TFTC: A Bitcoin Podcast - #479: Socialist Attack On Bitcoin Mining with Jason Brett

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

Marty sits down with Jason Brett to discuss the EIA action to surveil Bitcoin miners and its wider implications. Jason on Twitter: https://twitter.com/RegulatoryJason Bitcoin Policy Institute: https://www.btcpolicy.org/ 0:00 - Intro 6:17 - Overview on “emergency” survey 15:03 - Clearly an overt state attack 21:45 - Fighting back 30:21 - Upcoming months 32:30 - Energy industry and policy 39:29 - Failure of ESG 46:31 - Making political progress 52:20 - Federal vs State 58:12 - Wrapping up Shoutout to our sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠River⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Unchained⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠CrowdHealth⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Bitcoin Talent Co⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Sote⁠⁠⁠ TFTC Merch is Available: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Shop Now⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the TFTC Movement: Main ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YT Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Clips ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YT Channel⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Marty Bent: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠

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out. I highly recommend it. You're going to get 15% off your first order with that TFTC code. Enjoy this rip. currency bitcoin wins in the world of fiat currencies bitcoin is the victor i mean that's part of the bull case for bitcoin you're not paying attention you probably should be and we are live jason brett welcome to the show marty how you doing good to be here doing well this is a bit of an emergency podcast and we've thrown together in response to the ia's uh survey requests for the bitcoin mining industry seems to be driven by the department of energy rushed through rather quickly um over the last couple weeks oh somebody's calling me here let me ignore

that um yeah and it came out of nowhere it seems and it is forcing the the industry the bitcoin mining industry to formulate a response rather quickly i think before we make any assumptions I just maybe we describe what you've been working on on the policy front, your experience and how you're viewing this, this survey, this registry, if you will. Yeah, so I'm an advisor to the Bitcoin Policy Institute, and I've been in the space for about seven years now. I think in terms of the policy and considering Bitcoin mining, there really has not yet been anything on the federal level regarding agencies doing anything. And the start of the federal policy on Bitcoin in general kicked off with an executive order two years ago, executive order from Biden on digital assets. Part of that was concerns about sustainability, ESG. It's important for people to remember President Biden, it's his top priority, right, about concerns about the environment.

So part of this looked into the energy use of proof-of-work systems. And they talked in that, if you read through the executive order, one of the findings was that maybe these agencies, federal agencies, could guide state and local partners on potential alternatives to proof-of-work, as well as looking at the energy consumption and better understanding it. So what you have is you have an executive order two years ago that's saying we need to learn more about Bitcoin mining, we need to understand more. And at that time, the Bitcoin Policy Institute responded.

We had talked to people in the White House about the program and there was good feedback. Troy Cross had been the lead really on that. As you know, Troy is really the master of this area. But what you had was, and forgive the DC speak for your listeners, but kind of you had what's called a soliloquy, okay, which is where Elizabeth Warren writes a letter saying, I think these agencies should start to look into what Bitcoin miners are doing at the federal level. and, you know, the mining contingent, if you remember Michael Saylor and I think a few other major players went and talked to the, you know, Department of Energy saying, look, this is a little overblown. We don't know if this is the right angle. But as we know now, this EIA has now decided on this emergency basis. And I say emergency lightly because as you've explored and

I've explored, too. These are very well thought out survey questions. Like, I mean, for an emergency, it's like they put together these well thought out questions and thoughts. It seems like it would have taken at least a few weeks to put together. But now in what they call an emergency to look into the amount of energy that Bitcoin mining is used and they cite things like the Bitcoin mining price. So what and we now know because we saw the EIA put out on its website yesterday, not only information about why they were doing it, which is when I call it a soliloquy, that's the response. They can just saying, we hear you, Senator Warren, we're doing what you're asking. We're trying to find out all this information about how much energy Bitcoin

miners are using. But the other thing that besides that response is they already started giving data of their own analysis of how much energy Bitcoin mining is using. So in a matter of 24 hours, Marty, we've gone from we need to explore on an emergency basis how much energy Bitcoin mining is using to within 24 hours, the agency putting up the website, all these numbers and data explored saying Bitcoin energy is really bad. So at a minimum, I think there's well, there's lots of concerns. But the baseline concern is that there's a bit of confirmation bias because they're already assuming that it's bad for the environment. So this survey to them might just result in saying, yes, we agree it's bad for the environment. The real concern, and it's a legal matter, has to do something called West Virginia versus EPA. And I say that because that's a really important Supreme Court decision. We've heard President, a candidate when he was running Vivek Ramaswamy say is probably one of the most important court decisions in our time as it relates to Bitcoin because it specifically prohibits the agency from doing exactly what it's doing. So what it means is it can't focus on a particular industry based on ESG. So it can't just go after an industry saying, we think there's too many problems with the environment of what your industry is doing.

