Massive Bitcoin Miner Predicts Big Bull Market!

    more institutional investors are looking
    at Bitcoin miners because of the ETF
    that’s a trend that we’ve seen really
    since starting in December where more
    institutional investors recognize the
    ETF was coming and we’re trying to find
    other ways to play the ETF launch you
    know Bitcoin miners represent a
    leveraged way to play on bitcoin because
    you’re investing in a Bitcoin minor in
    order to get a multiple on the US
    dollars that you’re investing in a minor
    versus just buying Bitcoin and so that’s
    really one catalst is I think
    institutional investors actually could
    present kind of the next Bull cycle for
    Bitcoin miners whereas retail is
    generally driven that in the
    [Music]
    past all right guys bang bang I’ve got
    Adam here with me Adam I thought a great
    place to start this conversation is the
    Bitcoin miners obviously like when
    bitcoin’s price goes up we’ve seen
    Bitcoin go very high it hit new all-time
    high but it happened before the having
    and the Bitcoin having I think a lot of
    people question is this good or bad for
    the minor so how do you think about
    these two kind of inputs into you know
    the next C six month or so we have a
    high bitcoin price before the having and
    then we have the having coming and so
    how are you guys thinking about your
    business today yeah I think one of the
    big questions is is the ETF the the
    mechanism for Bitcoin to go even more uh
    parabolic posst having in a way where
    it’s allowing more institutional
    investors more retail investors access
    to the market if that’s the case then we
    might see a much different Bull Run than
    we’ve even seen in the past where we
    actually see it go higher than we
    expected but the Bitcoin runup prior to
    the having is actually creating a very
    interesting situation post having where
    a lot of the machines on the network
    today are still going to be profitable
    post having that’s much different than
    2020 it’s much different than 2016 and
    so as we look forward post having you
    know we’re looking at a POS we’re
    looking at a point where a lot of miners
    are going to be marginally profitable
    and they’re going to stay online for
    kind of three to six months so I think
    we’re going to see a much more drawn out
    process and instead of seeing what we
    saw in 2022 where we saw a much more
    sped up process in terms of crypto
    mining or Bitcoin mining companies and
    and having failures you know that’s
    going to take a little bit longer and we
    might not actually see it until
    2025 and are there things that would
    affect how you view this whether it is
    regulatory like kind of external shock
    uh could there be um other ETFs that are
    approved that like draw institutional
    attention away does the ETF open up the
    floodgates for institutional Capital uh
    to kind of plow into Mining and so you
    have more competition like how are you
    just thinking about like other things
    that could happen in the industry
    outside of just this having moment yeah
    I think right now really what we’re
    seeing is just the fact that more
    institutional investors are looking at
    Bitcoin miners because of the ETF that’s
    a trend that we’ve seen really since
    starting in December where more
    institutional investors recognized the
    ETF was coming and we’re trying to find
    other ways to play the ETF launch you
    know Bitcoin miners represent a
    leveraged way to play on bitcoin because
    you’re investing in a Bitcoin minor in
    order to get a a multiple on the US
    dollars that you’re investing in a minor
    versus just buying Bitcoin and so that’s
    really one catalyst is I think
    institutional investors actually could
    present kind of the next Bull cycle for
    Bitcoin miners whereas retail has
    generally driven that in the past and
    the only institutional leadership you
    see really amongst Bitcoin miners today
    is mostly passive funds I think you’re
    going to see a lot more large active
    funds taking positions especially as
    these institutions get a lot smarter on
    our economics really for the first time
    those are the questions we’re getting
    from institutional investors explain
    your economics explain your power costs
    explain your minor Fleet explain your
    facilities explain your advantage we
    never heard that before how does the
    evaluation change in conversations as
    they’re having it with you like if they
    know where your wallets are they should
    be able to see how many Bitcoin that
    you’re actually mining uh if they know
    how you’re treating that if you’re
    selling it all if you’re keeping it all
    um do they have like more insight into
    what the revenue in a quarter is going
