Episode 71

Lisa "Eat, pray, love, Bitcoin's all I do!" - part 1

In this episode of Orange Hatter, we explore the fascinating connection between Bitcoin and energy with Lisa, an expert in energy trading and finance.

1: Lisa's Background Lisa traded natural gas for big companies

2: Financial Services Lisa discusses her involvement in Bitcoin-related financial services, including Unchained. She hints at an upcoming role.

3: Real-World Impact Lisa explains how Bitcoin mining can make energy companies more efficient. She gives an example of a Texas power producer paying the grid to take excess power, showing how Bitcoin mining can help.

4: Aligning Incentives Lisa discusses the alignment of incentives between energy and Bitcoin mining, highlighting the benefits, including mitigating flared gas.

5: Why Should You Care? Lisa answers why everyday people should care. Efficient energy markets mean lower costs for consumers.

6: Supporting Free Markets Lisa concludes by emphasizing the importance of supporting efficient markets for the benefit of all.

To reach Lisa, email Info@CustodiaBank.com. https://custodiabank.com/press/custodia-bank-welcomes-lisa-hough/

To learn more about Bitcoin: Join the Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.  Visit https://www.meetup.com/womensbitcoinreadingclubwithorangehatter

Please email questions/comments to tali@orangehatter.com

HODL UP is available at www.freemarketkids.com.

Remember: Knowledge is empowerment! 🍊🎩

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Transcript
Tali:

Hey, everybody.

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Welcome to Orange Hatter.

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Today, you're listening to a

conversation I had with Lisa.

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Lisa, welcome to the show.

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So excited to have you here.

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I spoke to your daughter.

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Ella, not too long ago.

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And she spoke so highly of you.

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I just had to have you come on the show.

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So welcome.

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Thank you so much for giving your

time and sharing your story tonight.

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Lisa: Thank you, Tally.

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Well Ella gets in trouble if she doesn't

say nice things about her mother, so I'm

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glad that I've sufficiently scared her

into singing my praises on your show.

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Good for her.

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Tali: She did such a fabulous job.

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I introduced my daughter to her and I

hope they will become long time friends.

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So we'll just jump right in if you

don't mind, share a little bit about

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your background with our audience

so they can have understanding

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of where you're coming from.

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Lisa: Yeah, well, thank

you again for having me.

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So I I spend most of my time

in the Bitcoin space at the

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intersection of two key areas.

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First being energy, because

that is my background.

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A long, long time ago in another

universe I traded natural gas

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and I worked for a lot of big

companies Enron being one of them.

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And a couple of utilities, a

couple of big producers, so I feel

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like I speak the energy language

and I sit right in Houston.

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So, you know, energy capital of the world.

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Also, what I like to call the Bitcoin

mining capital of the world, even

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though it may not be, and then the

other thing that I have been working on

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lately is the financial services aspect.

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My first Bitcoin company

was Unchained in Austin.

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Many people are familiar with Unchained.

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They help people secure

generational wealth and hold

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their own private keys for Bitcoin.

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And then I was with a startup that

was trying to buy a bank and offer

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financial services to Bitcoin companies.

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Unfortunately, our startup

Didn't get off the ground.

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So I am doing some consulting,

but also probably announcing a

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next role in the coming week.

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So anyway, my interest sits firmly

in the energy section and the banking

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section and, and helping people.

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Have conversations really on

specifics of how Bitcoin mining

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can help improve efficiency and is

a creative for energy companies.

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And if you like, I mean, I'm happy

to give a couple of maybe real world

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examples to just paint the picture

for folks as to what that really looks

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like, because sometimes you hear these

words and, and you're like, okay, well,

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yeah, people say that it's good for.

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For energy companies, but I

don't really understand why.

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So, all right, you're nodding.

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So , I'll give you a couple of examples.

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So there , in Texas, we

our grid is the ERCOT grid.

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It's the electric reliability council

of Texas and ERCOT manages the projects

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that are coming on and it is their

mandate to provide reliable and efficient

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energy to all those that need it.

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So.

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As you can imagine, there's a lot

of scramble to create power to put

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onto ERCOT, and there's an increasing

push for renewables, it seems like

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everybody is ringing the bell for

climate change and for wind and solar

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and, and I don't want to come off

that I'm not pro Renewable energy.

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I just think that it is a little

bit unfounded to think that we

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will affect change, you know, by

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I don't see it happening and really

for a couple of reasons, but I'm going

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to give you an example of how Bitcoin

mining can affect an energy company.

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And then I'm going to circle back and

I'm going to give you an example of the

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alignment of incentives between energy

companies and Bitcoin mining companies.

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So the example that I would give

you is there's a relatively large

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power producer that's based in Texas.