And the Supreme Court, highest court in the land, in West Virginia versus EPA, West Virginia won. And basically what that means is the letters that Senator Warren sent encouraging this agency to do this is probably in violation of that finding by the Supreme Court. And so people are now being told, as you pointed out, like if you're a Bitcoin miner and you see these letters, it's like it's under criminal law if you don't report or whatever. But it's very possible this whole exercise, what the EIA is doing could be challenged in court

and we could potentially get a stay on what they're doing or it'd be overturned because it was made very clear again and by the Supreme Court, you know, you can't do this to an industry just on the energy side alone. Yeah. And we were talking before we hit record. This is somewhat of an unprecedented attack on a particular industry via the emergency authorization that was pushed through. Is that correct in your mind? Yeah. Yeah. I'd never seen this at this level happen. And I was talking to Reed Browning from Cathedral. He's a CTO at Cathedral Mining Company, and he was actually ex-Department of Energy. And he's pretty convinced that this was definitely pushed from above the EIA, from above the Department of Energy.

Because when you look at when the survey was proposed on January 24th and when it was approved, which was January 26th, like something happening that quickly within the U.S. federal government really never happens. And so it seems like they've been planting this behind the scenes, just getting their ducks in a row before basically pushing this forward. Yeah, I mean, they invoke the emergency basis for them to execute it in the way they're doing it. But again, you look at those surveys and those questions, it's pretty evident that there was some time, considerable time put together. You know, one thing I've been thinking about with this too is this would almost be never tolerated in any other industry. And sorry for any Detroit Lions fans, but it's kind of like being a Lions fan where you've never won the Super Bowl. We're all kind of, you know, you're a nice guy, I'm a nice guy. But there's a sense of like,

you know, if this was the NRA, this this would be shut down already. Right. If they said we need to do a survey, figure out how many guns all Americans have. You know, the NRA would be at the White House. And I think there's a certain degree of like where we need to start thinking as a community, as Bitcoiners of, you know, we hold a lot more power than we realize. You know, people reach out if we figure out ways of influencing and doing advocacy. You know, we can get this to go away. the only reason that we're even talking about this and that it's likely next week, in my opinion, this is going to start this process of because they said February to June, start going around and asking information is there really isn't enough powerful force to kind of stand in their

way to stop them from doing it. You know, and that's that's the problem of where this with new industry and there's this element of we're starting to think about how Bitcoin could change the world and how it might affect things in government. And, you know, a lot of people don't like that and this is this is an attack vector that i have to say unfortunately like this is elizabeth warren has executed this one pretty well and unfortunately it's obvious from this that it's not going away it's something we have to figure out an answer to and so i want to talk about what we can do as a response but first let's dive into like the details of the survey is there any fourth amendment protection because it seems like this is a pretty

egregious affront to privacy rights of individuals and corporations um it's literally asking mining companies to go to their electricity providers and have their electricity providers dox information to them about their other customers and their um the overall percentage that that bitcoin miners are using um with their overall capacity yeah i i chuckle because it's you know we talk about operation choke point we've seen that about like the banks trying to cut off like i've been thinking uh this is like operation pull the plug like let's go to all the electricity providers show who's giving the energy to bitcoin and then give the government the ability to like you know chase them away from from diverting all this

energy to this unimportant project um the the the survey that the idea is that it definitely it talks about a commercial crypto asset miner and what that's a tricky one because you'd said it yourself individuals or businesses you know i have a few bitcoin miners in my downstairs right i mean do do i does that mean that if if i get this survey or it says all need report like at what point am I a commercial endeavor, right? And there are EPA rules about pollution that certain industries have to comply with. But this is likely a Fourth Amendment violation

because it's probing for information, right? And it's asking specific, like you say, asking for the electricity providers and the names of the electricity providers and giving just downright information about your business that may be a competitive factor that you don't necessarily want to part with so it it crosses it it's it's a it's a challenge for anybody like for for me i have to think about and say well does this apply to me i mean i have half a dozen miners downstairs but

like am i a commercial miner do i just need to fill out this form in case um so there's a question of the who who does this apply to um because it's certainly casting a wide net but um it absolutely is a fourth amendment violation because think about it what if they what if you're talking about like mining like something or doing something with computers and they said we need to know how much energy your computer is using and like everybody has to tell you so it it seems hard to believe that it wouldn't violate that that constitutional protection that we have i mean they literally want the longitude latitude coordinates of all your operations and and you know and that's what i'm trying to understand because we saw that map right that showed 56