    to be for a Bitcoin minor that maybe
    they would say you know in a Facebook or
    Amazon or or anywhere else well we’re
    incredibly transparent on this point so
    we actually post our daily bitcoin’s
    mind every single day um you know we we
    like the fact that people can understand
    how our business performing and they can
    judge us in real time uh they can also
    see the effects of weather events and
    when we have to curtail and so all of
    those factors I think are really good
    for institutional investors who are
    seeking greater transparency you know
    initially this was driven towards giving
    the masses you know access to more
    information information about the
    company but now it’s institutional
    investors that are saying yeah if you’re
    not doing that it’s a problem because we
    want to know how you’re doing other
    companies have similar uh type I would
    say information out in the market
    whether because they’re running their
    own pool but it’s very difficult to know
    what some of the other miners are mining
    on any given day and as you’re talking
    to these institutions what are they
    looking to do are are they interested in
    investing with debt are they interested
    uh at just buying the stock and kind of
    equity capital
    um and then how do you guys on the flip
    side of that think about equity and debt
    to help fuel the business yeah so today
    um we have about $600 million in debt
    and we have a number of different
    instruments uh that are all publicly
    traded and so we have a a wider range of
    institutional conversations and I would
    say most minors in this Spas have you
    know we have convertible notes we have
    term loans um and we have also we have
    warrants on the equity side as well as
    our common equity and so we have about
    six publicly traded instruments and so
    institutional investors find that
    fascinating they love the fact that they
    can be trading different instruments in
    a Bitcoin mining company you know as
    we’re thinking about going forward I
    would say over the long term having
    about one turn of debt in this type of
    industry is probably the right thing in
    a nonvolatile environment because then
    if you get into a downside scenario you
    know let’s say you’re two turns or two
    and a half turns in in a deeply down in
    a deep downturn but then in a bull case
    you’re you’re at a half turn um I think
    there is a place for leverage in in this
    industry you know the industry is
    historically been funded through Equity
    we’ve seen some players take on debt uh
    minor equipment debt was the uh was
    definitely a uh a pretty dangerous uh
    instrument for companies to take on I
    would say short-term advertising debt in
    this industry is you know that’s a
    dangerous place to be because you have
    very short-dated fixed US dollar
    payments and you’re sitting you’re
    you’re mining a volatile uh commodity
    and so it can create flow scenarios uh
    that are very tight and so for us you
    know we’re in a very good situation our
    debts mostly four and fiveyear debt uh
    and we have a lot of optionality in the
    capital structure I think that’s really
    key you know convertible notes are
    really interesting for miners um you
    know you’re seeing it being used heavily
    by micro strategy obviously if Bitcoin
    outperforms you have a chance to Del and
    that’s that’s a great place to be and
    when you think about the strategy around
    do you hold the Bitcoin or do you sell
    the Bitcoin you’re mentioning like
    you’re mining Bitcoin you’re telling
    everyone here’s how much Bitcoin that
    we’ve mined uh but then you’ve got this
    like volatile commodity as you call it
    um you have fixed cash payments both in
    debt and expenses and so what is the
    strategy like do you try to time the
    market do you hedge do you sell
    immediately what are you
    thinking yeah I mean for us right now we
    are currently selling our Bitcoin uh on
    a daily basis you know what we’re really
    focused on is operating extraordinarily
    profitably you know we’re the best
    Bitcoin miner out there from uh a number
    of different angles and we’re one of the
    largest Bitcoin miners as well uh we’ve
    actually LED number of Bitcoins mined
    since 2021 we’re leading again in 2024
    so you know for us we’re really focused
    on driving additional growth into the
    company other companies have really
    focused on diluting shareholders to pay
    for cost of Revenue to pay for their
    Opex so they can put Bitcoin on balance
    sheet essentially that’s shareholders
    buying Bitcoin at a massive premium um
    you know you could say that’s a similar
    situation with people buying micro
    strategy but that you’re buying into a
    leverage portfolio of bitco
    in the micro strategy situation for