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Although they have power plants

throughout the United States, but

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they're, they're based in Texas and.

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Non zero percent of the time, and I,

and I've heard the number estimated

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to be about 4 percent of the time

this company pays ERCOT the grid.

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To take excess power.

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So this company is running natural

gas power plants and and often they're

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combined cycle plants so they're

using, you know, at least two different

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types of fuel to make a plant run.

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And it's more cost effective or it's more

operationally efficient for them to keep

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running rather than shut a plant down.

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So they'd rather just pay ERCOT

to manage the load and let ERCOT

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distribute you know, power as they

are able, but, but this power producer

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pays someone to take power, right?

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So when you and I think about

Apple, 0 percent of the time, they

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pay someone to take their iPhone.

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Right.

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Like 0 percent of the time McDonald's

pays us to take a hamburger.

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It makes no sense for a huge entity

that makes, you know, that is in

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the power generation business to

pay the grid to take their power.

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And so, you know, it would

be uniquely beneficial.

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And in fact, these guys are in

discussions trying to make this work.

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They've put a team together to To

investigate and go through the required

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process to, you know, spin up Bitcoin

mining in order to absorb that power.

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So real world example, that's one real

world example of, of where that's helpful.

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A lot of people talk about so this is

example number two, a lot of people

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talk about flared gas and, and how

Bitcoin helps mitigate flared gas.

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And yes, that's absolutely true.

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It's a fantastic benefit.

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However, there's also a lot of economic

efficiency that can be gained in

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a field where you're not flaring.

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So I have a Bitcoin miner

that's here in Texas.

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He goes by Amalgamated Sludge

on Twitter, same as Dan.

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Dan has a property out in New Mexico

where he's got about 40 wells and

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has the ability to direct that gas

that's coming out of the ground

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into the Waja gathering system.

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Waja is a gathering system and a

pipeline system that's out in New Mexico.

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At times that Waha gas because

natural gas is priced by location.

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So it's, there's, I don't

know how many pipelines.

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Typically when you're trading

you're trading a specific region.

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So my first job I was trading

in the Gulf Coast and then I

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moved to trade in the Northeast.

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And then I, at the end of my career, I

managed the entire, you know, East Coast.

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So Gulf Coast assets.

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Okay.

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All the way up to, you know, kind

of New England assets, but in Dan's

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case, Dan is selling into what

at times is a depressed market.

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So what does depressed look like?

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Well, sometimes gas on Waha is

negative, which means that the

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producer that has expended capital

and energy and has site technicians.

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Who are pulling natural

gas out of the ground.

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They're actually having to

pay someone to take it away.

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Right.

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The other alternative would be to put

it into some sort of a storage facility,

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but in Dan's case, he doesn't have that.

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Like many people don't have storage.

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So you're really a price taker.

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You're, you're at the mercy of

whatever the market calls for.

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Now, at times, WAHA this, you know, in

the last 12 months you know, I think

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normally it's, it trades pretty on par

with the Henry hub and Henry hub is the

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delivery point for natural gas futures.

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It's the largest pipeline it's it's

like kind of the, the namesake, if you

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will, most people are familiar with it.

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Typically trades a little bit below

or, 10 cents below 10 cents above the

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Henry hub, but when demand is high, it

could trade dollars above Henry hub.

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Right.

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And in that case, Dan's really happy.

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Dan sells all the gas that

he can make into Waha.

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But when demand on Waha is very low, why

would you pay someone to take natural

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resources that you've spent money to get?

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Right?

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So what did Dan do?

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Dan coordinated some capital got creative

and built a Bitcoin mining site, which

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he has completely bootstrapped himself.

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You know, he's got buildings

and bought generators and

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bought Bitcoin mining machines.

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So now he has the option

to economically dispatch.

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He can either send gas into the

pipeline or he can mine Bitcoin.

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So I'll pause there in

case you have a question.

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Tali: I have a question for people

who are not very familiar with

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the way energy is bought and sold.

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So for an everyday person, why

would someone like Dan who has

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a need to dispose of his excess

energy by paying somebody else,

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why would I care about that?

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So let's say I'm just a regular,

middle class person, right?

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In my mind, energy companies

have a lot of money.

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And so if they have to pay someone else

to take away excess energy, why would I

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care that he is able to turn that energy

into something useful like Bitcoin mining?

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Lisa: Well.

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Let me just start by saying

you don't have to care, right?

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You don't have to care about that

any more than you have to care about

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the dry cleaner that you have in your

neighborhood having an increased price

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of supplies or you know, lower demand

from their customers because of COVID.

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Right?

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You don't have to care about

Dan and Dan's business.

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You don't need to care about the dry

cleaner and the dry cleaners business.