bitcoin miners so i feel like do they already know the coordinates anyway and they just because because then you have run the trouble of then you answer this form and what if you get it wrong and they then hold you in violation because you didn't answer truthfully so that the lat yeah the latitude and longitude is, is, um, pretty, uh, pretty priceless. Um, but, but I mean, talk about a surveillance state. Um, it's, it's, uh, we've, we've reached this, this is, we've, we've departed from the, the, the idea of, you know, we think the U S is against Bitcoin mining. You know, we know some senators have a problem with it too. Like this is when we actually see sort of the state at work and i mean um this form you know you have to either what mail it or or fax it back

or something can't even really it's just clearly they have an operation for it but um i mean this is i think there's some questions people need to ask that starts with is like what does this mean like when people come and talk to you you know should you even talk to them should you say i need a lawyer first you know like just don't i think you have to i think it's going to require everybody to get legal representation to answer this form properly to avoid any problems with the law later and and that's when you're papering an industry to death which is unfortunate but we've never but to be honest i mean really marty like i'm saying all this and at the same time i'm i'm slightly at a loss for words because this is really new territory i just i can't ever can you

think in your lifetime of an industry being sort of this this collection process is just targeted and i've just no i don't think anyone's ever heard of this before so not in the united states but we do have one example of another government doing this throughout bitcoin's history and that's venezuela they collected all this data and then took all the information and quickly confiscated everybody's miners um to mine for themselves yeah this is the big it's just something that everybody should be worried about. Yeah. And look, we already know the U.S. has confiscated a lot of Bitcoin, like in Mt. Gox. We don't know to the degree that they mine themselves. But I do think that what's critical here is that they're talking about in that memo that we saw

today on the EA website, concerns about, you know, this is what's happening in the United States because China shut off its Bitcoin mining. And so, you know, we know it's a growing issue in the U.S. And so there's clear policy reasons behind it, you know, that everyone's come to the U.S. now, you know, to mine. And I think that the real danger here is, like, once they set up the registry and they've collected this information, what next steps they're going to take.

And that's like you said, there's the confiscation. But in this case, is it extra taxes for using the energy? And so it's the problem, I think, that once you have that registry set up and people just start complying with this, um just by complying with it it makes it looks like we think there's a problem right so that's that's why i think that setting up this registry like then what could the next step be i don't think it's confiscating the miners i think to them it's like shutting it off because they want

to decarbonize you know the planet um yeah and it's it's weird too because a lot of the information they're projecting to want to understand better is already disclosed by many of the public miners, particularly, and even some private miners, particularly those participating in demand response programs. I mean, just two weeks ago, we had a negative 4% difficulty adjustment because miners were participating in demand response

to send electricity back to the grid, making it more stable and creating a more stable pricing environment for residential consumers. and yeah it is an overt attack it feels that way it certainly is that way if it smells walks like a duck sounds like a duck smells like a duck it's a duck and i guess that's the question i mean i wrote my newsletter i've stayed up pretty late i was a little tired a little aggressive in my wording but i i think personally i would just say we should not comply you shouldn't fill this

out at all everybody like you said should get legal representation and fight this and that's because over the last three days now two days i've been having um conversations with different people in the industry and that's i think we should use this platform to say like it seems like there's a number of people ranging from the largest miners in the country to small private miners are having these individual conversations and there needs to be some way for everybody to get together and have a um a coordinated uh action together in solidarity against this because i think there could definitely be individual actors who want to be the ones who fight this fight but i do think there's a need for solidarity across the industry um to fight this this particular

aggression yeah and and i think that like that word and i read your newsletter i could you know feel your sense of it. And I think you're right. Like when you started to say at first, maybe this seemed like a positive thing, right? Like they want to learn more information, but as you look more and understand the purpose of it, it doesn't seem like it's just simply, you know, let's do a fact-finding mission. And of course the problem is we don't kind of cooperate. Then we're, they can say, well, like they're, see, they have all this stuff to hide, even though we're doing things like helping balancing the grid that the funny thing is, and this is think about this for a second, like, like what's your least favorite us agency of all, or most Americans, what would you say

that the agency they dislike the most? The IRS. Perfect. So even with the IRS, when you and I file taxes, it's not about this mandatory compliance that if you get, if you don't get your taxes perfect, you're going to like go to jail. It's I'm reporting based on what my records are and then if there's a problem you can come in and audit me what i don't understand is if they really genuinely wanted to figure out what this process was of how the energy is used by bitcoin miners have it be a self-reporting mechanism you know just like you report in your taxes like i said no one likes to even do that but ask the miners send in the information don't send out you know this form saying it's mandatory and if you do anything wrong it could be a criminal

violation it's and that's where it's something unfortunately everyone has to get used to in this industry is it's treating us like criminals right like it's kind of we have to hit you over the head because you might not fill this out correctly because we don't really trust you in the first place plus you're wasting all this energy instead of just saying look file your taxes you know maybe not your favorite thing and really won't be your favorite thing if we have to audit you later but you know you report to us and and to me that's at a minimum it's not great right no one like i said no one likes the irs but you at least you report what you your income is you know it's always the joke right did you cheat a little bit on your taxes whatever stuff like that so if