    miners you’re just funding operating
    expenses so that the minor can hold
    Bitcoin you know for us if we’re going
    to continue to grow this business we
    have a massive growth portfolio of
    facilities ahead of us of partially
    developed infrastructure and we have a
    lot of Ambitions and if we want to
    achieve those Ambitions uh we just can’t
    be sitting on a significant amount of
    Bitcoin because there’s an opportunity
    cost to that and it’s going to come at
    the expensive our
    shareholders now what is the counter
    argument that you like most with you is
    it just like hey if Bitcoin goes up then
    we’re giving up upside but really as a
    public company as a fiduciary you’re
    trying to manage the downside and and
    kind of the Bitcoin volatility
    absolutely managing the downside this
    business is about time and Market you
    know as a mining company you’re playing
    for the three months of year four months
    a year where bitcoin price outpaces hash
    rate rowth so that’s when mining
    economics expand rapidly and you have to
    be alive for those types of bull market
    Cycles because that’s when you’re making
    significant outside returns uh um so
    really that’s you know that’s our Focus
    right now and the other part is we have
    better margins than all of our
    competitors uh at scale and many of our
    and many of the companies that are
    operating smaller as well so for us
    we’re experiencing a much larger upside
    going forward as bitcoin price expands
    than our competitors are so from our
    perspective we don’t need to put Bitcoin
    on balance sheet to experience the
    upside of a Bitcoin bull market what
    what drives the kind of better margins
    for you guys
    lower power costs and better operation
    so you know for us it’s having the best
    hash rate utilization or one of the best
    hash rate utilizations in the industry
    so that requires significant operating
    experience our team’s run by mostly X
    traditional data center folks so they
    know what it means actually have very
    high uptime uh the other part is
    software you know we had to build our
    own software stack we were the First
    Institutional minor in North America
    first one to 100 first one to 500 first
    one to 700 megawatts we to solve a lot
    of problems before people knew that they
    were problems and so for us it was build
    software that makes our machines more
    efficient build software that allows our
    machines to run longer all of those
    things contribute to a much higher hash
    rate utilization than others and then
    talk a little bit about uh core um grew
    very quickly went to bankruptcy has that
    emerged and it’s a public company again
    and I think a lot of folks uh not only
    one part of the story either they know
    the fast growth they don’t even know
    about the bankruptcy uh they know about
    the bankruptcy but they don’t know about
    the before and after so like just kind
    of like walk us through how did the
    company grow so quickly uh and then why
    did it go into bankruptcy and is that
    actually a risk for some of the other
    miners that they need to try to avoid
    yeah let’s go back to 2021 B you know
    every public mining company was raising
    a specific amount of capital and the
    market was rewarding aggressive growth
    we achieved the most aggressive growth
    strategy in the industry we built the
    largest infrastructure footprint uh and
    really the best designs in the industry
    which are allowing us to achieve these
    high hash rate utilizations now we went
    public in January of 2022 uh we already
    had a significant debt load on on the
    company and so as we went through 2022
    Network cash rate was increasing bitcoin
    price was decreasing and we had the war
    in Ukraine which jacked up power prices
    due to the Natural Gas Spike and so all
    of those things contributed to negative
    lever free cash flow which is
    essentially your free cash flow after
    you pay for debt and so we went we filed
    for chapter 11 in December of
    2022 um in 2023 we went through a
    13-month process starting in December
    ending in January of 2024 uh I joined
    the company actually in the middle of
    the chapter 11 process so in April of
    2023 um and we are able to eliminate
    over $400 million in debt the main part
    of it was we were actually able to
    extend the maturities and include
    optionality in the capital structure so
    I talked about that earlier optionality
    in a capital structure is incredibly
    important so for us we have if our stock
    performs well we have a we have a
    warrant that is a cash exercise warrant
    that brings in $670 million into the
    business which more than covers double
    covers our non-convertible debt then our
    convertible debt has a mandatory
