Blake King (Galaxy Digital) on Mining, Transmission, and Curtailment (EP.362)

For another episode of the mining miniseries, Nic sits down with Blake King, power markets engineer at Galaxy Digital, for his second OTB appearance. In this episode:  Blake reacts to the White House OSTP report on crypto mining Does mining actually reduce the incentive for utilities to build additional transmission? How transmission building decisions get made How are ERCOT planners taking the price of Bitcoin into account? The merits of proactive transmission construction Why the existence of strong property rights makes transmission much harder to build Can Bitcoin be understood as the electrification of gold? Is there really 17-25 GW worth of Bitcoin miners in the process of connecting to the Texas grid? How should we think about interconnection and load queues Why would ERCOT exaggerate the planned scale of Bitcoin mining in Texas? Do miners using renewables “not count” because they displace other consumers of renewable energy? Why Blake expects the $/MWh revenue for Bitcoin to continue to trend down over time Are Bitcoin miners forcing grids into grid scarcity events? Economic curtailment versus formal demand response Are Bitcoiners overestimating the importance of demand response for miners? Content mentioned in this episode: Bitcoin Mining and the Grid, Part I and Part II Part I of Blake King on the show: OTB 330 White House OSTP report on Bitcoin Mining Intro and outro: Daniel Allan’s Collage #344