they want to learn all this information they can pull that pull that do it that same way but this is this is not in that just let's report it in like no criminal violations if you don't know just let's start collecting the information because we want to learn more. And we want to see, you know, what we might, you know, want to do with this information and better understand maybe there's benefits to it. And so it just doesn't give us the benefit of the doubt. So at a minimum, I think the way that some of this is worded needs to be changed. The form itself might be a problem or a violation of the way the form is put together. The reason I say the legal representation is it's not even, even if you had everything right, right, Marty, even if you had,

you know, your minors, you know, your electricity and everything, the way the form says, you know, if you get something wrong, that's why I think everyone needs a lawyer to fill it out if you are going to fill it out, because what if you get something wrong? It's, it's like a bit of a catch 22. And so, so there's lots of, I think there's room. Luckily we live in a country where there's room to get lawyers to help us with this. We don't just have to comply. And I think there's there needs to be some congressional light shed on why was this emergency announced? And the you know, the biggest problem to me is this price increase that Bitcoin went up in price. And so and their assumption that therefore that, you know, there's going to be more activity.

you know, it notably doesn't mention that a halving is coming up soon. I'd love them to try to evaluate what that might mean to it. But here we are. And maybe to get the Bitcoin ETFs like Cathie Wood and others involved in this conversation, because you have all of Wall Street now benefiting from a spot Bitcoin ETF. And this policy looks like it's a bit of a reaction to that, you know, like and wouldn't put me it wouldn't put I wouldn't put it past the sort of the progressive attitude in this country of the minute something starts to be successful in a capitalistic light you know new york you know new york's embracing these bitcoin etfs price is burning and of course it came back a little bit you know this is when we start to see that the

liberals get really crazy right i'm not trying to take sides between like you know conservatives and but but that's what they tend to do they tend to just start to go in and use these backdoor mechanisms to get what they want anyway even if it's really already been decided this is sort of policy you know there wasn't like a notice of rule saying we're thinking about doing this and everyone respond or us respond and treat us like professionals and say this is the kind of information you should be looking at if you're really interested in learning about the energy use of this industry this is just let's use a mechanism of the state to get what we want and because because they're terror they're terrified now that there's all these bitcoin etfs that

that bitcoin might win and succeed yeah and going back to the congressional point too like is that a way to prevent this from moving forward as if somebody in congress was like hey why was the emergency authorization used like shouldn't this go through congress go through a vote first because they're a roundabout way where congress could stand up and say you should have passed this through us first like you don't have the authority to do this Yeah, it doesn't necessarily have to be a vote of Congress, but every federal agency has oversight from a committee. And right now there's the House Energy and Commerce Committee that would have oversight. It's the chair of that committee, Kathy McMorris Rogers from the state of Washington, could call a hearing or request information as to why this was asked for.

I'm not sure how much of a Bitcoiner she is, but I do know she supports some of the broader, you know, concepts of like us being competitive against China. But that's really what you want is you want some chair of a committee who has oversight over this agency to send a letter, immediately send a letter asking questions like, you know, a letter that would say within two weeks, please explain what this is. what resources have you already deployed you know questions about it and and and maybe even say maybe even in the letter request please wait on you know wait on this hold off like a month until you come before congress and can really explain what you're going to be going out and doing with all of this information yeah so how do you think the next six months plays out ideally in your mind um ideally i think that uh people might take enough exception to this

it might affect the the outcome of the elect presidential election and a lot of this might be reversed because right now this is a symptom of the biden administration and the uh overwhelmingly increasingly progressive influence from Senator Warren. I think what I hope plays out and what I think you'll see, Marty, is you'll see people come to us in this community because people will realize if this can happen to this one industry, it could happen to any industry. And when you look at the amount of information that they're asking for, the degree to which they're doing it, it's it's a stifling of innovation so um i think that my hope would be in the next six months that they curtail this and that a lot of the large miners have already given information to senator

elizabeth warren you know so maybe leave it at these these are what the large commercial miners are and i mean hopefully get something like this shut down uh to the degree that um there's enough pressure right from congress to say this is an overreach on administrative level um and i think you're going to have a huge lack of non-compliance and i don't say that say people are going to like listen to your show and say yeah i'm not going to sign it i think some people just won't they look at it they won't be sure how to answer it some people may not even be aware they fall into this classification i mean there's been no notice no press no explanation how to do it um this is not like a friendly visit from you know your your postal service person this is like

you know coming from a place of investigation so i really have a hard time seeing how they're gonna get the results they want if in fact they do pull all this stuff between now and june yeah and it's it's funny the justification is we need to do this to make sure that our grids are secure and our energy systems are secure and everything this administration has done i guess as a complete projection onto the bitcoin industry specifically but i wrote it in the newsletters if you want to stabilize the grids like make sure you're building more reliable baseload spin up the the leases on federal lands again maybe finish the keystone xl pipeline uh maybe take all the red tape off of nuclear power generation there's many