    conversion feature so between those two
    instruments we can be debt free and so
    that’s really a highlight of going
    through that process was just actually
    making the structure of our debt proper
    for a Bitcoin mining business because
    there is a structure that works and it
    includes long maturity and it includes
    optionality in the capital
    structure and talk a little bit as to
    like you’re coming in how much of the
    team turns over in that situation both
    executive team and then also kind of U
    you know the employee base and like how
    do you change the business is it all
    just literally like Financial
    engineering and and balance sheet and
    debt and kind of the things people would
    assume are happening at bankruptcy or
    are there also things that uh either
    culturally or or kind of with the
    employee base that you’ve got to do to
    to Really make sure you’re in a good
    position to come out of
    bankruptcy yeah bankruptcies can be
    extraordinarily challenging for
    companies um I would say when I joined
    the company you know we we had the best
    operations team in the industry
    obviously you need to have the best
    construction operation software team to
    actually build all of that
    infrastructure at scale and build it
    that quickly so I came in to a I would
    say the most Talent talented team in our
    industry and so it was really about
    Shifting the focus of that team really
    from hyper aggressive growth so let’s
    focus on drilling into efficiency and
    making our operations the best they can
    possibly be because we knew we were
    going to be on the plane field at some
    point in the near future uh it ended up
    taking you know another seven months to
    get back on the playe field to being a
    public company again but it was really
    about that shift in Focus but you know
    absolutely there’s challenges going
    through a chapter 11 process you know
    it’s a challenges with uh managing
    Talent challenges with uh I would say
    retaining top performers you know
    luckily everyone understood where we
    were taking this company and when you
    have a vision for the business and
    you’re executing on it people want to be
    there people want to be a part of you
    know a huge success story and we we
    offer that of course scientific you know
    we are a huge success story here having
    the most successful chapter 11 process
    in terms of equ recovery um and then
    also we we maintained the largest
    Bitcoin mining company in 2023 from
    bitcoin’s mind perspective at a time
    when we had both hands tied behind our
    back and everyone thought we were a
    punching bag turns out you we came out
    we’re fighting even harder in 2024 we’re
    still minding more Bitcoins than
    everyone else and what are some of the
    challenges that you all look moving
    forward in terms of um you have this
    having event uh there’s obviously like
    always the capital markets but it almost
    feels like maybe the last two years were
    head wins and now you guys are starting
    to get some Tailwinds um what are the
    obstacles left or what are the friction
    points that you you know you guys walk
    into the Ops every day say hey we got to
    solve these things or put ourselves in a
    good position today’s episode has
    brought to you to you by core scientific
    they are one of the largest public
    Bitcoin mining companies and hosting
    Solutions in North America they
    specialize in transforming energy into
    high value compute with exceptional
    efficiency at scale and recently
    announced a contract with cor wee a
    leader in AI Cloud compute to provide up
    to 16 megawatt of Data Center capacity
    with a substantial Fleet of their own
    miners core scientific not only earns
    Bitcoin for their own account but also
    provides hosting services for
    large-scale Bitcoin mining customers
    operating out of seven data centers in
    Georgia Kentucky North Carolina North
    Dakota and Texas you can learn more
    about core scientific by visiting cor
    scientific.com that’s cor scientific.com
    go check them out
    today yeah so we announced a a deal with
    cor weave actually on or on an HPC deal
    you know that’s something that we’re
    trying to solve over the course of 2024
    so we’ve identified over 300 megawatts
    in our existing portfolio that could be
    converted
    so you talk about the next big challenge
    you know that’s the next big challenge
    in in our in our company right now and
    it’s not a challenge as much as it’s a
    massive opportunity and everyone’s
    really excited about executing on it and
    so I would say having is definitely a
    challenge from the Bitcoin mining side I
    think that presents an opportunity for
    us to buy a lot of machines post having
    you know there’s going to be a lot of
