Thread by @stephanlivera

Listening in to #Bitcoin Mining Council spaces hosted by @michael_saylor

twitter.com/i/spaces/1MYxN…

@michael_saylor Idea being an open forum to share best practices and promote transparency.

(I'm not convinced 'transparency' is necessarily a good thing)

@DarinFeinstein notes the framing of bitcoin miners being on the defensive. Energy use and emissions required is 'perceived' as a problem.

Notes the very small fraction of energy use takes. Less than a fraction of 1%

(perhaps not a good long term arg.)

@DarinFeinstein Darin notes there are dishonest projections about Bitcoin's future energy use.

Comments on 'renewable' use also

Reiterates 0.0075% of world's energy point.

(IMO - Not a good long term argument if bitcoin energy use rises though)

@chadeverett comments that bitcoin mining can ramp power down and provide benefit to the Texas ERCOT grid

Chad: Some Texas residents were outraged about being asked to use less power 'because of bitcoin mining' when the reality was bitcoin miners had already turned off their use to support another 20k residents power

@_amanda_fab & @PerianneDC discussing recent NY state law on bitcoin mining with a carbon based fuel

Perianne comments that media headlines drive policy conversations around DC. Much of it not intellectually honest, false narratives.

Amanda comments about getting in front of these narratives given the points about inactive home devices power use in the US that could otherwise power the Bitcoin network multiple times over

Perianne comments on the national security argument to have Bitcoin mining on US soil. Federal level politics, not just NY state law.

Industry outlook from Michael: The first 10 yrs of Bitcoin, it required inspiration, conviction, courage.

The next 10 yrs we have to keep that up, but we'll need to bring together industry and diplomacy. Interacting with govt at federal, state, local level.

Saylor: China development is one of the bigger pieces of news in the year, but it is dynamically decentralising Bitcoin hashrate to other parts of the world.

Saylor: We're bringing more investors into the asset, while decentralising the mining.

Bullish for the entire industry, albeit difficult time for chinese miners.

Saylor: It's not a governance council, just here to share cooperatively, we all like decentralisation

Saylor: We're just here to defend bitcoin from people that would misunderstand it

in response to @PeterMcCormack about whether there'd be energy mix requirements, or perhaps coinjoin/OFAC address blocking

@JasonLes_ comments that he has commented to the pool they're using that Stratumv2 is important to them

in response to McCormack raising the question @brian_trollz was asking

Saylor: If we could build a model and get insight into energy mix that people use and their expectations over the decade, we could put out a forecast that might be useful

Aim being to have useful artefacts to educate the public about Bitcoin

@DarinFeinstein notes the inaccurate media articles about "Bitcoin using ALL the worlds energy", and the hope being as miners to correct that narrative

Darin notes that while we have approx 150M people in Bitcoin today, there's still over 7.5B people on earth who may not be aware of how Bitcoin works and the discussion about energy use.

@nic__carter - is there any view on carbon offsets for miners?

Saylor comments about transparency first before the carbon offsets conversation

@CaitlinLong_ : Who's funding Bitcoin mining council and what % hashpower?

Saylor: informal coalition and we're not spending much, its mostly a non issue.

Hashpower - still in membership drive stage

Caitlin raises question of public companies (who might drive ESG interests), when Bitcoin "doesn't care".

Saylor: Having run public co for 22 yrs, the threat isn't ESG activism directed at public co's

Saylor: Theres no board or CEO of bitcoin so you couldn't govern it even if you wanted to

Saylor: the big threat to bitcoin from ESG if the environmental narrative in mainstream media, and that ripples into a public movement -> political movement.

Attack wouldn't be on a company, it'd be on bitcoin mining from a nation state

Saylor: Concern could be if 183 mainstream journalists pile on because they've only done 15 mins of research on Bitcoin

Saylor's concern is not shareholder activism directed at bitcoin miners.

It'd be journalists writing in an uneducated way about marginal energy use e.g. bitcoin doesn't just linearly scale up energy wise

Saylor: Can Bitcoin go to a $100T network without states and large public co's? Answer is no, if we don't have governors on board, or large public co's

Saylor: If we want bitcoin to be a long lasting asset, you want publicly traded Bitcoin miners. We're staking the network with wall st capital, and political capital, and technological capital

Saylor: if these co's can raise billions of dollars, they can use those funds to mine and secure Bitcoin

Saylor: if we agree on Bitcoin, diplomacy means we need to find a way to work together

Caitlin: UASF showed that users control the network. Does Mining Council go against that, the idea that users control bitcoin?

Darin: Bitcoin doesn't care, and it will succeed and thrive. It's jurisidictionally agnostic

Darin: it is all about the users. Only ~150M of 7.9B people are using it. The people that need it most, are not on twitter with us

Darin: the better we can put the message out about the facts, and let's be intellectually honest about bitcoin rather than reckless graphs

Saylor: one of the reasons we won in NY was the union supported us.

Just cos we're decentralised doesn't mean we need to be disorganised

@JasonLes_ : miners do not control Bitcoin, UASF and BIP148 are an important part of Bitcoin's history

has a copy of The Blocksize Wars with him

Session looks like it's wrapping up now - Michael is commenting about sharing best practices and educational materials for the public. It will be done in an open spirit of cooperation. Bitcoin Mining is coming into its own.

Saylor: Bitcoin mining is providing the infrastructure to create a new open monetary system

Session wrapped up. One reflection I still have at this point is: I'd be wary of arguing on renewable percentages as this may not hold longer term. We must argue the merits of Bitcoin *overall* being worth it, even if it was 100% fossil fuel.

Personally, I can agree with the goal of educating the public about Bitcoin mining and why it's 100% worth it.

Still wary of inviting 'transparency' into the process when this may be a vector for future govt regulation or control and antithetical to Bitcoin values

In the end it won't kill Bitcoin, but it may hinder american based miners relative to miners operating in other parts of the world if that were to happen.

Perhaps we have to make the case that its just shooting your own country in the foot to try regulate here...