other lower hanging fruits that the the government could take advantage of instead of attacking a specific industry um and that's that's where i think the signal is is they have to know this to some extent and do they really care about bitcoin's energy use or are they using this as you mentioned earlier as an attack vector to hinder bitcoin's proliferation throughout the economy and its adoption by individuals they could something like this the survey go out the data come back and the government either manipulate the data or present it in a disingenuous way to fearmonger about all the energy that bitcoin is sucking up yeah or come up with policies for the electricity providers right who give like maybe limit the

amount of electricity they would be willing to give to this industry um there's yeah there's this is this is where you would say like the the dam has broke right and and we're now is this now the era of like bitcoin mining regulation and what that looks like in the u.s where there's actual federal regulations around the way you can mine bitcoin i hope it doesn't get to that point and that's one thing i wonder too like talking about allies not only within the industry but across industries i mean i've seen it up close and personal very involved with multiple mining operations throughout the country and the utilities companies that we work with love us because we're able to provide them more revenue they can buy power in bulk pass those lower prices on to

residents that's and but still it's still early in that relationship between the energy sector and the bitcoin mining sector but this is something i've been saying at conferences and events over the last few months is like we really need to get allies in the energy sector and help leverage their lobby to come help us put our case forward like hey this is actually like really good for our energy systems and our companies our bottom lines and our ability to reinvest in infrastructure um that's that's one thing i'm hopeful will materialize but now with this this registry form going out there it seems like the time is nigh we need to convince those in the energy sector think we're valuable economic partners to come come help us fight this and as you mentioned

like west virginia versus the epa they've certainly gone through this before and is that the chevron deference case as well or is that separate that's that's the one yeah so also you know you have to remember like that there's things ebb and flow in dc we're in an election year there's this one great um documentary um i've got to try to find it but it shows really like the cycles of the way democrat presidents care about like esg and they show them like putting solar panels on top of the white house and like as soon as trump moves in or bush moves in they send construction workers on top of the white house and they take hammers they knock the solar panels down throw them off the roof you know put them away for four years until a democrat comes

back so what i guess i'm saying is i mean this is it seems a lot right now to us right because this just happened it's like what does it mean there's a lot of unknown it's kind of scary but you know within a year if there's a new administration like all this could go away really really fast and i think that's to me like the hope at this point because um this there's just this is this is at like epic level of FUD about Bitcoin energy use. And it's likely that this was scrambled in an emergency way because they know that if it's under a new administration, whether it's Trump, Haley or whoever, they're not going to put somebody in charge of an agency and do anything like this to Bitcoin. And I hate that Bitcoin has to become partisan that way. But I think for right

now that's at least what it what will take all of this kind of reporting stuff to go away um it's it's president biden's a little unusual he's really really focused on esg and i've talked about this on other podcasts before too of you know we hit this real roadblock with this administration because they decided to look at digital assets for the first time you know we had huge market growth everything bubbled up and we just so happened to come across like president that isn't just your average democratic you know president who kind of cares about the environment but has made it his number one priority and so when you had those that really weren't fans of bitcoin you know say look this is well we know it's not but say look use of energy it's completely

contrary to your objectives we're not going to get you know to your goals in 2050 you know it's going going to destroy the planet, which, you know, Elizabeth Warren has said as much in some hearings, we have to stop Bitcoin. It's destroying the planet. It was his number one priority as a president. And so I think that that is why you're seeing this today is the last couple of days, this emergency thing go through because it is a priority of President Biden. This is his number one priority. And and so that we've they've hit upon the idea of what proof of work is. They feel like it used a lot of energy and to them it's like backwards it's like we're going back to the coal era to the and and it doesn't think through all the things that you know you've so eloquently

talked about with maybe we need to go back to nuclear or anything like that it's just like here we go back we're just taking steps backward when it's an emerging innovation right it's it's a new kind of money it has so many possible uses not just on the mining side but so many uses in society and it's just um so we just kind of hit this really bad it's bad timing because we just had a president who's been unusually worried about uh the environment and has been pandering for the most part to a lot of the environmental groups on a lot of these issues not just bitcoin a lot of the you know energy industries have been facing this now for the last few years with the esg narrative yeah which is hilarious considering we just have to look over the atlantic to europe and

i think they went first with this aggressive net zero energy policy and it's been extremely detrimental to their quality of life and the stability of their energy systems and the reliability of their energy systems and again it is nonsensical in an election year considering that most of his first term has been plagued by high inflation particularly in the energy sector which has come down over the last year but there's what's going on in the middle east the price of oil could certainly go much higher rather quickly if things escalate there and it's just weird that they're doubling down on this esg policy when it's an abject failure every everywhere you look that it's been implemented at full scale