    challenged mining companies out there
    you know going back to an earlier Point
    2024 is going to be a challenging year
    for a number of minors who are only
    marginally profitable and they’re going
    to have to find ways to raise Capital
    the smaller they are the more challenges
    they’re going to have in raising capital
    and so for us it’s the opportunity to
    refresh more machines post having that’s
    an huge upside for us as a business and
    then part two is the opportunity to go
    execute on over 300 megawatts of
    conversion of existing facilities into
    more traditional
    compute and
    when those pieces of Hardware are coming
    to Market it seems like every like two
    years maybe you know 3 years
    um I think miners have gotten their
    heads around you know how often they
    need to uh kind of update the hardware
    but now there’s companies like uh
    aradine and a few others that uh allow
    for you either more granular controls or
    you know different types of um clocking
    and like all these like very intricate
    things how much of the focus here is
    like we got to get cheap power we got to
    be good at operating we got to have the
    latest version of the hardware versus
    there’s like a technical component of if
    we really optimize software we can eek
    out extra profit and it’s almost like a
    tech company that’s building
    infrastructure versus it’s an
    infrastructure company that has some
    technology how do you view it yeah I
    mean for us we had to solve a lot of
    issues that other folks didn’t know they
    had to solve and so we built software to
    manage that not only keeping the
    machines up longer and more efficiently
    but also figuring out ways to overclock
    machines during the night time or
    underclock machines when mining
    economics demand that to generate
    greater profitability we built all that
    stuff ourselves and so when we evaluate
    new machines we always come at it from
    the eye of are we paying for the value
    that we’ve already
    created I think what’s interesting is
    2025 is the year of democratizing hash
    rate and what I mean by that is there
    are a number of Manufacturers coming to
    Market they’re going to start Mass
    producing at the end of 2024 in 2025
    they’ll start hitting their stride in
    terms of being able to build a large
    number of machines and they’re going to
    change their pricing model from we’ve
    seen in the past and so what we’ve seen
    in the past is Roi pricing essentially
    pricing machines on a return on
    investment from about 12 to 14 months
    depending on what your economics are and
    that’s what we saw in 2021 we saw
    pricing go up to $80 a terahash now
    going forward that’s going to be much
    more challenging to raise prices that
    high when there are a number of
    Manufacturers who are going to price it
    on a Cost Plus model essentially a cost
    or a cost of added to the manufacturing
    cost
    and so that’s really going to change the
    Outlook in 2025 for capex for mining
    companies and also who we’re going to be
    buying from and where the machines are
    going to be sourced from and so I think
    that’s a huge you know I would call it
    the the major theme of 2025 versus how
    much hash rate is going to be in the
    network because all of that’s going to
    be determined by market economics the
    Bitcoin network is selfhealing and it
    always has been and that’s never going
    to go away um so that’s going to make
    2025 really interesting
    year and as we’re watching Core built
    what is like the long-term Vision here I
    I see a lot of miners now talking about
    artificial intelligence I see you know
    all these different kind of uh shiny
    things that people could go do how do
    you all think about the business over
    the next you know called five to 10
    years maybe two to three Bitcoin uh
    having Cycles yeah I mean right now
    we’re hyperfocused on 2028 you know the
    good part is we have the most Nimble
    infrastructure in the industry we built
    it our facilities like a traditional
    Data Center and so we have an much
    easier time actually making conversions
    we also looked at a lot of our
    facilities from the perspective of being
    data centers when they are initially
    purchased and so for us it’s about
    having Nimble infrastructure the ability
    to execute on the highest opportunity
    the highest value of compute we possibly
    can and do that over the next three
    years so that we’re prepared for 2028
    and so that we can solidify how much or
    I should say we want to solidify that
    each of our facilities for Bitcoin
    mining are going to be profitable at the
    next having which is something that a
    lot of folks can’t say today you know
    we’re seing a lot of deals get done from
