Week in BTX: December 10, 2021
Crypto takes center stage in Washington, DC and leading Bitcoin companies have launched Sats Center, a nonprofit will educate the public, elected officials, and regulators about Bitcoin.
What a week, the crypto industry at large had its coming out party in Washington, DC with a lengthly hearing before the House Financial Services Committee (that went surprisingly well) and on a state level Lee Bratcher with the Texas Blockchain Council testified before the Texas Ethics Commission about candidates for office accepting (and HODLing) crypto donations.
With this backdrop leading Bitcoin companies have launched Sats Center, a nonprofit that will provide much needed education to the public, elected officials, and regulators.
General
Leading Bitcoin companies launched Sats Center to educate to the public, elected officials, and regulators about Bitcoin. A big thanks to founding members Bitcoin Magazine, Bit Block Boom, Bitrefill, Casa, Compass Mining, Core Scientific, Marathon, Riot Blockchain, River Financial, Swan Bitcoin, and Upstream Data, among others.
Austin based Pleb Lab powered by Oshi had a successful Bitcoin Block Party onboarding 16 local restaurants, food trucks and bars, including Austin favorites III Forks Steakhouse, and a top-notch bar, The Tipsy Alchemist to the Bitcoin standard.
Unchained Capital’s Parker Lewis and Houston’s own Hayden Griffin Haby III appeared on the popular Digital Wildcatter Oil & Gas Startups Podcast for a deep dive about the intersection between Bitcoin and energy production. Send this to your O&G friends to orange pill them.
Video of every speaker at the Texas Blockchain Summit are now available online. You can relive the greatest hits with Senator Ted Cruz, Nic Carter, Hester Peirce, Jimmy Song and more.
Public Policy/Politics/Regulatory
The House Financial Services Committee held a hearing on “Digital Assets and the Future of Finance: Understanding the Challenges and Benefits of Financial Innovation in the United States” with invited testimony from leading crypto companies (and Stellar for some reason….), including
Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO, Circle
Samuel Bankman-Fried, Founder and CEO, FTX
Brian P. Brooks, CEO, Bitfury Group
Charles Cascarilla, CEO and co-Founder, Paxos Trust Company
Denelle Dixon, CEO and Executive Director, Stellar Development Foundation
Alesia Jeanne Haas, CEO, Coinbase Inc. and CFO, Coinbase Global Inc.
Policy Nerds: Read the briefing memo the House Financial Services Committee staff prepared for the hearing.
The US Senate Banking Committee will host a hearing on stablecoins next week. Lets see if it goes as smoothly as the House Financial Services Committee (Probably not).
Senator Ted Cruz continues to get national attention for his statement that Texas Bitcoin miners can help fix the Texas electric grid, ERCOT.
Mining
The interim CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), Brad Jones, says he is “pro Bitcoin… but I’m too risk-averse to be an investor in Bitcoin.” ERCOT operates Texas’s electrical grid and supplies power to more than 25 million customers in Texas, representing 90% of the state’s electricity load.
Chad “High Energy” Everett of RIOT/Whinstone joins the Inside Data Centre Podcast to discuss building North Americas single largest Bitcoin mining and hosting data center, based in Rockdale Texas.
RIOT acquired ESS Metron for $50 million, a provider of highly-engineered electrical equipment solutions, in a bid to become more vertically-integrated. The acquisition provides RIOT with an in-house design and production team for its mission critical (and supply chain restricted) electrical equipment needed for the continued expansion of the Rockdale, Texas based mining facility.
The City of Denton, Texas municipal owned Denton Municipal Electric signed a seven year power purchase agreement with Bitcoin miner Core Scientific to power Core’s planned data center on 13 acres near the Denton airport.
Events
Fort Worth Bitcoin Meetup Dec. 14
Texas Blockchain Council Houston Happy Hour Dec. 14 in The Woodlands
Texas Blockchain Council Dallas Happy Hour Dec. 15
Houston Bitcoin Meetup Dec 20
Keep Austin Pleb New Years Eve Bash Dec. 31 in Austin
Bitcoin2022 Conference April 6-9, 2022 in Miami (10% off with code TEXAS10)
Consensus June 10-12, 2022 in Austin
BitBlockParty June 10, 2022 during Consensus in Austin
Coin Center Annual Dinner June 10, 2022 during Consensus in Austin
BitBlockBoom August 25-28, 2022, in Austin
Jobs
Unchained Capital is hiring for 19 positions based in Austin & Dallas.
Lancium LLC (Bitcoin Miner) is hiring for one position based in The Woodlands.
Rhodium is hiring for numerous positions based in Austin.
Aggie lead Giga Energy is hiring electricians.
NYDIG is hiring 4 roles in the Houston area.
The Blockchain Association’s job board shows 30 Texas based jobs.
People on the Move
Send me your career moves!
Bitcoin Citadel
The 196 acres San Bernard River Ranch is for sale in Brazoria County, only one hour from the Houston Bitcoin Meetup. This ranch has endless recreational opportunities due to its river frontage and highly sought-after location and is a savvy developer’s dream.
To Ponder While You Wander
“Much of the success of the technological revolution of the past several decades has been that either governments have chosen not to regulate or to impose only light touch regulation, or that innovation has simply happened faster than regulators could keep up” - Bartlett D. Cleland, research fellow with the Institute for Policy Innovation regarding recent government interest in regulating Bitcoin