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But, I guess where my interest truly

lies is in In the support of free

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markets and markets are efficient.

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So markets optimize for supply and demand.

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And so you don't have to care, but

you know, I don't know me myself.

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I'm really actually pretty excited when

I drive down into kind of like the bowels

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of all the refineries and stuff that are

South of Houston, because I feel like

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that's the heartbeat of America, right?

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There's fuel that's coming on shore.

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And that fuel provides me you know,

safety and well being and health and

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, there's a huge chunk of the population

globally that lives in energy poverty

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and energy poverty is defined as access

to less than four hours of energy a

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day, four hours of energy a day or less.

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Right?

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Like if you and I lived in a

situation where we had access to

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power our lights, our toaster, our

God forbid, our cell phone charger,

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like we'd be screaming, right?

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There'd be riots in the streets.

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And in fact, when, when there is massive

power outages at times, there are riots.

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So we don't necessarily

have to care about Dan.

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It does.

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support an ecosystem of wealth

and prosperity and safety.

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And we don't even have to go into the

whole, you know, where I think energy

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is key to our own national security.

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Sure.

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Energy production leads to our national

security and how Bitcoin ties into that.

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Which I think is an entire, another rabbit

hole, but You don't need to care about

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Dan, but I am sure that you and all of

your listeners want to go turn your light

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switch on and have it work or plug your

phone in and have your phone get juice

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or, you know, your kid wants to play

their video game and they want it to work.

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You have, daughters that are in school.

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I have a daughter in school.

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She needs to be able to log on and

do her homework or research a paper

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or, write code for a project.

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I mean, I don't know, like, we all have

our reasons for wanting to use energy and

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that's a whole another rabbit hole of,

like, who should get to decide what energy

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use is is worthy or not, like, Right,

like, we live in America, free markets

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rule, we should all be in support of that.

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Tali: Here's my very layman understanding

of how it all works and the reason

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for that question I just threw at

you which is that it's actually to

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everyone's benefit that energy isn't

just flared into the air having

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to be paid to process the excess

because They're not doing it for free.

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You know, you think it doesn't impact

you, but it does because they're

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gonna get that money somewhere and

it probably is coming from your bill.

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So my understanding is if they're

able to more predictably sell or

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utilize the energy that they have

acquired, then the savings is passed

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along to the customers, at least

that's the way I understand it in the

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Lisa: exactly right.

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Yeah, no, you're, you're, you're 100

percent right, and I think that's why

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I'm using Dan's name here because I feel

like when we can identify people, right,

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it's not just this, like, nebulous topic.

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I mean, there is an individual who owns

land that he has built buildings on

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and he employs people to work at so

that natural resources can come out of

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the ground, go into a pipeline, which

feed into a power generation facility,

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which feeds the grid so that Lisa and

Tali can turn on their light switch.

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Right.

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And the more power that's feeding into

those grids, the lower our prices are.

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Tali: Yeah, it goes back

to incentives for sure.

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Thanks for joining us today

and learning with us today.

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If the discussion with our guests

resonated with you and you would

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like to dive deeper into the world of

Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the

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Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

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The meetup link is in the show notes.

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Also, if there are women in your life

whom you think would both enjoy and

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benefit from learning more about Bitcoin,

please share Orange Hatter with them.

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Until next time, bye.

About the Podcast

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About your host

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Tali Lindberg

"Hello everyone, I'm Tali! If you had met me a few years back, you'd have found me in the thick of homeschooling my four incredible kids. That was my world for two decades, filled with lesson plans, school projects, and a whole lot of beautiful chaos. But once they all graduated, a new and unexpected journey began for me - in the world of Bitcoin.

The spark was lit by my husband, nudging me towards this peculiar thing known as Bitcoin. At first, I resisted. After all, the complexity of Bitcoin was intimidating and my plate was already quite full. But he persisted, and even went as far as creating a bitcoin-mining board game, HODL UP, to teach me what it was. Before I knew it, I was orange-pilled, and my curiosity was piqued. What started as a casual dip of my toes soon turned into a fascinating dive into Bitcoin. Like my homeschooling journey, I took it slow, one baby step at a time, learning and adapting as I delved deeper.

Fast-forward to today, I am absolutely thrilled to share my Bitcoin adventures with all you amazing and busy women out there through this podcast. I've made sure the episodes are bite-sized and easy to follow, perfect for your coffee breaks or while running errands. My goal? To share my experiences and the experiences of other women in Bitcoin in an engaging, easily digestible way. Don't let time constraints or technical jargon stop you from diving into Bitcoin. As your friendly guide, I hope to provide a grounded, relatable perspective to help you navigate the Bitcoin rabbit hole. So, here's to us exploring this thrilling digital frontier together!