Introduction Welcome to Distilling Venture Capital.  I am your host, Bill Griesinger Distilling VC is a visionary podcast that provides an insightful and informed view of the key trends affecting the VC and tech startup world.  My mission is to cut through and go beyond the hype that tends to dominate the tech landscape.  And provide you with information you can use. Episode Introduction: Welcome back everyone.  Well, today I have the pleasure of welcoming back to the program JP Baric, CEO and Founder at Aurum Capital Ventures, which is engaged in the crypto-mining business.  JP thank you for coming back to join me on the show.    So, the last time we did a program was in mid-May, about 5 months ago, and I introduced Aurum Capital Ventures then as a technology/energy company directly involved in multiple aspects of the crypto-mining industry – and we delved into the many interesting aspects of your business model.  I have received a lot of positive feedback to that show – so glad you’re here to do this again… Crypto-currency Mining involves sourcing and utilizing the most advanced equipment, for sure, which you guys provide, but also one of the key components that has a huge impact on the cost and viability of crypto-mining itself – is the cost and amount of energy consumed – and, therefore, the energy component and its costs have a huge impact on the industry and its success Aurum has developed a truly innovative vision and approach to this aspect (Energy) of the business.  And I wanted to provide a platform here today for you to explore in-depth how you think about and approach the idea of generating, producing and sourcing energy at the core of   Please introduce and present this in the way you think would be most helpful and useful for our listeners to appreciate the impact of this vision Energy Utilization & Economics of Crypto-Mining: JP provides a deep-dive into the interrelated metrics and dynamics of Energy and Crypto-mining.  Here is what you will learn: Terahash Rate – core measure of energy usage in crypto-mining Can predict and model the Terahash rate for mining equipment.  USD per terahash – how much we make on a USD basis - the speed of how fast a mining machine runs.   Price per terahash dropped to 7.5 cents – when BTC crashed (March).  Was 13 cents per terahash.   Today, sitting at 8 cents per terahash with BTC at roughly $12,000 today.    Amount of new machines on the network has grown – at 8 cents per TH – betting that price of BTC will continue to rise… Miners all over the world are thus, searching for most cost-effective energy costs.   Cost/Mwh Rates in crypto-mining Old machines vs. New machines and economics Revisit the halving event from May 12, 2020 – when reward for mining was, by design, the reward went from 12.5 BTC to 6.25 BTC – Impact? Inflation Rate of BTC (1.8% infl. Rate) compared to USD inflation…digital currency has a lower effective inflation rate than the fiat currency! BTC price may be volatile but depends on what you compare it to New equip. is coming online line as fast as the manufactures can produce them.  Most are made in Taiwan and China Coming into facilities that have power in the 4cent to 5 cent range Mining Machines: The S-9s are the older;  Newer are the Ant Miner S19 Pros are 30 Juuls per terahash.   Square Announces Purchase of $50MM BTC for its Balance Sheet Here’s a perhaps diversion from our main topic related to mining & energy, but it’s related to Bitcoin and the larger ecosystem.  So, here’s some industry news I wanted to get your opinion on re Square – We all know them as the POS payment company. not only does Square have the retail app and footprint now, but they’ve also got a lot of very granular, small business merchant data. They've turned that into Square Capital and the small business lending business.  And the data on the consumer side, the spending side, the merchant acquiring side, and visibility into SMB finances to drive the business forward, crea