absolutely and there's been a lot of folks who are now talking about reversing the esg right like people are saying we got to get rid of this you know that as soon as this it's it's definitely going to be something that's going to affect you know the election yeah and that's that's the other weird thing too is like obviously i've been a notorious anti-esg advocate but i mean if you look at it just like off-grid miners reducing methane emissions if you care about esg bitcoin is a perfect vehicle to sort of bring about a more efficient energy system whether it's off-grid or on-grid on-grid solves the e and the s the social side of things where it's like hey these miners can come in and create grid stability and create stronger

revenue streams for individual utility providers or power plants like that allows them to have a stronger balance sheet which will allow them to get more creative with pricing which typically benefits residential consumers with with lower prices yeah absolutely yeah you know i know i know you said you don't want it necessarily to come to this, but my vision sort of three or four years out would be we're still going to be able to mine Bitcoin, but the larger commercial enterprises of Bitcoin, think of somebody who shows up from Washington, D.C. in a suit and tie and, you know, puts on a hard hat and, you know, is the, you know, Bitcoin mining inspector, right? And, you know, it's going to poke around, you know, look at what

you're giving back to the grid you know questioning your practices i don't think we'll get to like it won't be venezuela they won't co-opt it i don't think they'll they'll never shut down something because remember that you know the same government loves and it counts on our tax money right so they'll how can we tax bitcoin how can we tax these these businesses to uh bring revenue back to the government but um i think the end game here is that at least for the larger bitcoin miners this is the sustainable path no pun intended is i think four or five years from now you might see sort of these inspectors from the the doe that come out and just poke around like they do any other um any other aspect of of energy production um and i'm not saying that's a

good outcome but i because i think we'd still be able to to uh to do bitcoin mining i just think we we might be seeing the era of of of regulation of bitcoin mining in some degree or another in this country because you know as you said it's it's like anti-esg but we've just we've moved in this country so far away of just basic freedoms it's hard you know to imagine that that an industry could ever just be left alone entirely yeah i have hope and we can get back to it hopefully bitcoin succeeds and they don't have all the money they need to to burden us with the pencil pushers and um the scrutiny it's just insane because when you think like the innovation that bitcoin mining has brought the energy system it's like palpable it's tangible

it's very clear in the data the data is there it's out that's the most frustrating thing about this is they're asking for data that's already public they could easily find in public filings by companies like riot marathon iris whatever it may be stronghold um like what stronghold's doing alone to solve the waste coal problem that exists in pennsylvania that should be something that people are cheering on there's this weird vendetta i think it's because they can't control bitcoin the asset or the network at the end of the day and mining is just the attack vector they've chosen um because it's very visible um and physical so it's literally a physical attack vector that that can be pinpointed and attacked it's funny that you say that too

because like for riot and marathon and these are others brings bears to mind well this type of activity allow the larger bitcoin miners to get bigger because you might have a lot of people who are smaller commercial miners who maybe can't afford or don't want to have to pay for a lawyer to fill out this form or might just be kind of you know straight up intimidated by the form or just say this is not worth our business if this is you know the u.s government's asking for all this information let's turn off the mines uh you know turn off the miners so it might create a little bit more consolidation um which isn't a good thing right we need the decentralization we need the smaller miners as well as the larger miners but that's that's part of my fear with this is not

just about the the substance of the form but the manner in which it's being delivered and the business decisions that might come up you know come up for people saying well you know i'll fill out the form this one time but i'm getting out of this business because it's you know clearly this is something that you know i don't want to like now they're asking who my electricity providers are. So there's this element of, I guess, intimidation, right? That we're just extra burden, extra regulatory burden. You know, why would I want to be involved in this? So it's going to take the true believers to kind of push back. And, you know, one thing that's been done in the past was about, it was more about like the

Bitcoin core developers. I'm trying to remember, it was like in 2016, but there were these like 50 lawyers in dc that got together and started offering like pro bono help so i mean that could be something that's something i'll think about like how can we coordinate to help get you know pro bono help for people who are going to be getting these forms so they don't just walk away from the business and also so they can feel protected you know if they choose to answer the form yeah i guess that dovetails into a broader topic which is the state of bitcoin the bitcoin industry's influence over policy which you touched on in the beginning but what would you like to see in terms of the industry really getting smart about interacting with the federal government

despite whether or not we we'd like to do it it seems that you do at the play ball to a certain degree just to protect your interests and the profitability of your business and the ability to to exist at all in the first place like have we made progress in recent years is it happening fast enough yeah i i do think we've made progress like i mean i'll toot the bitcoin policy institute's horn you know i'm an advisor to them but they responded they engaged with the white house when they were looking at it and some of their report did talk about the benefits of bitcoin mining so So it's not, this is just one administrator and his sort of, dare I say, narrow view of what Bitcoin is and the way it should be handled. But there has been open reception to the possibilities of the benefits of Bitcoin mining.

