A Gen Z's Journey with Bitcoin - Part 4

Tali: 00:00:00

Hey everybody.

Tali: 00:00:00

Welcome to Orange Hatter.

Tali: 00:00:02

Today you'll be listening to part four of my conversation with Ella.

Ella: 00:00:07

WIth the renewable energy aspect, the fact that 55% of the renewable...

Ella: 00:00:12

or the energy Bitcoin uses comes from renewable sources...

Ella: 00:00:17

it's great.

Ella: 00:00:18

I will say that it's not just because Bitcoiners are really bullish on the

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energy transition and climate change.

Ella: 00:00:26

Bitcoin miners are incentivized to find the lowest energy

Ella: 00:00:31

prices, as we all would be.

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You know, we, we wanna have the most profit and so we

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wanna have the cheapest inputs.

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And so a lot of that is going to find stranded energy sources.

Ella: 00:00:42

But when we think about how does our world transition away from maybe more

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fossil fuels to clean energy, the Bitcoin miners are gonna be the critical component

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of that, because there's a lot of infrastructure that has to be built out.

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There's a lot of upfront money that has to be outlaid to build more grids,

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more everything, infrastructure.

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And all of those people will know that Bitcoin miners will be their

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buyer of first resort and last resort.

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So once that plant is up and running, you know, Bitcoiners will

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come and they'll start mining.

Ella: 00:01:19

Um, they don't have to wait for just you and I to go and buy their energy.

Ella: 00:01:24

So I'm happy to clarify anything there, but, there's a little

Ella: 00:01:27

bit more on Bitcoin and energy.

Tali: 00:01:30

Can you talk a little bit more about what you just said?

Tali: 00:01:33

The buyer of first resort and the buyer of last resort.

Ella: 00:01:37

Yes, absolutely.

Ella: 00:01:38

Actually, I was really learning all this in my game theory class this past fall,

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and I should probably go back and read it so that I can remind myself of it.

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But essentially, buyer of first and last resort...

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all that means is that Bitcoin will be buyer...

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BItcoin miners will be buyers when the pricing works out.

Ella: 00:01:57

So what that means is, let's say, let's just take an electrical

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grid like Ercot in Texas.

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And so let's say the grid, there's just way, way too much demand on there, and

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the Bitcoin miners can shut off instantly if the power prices become too high.

Ella: 00:02:17

And so they can just literally, like the flip of a light

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switch, kind of just shut down.

Ella: 00:02:21

No work is lost.

Ella: 00:02:23

Maybe we'll just go back to the mining gold example.

Ella: 00:02:27

Um, you know, you're, you're mining away.

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You're, you're have, like your ax...

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the gold bar that you're working on is still there.

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You'll just, you'll come back to it once you maybe, you know,

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get some water and take a rest.

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So anyways, there's no work that's lost when Bitcoin miners shut down.

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And so they can do that really easily so they can free up space

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on the grid for you and I if we really need to have access to power.

Ella: 00:02:50

You know, we saw this in Texas when a lot of the winter storms were coming through.

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And then first resort, as I kind of just mentioned, they'll buy it

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when those grids come back online.

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And then if, you know, you and I join and the price starts to come up, then

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maybe they reduce their demand a little.

Ella: 00:03:08

So I think it's just important to keep in mind that Bitcoin miners,

Ella: 00:03:13

they wanna buy the cheapest power they can and they help stabilize the grid.

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And so if no one's using the power, then they'll go and buy

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it 'cause it'll be cheaper.

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If too many people are using the power, they'll maybe reduce

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their intake of power and free up some space on the grid as well.

Tali: 00:03:29

Can you also talk a little bit about how Bitcoiners use energies that is just

Tali: 00:03:34

being wasted, that's not being used at all, and so they're taking advantage of

Tali: 00:03:39

something that's existing and not taking it away from other people like you and me.

Ella: 00:03:45

Yes, exactly.

Ella: 00:03:45

Um, so there's a lot of stories...

Ella: 00:03:47

uh, there's a couple different stories to share, but one: Bitcoin miners will go

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and they'll capture stranded natural gas.

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So what that means is literally just gas being just kind of shot

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up, flared, natural gas in the sky, literally lighting money on fire.

Ella: 00:04:06

And Bitcoin miners can go and they can capture that, what otherwise

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would just be polluting the atmosphere and literally being lit on fire.

Ella: 00:04:15

They'll go and they'll buy, um, they'll use that to power the Bitcoin miners.

Ella: 00:04:20

So there's one case.

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a lot of small towns, maybe they used to have, I don't know, a textile

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mill or some sort of water mill there.

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And the town has...

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the industry has moved on, the town maybe has been a bit forgotten about.

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Bitcoin miners can go in there and they'll, you know, set up their miners,

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and they bring a lot of life back to small towns that maybe have kind

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of been forgotten about, fallen out.

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They'll use that hydropower, whatever it might be.

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There's really good initiatives, um, such as grid list in Africa.

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So, energy is life.

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Energy is just critical.

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It should be a human right, that everyone have equitable access to energy.

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And Bitcoin is, is doing that.

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It's bringing energy to people that otherwise wouldn't have it.

