that is, that is something that will, I think, really change the industry. 40:49 Until that point, assume, uh, let's assume that, that the status quo, that, that there is not going to be a transaction fee renaissance over the next, say, 24 months. 40:57 You're, you're going to see a continued, uh, co- concentration, a- at least in the United States, into institutional miners. 41:04 Uh, I, I, I think that the, the coverage of the industry, uh, folks like yourself, ha- has matured and, and improved. I think people are now asking the right questions. You know, w- what did, what is your team set up? 41:14 What is your SG&A? Um, you know, w- what is your gross margin? H- how much money do you make? You know, what, what's the capital flow? 41:20 Uh, the industry, uh, those covering the industry have, have wised up, which I think leads to better operating teams. Mm. 41:26 So you think you'll, you'll see a smaller group of people, but you'll see a group of people that actually make money in the business. 41:31 I think it's, it's not going to be a game of, you know, depreciation schedules- Mm, yeah... or things like that. 41:35 It's, it's gonna be gen- it's gonna be genuinely seen as an operating business, and you're either gonna perform or you're not. Yeah. 41:40 And I think that's one thing that a lot of people miss with the explosion in hash rate over the last few years. 41:45 You, you kind of alluded to it, but it was just unprecedented growth, and part of it was because you had these public miners who had access to public markets- Yeah... and they could- Yeah... 41:53 issue shares and honestly probably inflate hash rate and kind of, you know, artificially in- Yeah... 41:58 in- inflate how much hash rate would otherwise be on the network if you were just thinking about, okay, how do we actually pay for these- Yeah... rollouts with what we are making? 42:06 How are we, how do we be judicious- Yeah... with the balance sheet? Uh, well, Matt, we're, we're running up on time, but I've just got one last question for you as a closer. 42:12 What are you most excited about for the rest of the year with regards to American Bitcoin and what y'all have planned? I, I, again, I think for us it's the continued accumulation. I mean, we're over 7,000 Bitcoin. 42:21 That's our first year. 42:22 I, uh, what's ahead is even more exciting, and I think becoming that category leader in Bitcoin in the United States is, it's a privilege, and I'm excited to continue to update the markets as we grow. 42:31 Well, looking forward to, uh, y'all's earnings release coming up soon. This will probably be out right before that. Um, could have waited for the earnings release- [laughs]... 42:37 but we, I, I just, I couldn't resist- This has been fantastic... the in-person interview. Yeah. So Matt, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you for your time. [upbeat music]