And so I think we need to curate that. My belief for a long time has been we need to create something akin to whether it's the NRA. People don't like that because they feel like it's just as far right or something of the AARP. I mentioned the idea of the NRA on like the Progressive Bitcoiners podcast. And they didn't like that. Like, how are we going to sell that to progressive Democrats? But you call it the AARP. But if you have a group of people, even if they're in a minority and they believe in something strong enough, you need that that grassroots support, which the playing ball part is finding some smart people.

Right. In Washington, D.C., who are also believers and who know who to speak to in power, who know how Washington, D.C. works, you know, understanding, you know, who to go talk to the right people. And if you think about any time there's an action that the NRA doesn't like, I mean, it's instantly stopped. You know, it's very hard to get any kind of bill. Right. Regarding, you know, guns. It's a Second Amendment issue. So the idea of the Fourth Amendment and finding that narrative to go with the fact that there's all these people out there that believe in Bitcoin, that care about it, that maybe you're willing to, you know, like you do with NRA, you know, chip in 10 or 15 bucks, get a magazine that you're, you know, you have your support and build that up. I think that doesn't exist yet for us. It's starting to. Like, BPI is a good start, but remember, it's a 501c3 nonprofit, so it doesn't actually, you know, go and try to change policy or change legislation directly with lobbying. So I think as Bitcoin gets bigger and there's like the Bitcoin ETFs are growing and other things that, you know, getting a good crew of Bitcoin lobbyists that can organize a grassroots campaign that would already be, instead of you and me talking like this, we already be in front of the right officials trying to, you know, get this changed or get this modified.

Or, to be quite honest, this is already kind of done, right? The form's already printed and everything. The idea in D.C. is you want to try to get something before it's complete. So, like, you know, you maybe have the right people in play who, like, this is sort of the rumblings of what's going to happen. And they can run to the White House to sort of say, no, you better not declare an emergency on, like, Bitcoin mining. That's, you know, absurd. So I do think that's the kind of juice that we need to protect Bitcoin. It goes very antithetical to the way a lot of people, including myself, believe.

Like I've always said, I'll teach anybody how you go talk to your congressman or talk to your local representative. I don't want to be like an intermediary or a middleman. I want it to be peer to peer, you know, but to one degree or another, to have the right messengers and build that grassroots support is going to be necessary to protect kind of the core tenets of what Bitcoin is about. And it's so great that, you know, the right to property, the right to code, there's so many aspects of this that makes it so much in the American spirit, the American way that, you know, that's what I hope we can find. I think that would be a really exciting kind of grassroots movement to get together with. And, you know, I'll say this, like some people in Bitcoin I've spoken to before on this and they know I'm a lobbyist and everything. And, you know, they kind of the question always comes up, Marty, in the debate goes into, well, why do we need you? You know, we don't want to lobby. We're just going to do our own thing and just sort of ignore like what D.C. does.

And the problem with that is that there's people in D.C. that care about what you're doing. And this is like case in point. You know, if you just sort of ignore them, then they come up with all these things and they make up their own story. So you just at some point or another, if enough people decide, you have your own storytellers there to kind of protect the turf. And as Bitcoin gets bigger, I think we're going to need that at some point to make it so we don't have these overbearing type actions. We're getting there. We're seeing some reactions. You know, BPI was on the phone all day yesterday. You know, David Zell and that group trying to figure out what to do. But we're not quite there yet where we have sort of the juice of an NRA or something to kind of just step in and push back.

And I think most people in Bitcoin will come around to realizing that's part of the game. We need to just play that for now. We'll know we've made it when the NBA is synonymous with the National Bitcoin Association and not the National Basketball Association. That's the goal, freaks, is to get there. um one last topic to touch on which i think is important to bring up is uh states standing up for companies in their borders obviously there's a big federal versus state standoff coming coming on down here in texas right now at the border we saw that trend of states asserting their autonomy from the federal government during covid lockdowns that seems like something that is becoming more

prominent in terms of national politics the state standing up and say no we're going to do our own thing do you see states standing up for the companies and their borders in regards to the federal government or would that be impotent at the end of the day you know i think that would be pretty powerful i mean when like um desantis tried to do the whole anti-cbdc thing or say in florida we're not going to have a cbdc i mean the government prints money at the federal level And it's not really, I don't know that the law would be effective, but like talking about Texas and the border and that to that point, this is about a form. And if this is affecting, you know, your state and local businesses, I mean, this is just a classic case of federal overreach. You'll likely have a lot of state opposition to it.