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So, you know, they can have light, so they can, you know, stay up after it's dark.

Another case: 00:05:13

You know, better schools...

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just, if you have access to energy, your whole quality of life changes

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and Bitcoin is really supporting that.

Tali: 00:05:22

Yeah, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding

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around Bitcoin and energy.

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So I hope that you get your major approved.

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And it'll set a precedent and other people can follow.

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So that's, that's really, really wonderful.

Tali: 00:05:35

I wanna now, um, jump into the project that you told me

Tali: 00:05:40

about the, the Sats Chats.

Ella: 00:05:43

Yes.

Ella: 00:05:44

So this, this started because I would be at school and have lunch or dinner

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with a friend, or we're just walking.

Ella: 00:05:51

And if you talk to me long enough, Bitcoin probably comes

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up in the conversation somehow.

Ella: 00:05:57

Um, something I saw in the news or whatever it might be.

Ella: 00:06:00

And so I found myself just having the same conversations over and over

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again, which I'm very happy to do.

Ella: 00:06:08

But I thought, you know what?

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I just need to start writing this down.

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And so I...

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also, I went to Pacific Bitcoin this past year, and one of the takeaways

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that I had from there was the fact that we have to market Bitcoin better.

Ella: 00:06:26

You know, we don't have a, a stadium.

Ella: 00:06:29

We don't have, you know, cool ads with the QR code or...

Ella: 00:06:33

bitcoin isn't fun.

Ella: 00:06:34

It's not cool to a lot of people in Gen Z.

Ella: 00:06:38

But if we started emphasizing the idea of sats...

Ella: 00:06:42

So Bitcoin, there's one Bitcoin, but Bitcoin is composed of a hundred million

Ella: 00:06:48

sats, which is short for Satoshi's.

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And so if we started marketing or just making more visible that s exist...

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that that's a thing...

Ella: 00:06:59

I mean it, it took a, a while before I knew that that was a thing.

Ella: 00:07:03

Maybe that would help with Bitcoin, with Bitcoin adoption.

Ella: 00:07:06

And so it was kind of a pun on words, like we down and chatted,

Ella: 00:07:12

and then also trying to emphasize s, the unit of currency that we have.

Tali: 00:07:18

So has it been rolled out or do you have a timeline in mind?

Ella: 00:07:22

There are a couple posts on there.

Ella: 00:07:24

I have drafted about 22 different articles on there.

Ella: 00:07:29

So if you go to my website, just Ellahough.io, there

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are a couple posts there.

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I also have put together, I called it high signal resources.

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So I've also found myself recently talking to people, and they say,

Ella: 00:07:43

how do I get started in Bitcoin?

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Where do I go to learn?

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And so I've just been writing the same list just on a piece of paper.

Ella: 00:07:51

And so I just put that up there basically by category.

Ella: 00:07:55

It's just different, good follows in different areas.

Ella: 00:07:58

If you wanna know women in Bitcoin, if you wanna know what

Ella: 00:08:01

podcasts to watch, that's on there.

Ella: 00:08:03

So if you go to my website, you'll see that.

Ella: 00:08:05

And then you'll see four first posts of s Chats.

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And then, it's my summer project to have it done, um,

Ella: 00:08:14

the university guide and this.

Ella: 00:08:16

And so hopefully by September 1st, they'll all be there.

Tali: 00:08:22

That sounds like a really fabulous resource.

Tali: 00:08:25

A lot of people I talk to who become curious about Bitcoin, their first

Tali: 00:08:29

question is always, how do I even begin?

Tali: 00:08:32

There are so many resources out there.

Tali: 00:08:34

What is the roadmap, right?

Tali: 00:08:36

What is the success path?

Ella: 00:08:38

Exactly.

Ella: 00:08:38

So some of the...

Ella: 00:08:39

I'm trying to write them in a road pathway.

Ella: 00:08:42

So I think the first post is just what is a , you know, what is, what

Ella: 00:08:48

is the point of the name of this?

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And then kind of what is blockchain?

Ella: 00:08:52

The blockchain trilemma.

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What is Bitcoin?

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What is Bitcoin lowercase b versus uppercase B.

Ella: 00:08:59

So just, I'm trying to lay it out in a way that's just easy

Ella: 00:09:03

to follow, and they're short.

Ella: 00:09:04

They're not trying to be very long.

Ella: 00:09:07

There's already so much good content out there.

Ella: 00:09:10

My goal with this is just try to make it easy for people my age, people new.

Ella: 00:09:16

Just try to make it easy for them.

Tali: 00:09:19

Thank you for listening.

Tali: 00:09:20

Did you hear anything in our converion today that you resonated with?

Tali: 00:09:24

It.

Tali: 00:09:25

Were you able to identify with some of the feelings that Ella had?

Tali: 00:09:29

If so, I would love to hear from you.

Tali: 00:09:32

Please send your questions or comments to my email Tali@orangehatter.com.

Tali: 00:09:40

I would love to hear from you.

Tali: 00:09:41

Come back tomorrow and hear the rest of our conversation.

Tali: 00:09:45

Thank you.

Tali: 00:09:45

See you soon.