And, you know, the one thought I had when you were sort of sharing that is like, you know, with Bitcoin, it's about the consensus. right and a lot of times in government when these programs start it's a lot about like consensus and like do you get the results so like you know you send in you know people with the badge you know the enforcers and saying here you know fill out these forms but like if enough people don't fill out the forms or don't comply you know that's they don't have enough of a consensus they don't have enough of the information that way it's possible they just walk away you know they've already come up with their own conclusions they already put out yesterday on their website how much bitcoin energy is using and looks like they have all this data and they're you know talking

about wanting to do this you know very careful data collection practices the problems with these jokers is it's not like a geological survey you know there's actual people and businesses that you're exploring and kicking the tires around and it's a it's a violation of privacy so absolutely i mean if we're willing to if you sort of saw seeing what's happening the dynamics in texas right now right with the border it's about filling out a form you just have state reps just say we're not filling it out you know our companies won't fill it out for you and create a federal versus state yeah um standoff ah that's what i love to hear getting excited with this talk the rent is too damn high the government is too damn big need them to get out of our life

it's uh it's funny and again it's just uh this stuff should be expected the corner has been talking about these hypothetical adversarial situations for a decade and a half now i mean it should be expected it just is disconcerting when it finally happens like oh god here we go again we gotta spend a bunch of money and get a bunch of lawyers write a bunch of newsletters articles get some data and fight back spend a bunch of money to do this and that's a frustrating thing i think for a lot of people in this industry because i think as you would agree like the innovation that's happening whether it's within the mining industry at the payments layer at the just sound digital money layer it's extremely exciting extremely encouraging for all of

humanity to think that a bunch of 70 to 90 year old individuals in dc who really don't understand or maybe they do understand but um just don't like bitcoin from a philosophical and ideological perspective um are going to try to throw the baby out of the window because they don't like it and it's just get out of the way it's uh it's very frustrating i mean it's hard to believe we're about to have a potential presidential contest with people in like eight decades of life each um like where's the hope where's the jfk or whoever you want to call it right of our of our time we can and i think one thing that probably would be helpful would be to show washington dc the faces of like what bitcoin mining is about like show that they're

real people, real jobs, real professions. I think that's what we need to get to because right now they're kind of able to dehumanize it. You know, it's like Bitcoin itself. It doesn't really exist. We don't know what it does, but it wastes all this energy, you know, showing stories of people who've made,

you know, careers for themselves, you know, hired people, you know, get involved in the industry and they're being responsible about the energy use, right? Working with grids, you know, there's a powerful story to tell, you know, for the Bitcoin mining community. And I think, you know, if we can figure out a way to tell it correctly, you know, then then that's something that can can push back on this.

One thing, you know, just like with the, you know, the 51 percent attack is, you know, realize that some of these folks like the environmental groups, this kind of this angle of attack, it's not going to go away. It's always going to attack it just the way there always be attackers, the Bitcoin network. We just have to make sure the incentives are aligned in such a way where we're able to keep, yeah, the sound money and everything else, you know, dream alive here in the U.S. And I think that it's they picked the wrong country to try to pull this kind of stuff in. Yeah, we're going to win, Jason. We're going to win. Yeah, it's not going to be easy, but nothing worth doing was ever easy. so look luckily we have individuals like yourself who understand these problems um very intricately

you can help advise us as we're fighting this and thank you for hopping on the pot i mean you dm me yesterday i was like can you record tomorrow i think this is pretty important so thank you for turning around quickly to have this conversation pleasure talking to you marty yeah i think we'll post this right away logan um just to get it out there because the time it's time we're pressed for time the clock is ticking we need uh we need to begin coordinating and fighting back against this i think we'll win though yeah absolutely where can anybody listen to this find out more about you what you're doing um how you can help yeah dm me at um my my twitter handle is at regulatory Jason, um, and also reach out to the Bitcoin policy Institute that's at BTC policy.

And, um, you know, we can direct you to sort of your resources. Uh, I can definitely share, you know, start to think about a list of lawyers that I want to put together, uh, to maybe get people support. Um, the big, uh, yeah, any questions at all, you know, you want to figure out how to talk to politicians. Maybe I'll work on like sort of like a letter or something you start to send in um but at the end of the day like it's uh it's important to just not just fill out this form there's lots of reasons you know talk to your business advisors consultants uh lawyers before you just fill out this form because it's already february right and they said they were gonna start the first week of february that's monday right that's in three days so yeah yeah

just dm me on twitter i'll get back to you awesome we'll link to jason's twitter uh the bitcoin policy institute's twitter in the notes so go check those out and jason thank you again extremely important work um i'm sure we'll be talking about this again at some point in the next six months sounds great honor to be on your show marty big fan thanks a lot tell her tell everybody at the bitcoin john i said what's up on monday got it all right peace love freaks Thank you.