    for facilities that have very high power
    prices so that companies that have
    overcommitted on machines can just bring
    machines online you know that’s not our
    game you know we’re at our core we are a
    digital infrastructure company that
    attacks new and emerging forms of
    compute so that’s what we’re targeting
    in 2028 have a healthy mix
    of HPC Bitcoin mining and whatever other
    types of compute are going to emerge
    over the course of the next few years
    which we have an outstanding design team
    we we have an outstanding construction
    team we have an outstanding operations
    team so from our perspectively kind of
    tick all the boxes for the major uh the
    major companies whether it’s GPU as a
    service whether it’s traditional AI
    companies all of those companies know
    that they can rely on us to provide them
    the best infrastructure they can
    possibly access now
    I’ve seen you comment about picking up
    cheap Hardware from other companies that
    uh struggle post having is this a
    industry where even with you focus on
    2028 like the big guys get bigger as
    mining gets harder and the
    machines going forward they haven’t
    really started that flywheel of just
    being able to constantly refresh
    machines in infrastructure that they’ve
    already built you know we’re at that
    point today and so if you take our
    existing facility you can essentially
    think about all right if we’re operating
    you know about 18.9 x Ash today if we
    convert all of our machines to the
    newest generation machine you know we
    could almost double that number and so
    that’s what we’re starting to see is
    really just that exponential growth of
    hash rate
    and that’s okay because as efficiency
    gets better for each of the machine that
    means the break even hash price lowers
    for each new generation of machine which
    means you can generate the same amount
    of gross profit even at a lower hash
    price on a newer and more efficient
    machine and so you’re absolutely right
    we’re going to see a lot of I would call
    it hashrate consolidation amongst a few
    of the top players but we represent such
    a small portion of the overall Network
    all public Bitcoin miners today are only
    about 20% of the network so there’s
    still a massive amount of
    decentralization going on all over the
    world one of the data points that I saw
    online uh when I was kind of looking at
    a bunch of the minors that I found
    really interesting is um there was a
    chart and you all had more hash rate
    than
    Marathon or I’m sorry they uh Marathon
    had more hash rate than you but you all
    had more Bitcoin produced in February
    than them and it comes down to this idea
    of minor utilization and I’m not picking
    on Marathon or or you know anything but
    just like explain minor utilization and
    like how that ends up impacting the
    business and like how volatile is that
    number for each company over
    time yeah so we actually post a good
    chart in our earnings deck so it’s hash
    rate utilization is the metric that a
    lot of people have become focused on so
    that means for every ex aash we have
    running for core scientific we’re
    generating about 10 more Bitcoin per
    energized ex ahash than our competitors
    now some of our competitors have
    actually I would say gamed their numbers
    a little bit by not actually telling the
    market how many machines they have
    running so they have a lot of machines
    on the ground they hot swap them for us
    we tell the market exactly how many
    machines we own and our hatch rate
    utilization still beats out all of our
    scaled competitors and so from our
    perspective it’s a you know it’s a huge
    metric that we we really hang our hat on
    because we don’t have to have as much
    xash online as some of our competitors
    and we can still mine more Bitcoin than
    them goes down to a really talented
    operations team really talented software
    team and so that’s definitely a metric
    that is in Focus right now you see it on
    Twitter constantly right I don’t know if
    you’ve seen it but I would say the
    retail crowd is really sted to focus on
    this metric because it it’s about
    long-term longevity of our business like
    if you can actually get better hash rate
    utilization than a competitor that means
    you’re generating a better return on
    your
    machines and as we start to watch you
    guys expand site selection obviously
    becomes a pretty important uh detail
    what goes into
    that you know right now we’re we have
    372 megawatts of partially developed
    infrastructure at two of our sites so
    that I would say is less of a Focus
    right now but we are continuously
    running searches for new sites really on
    the cost uh cost of power side that’s
    probably the biggest focus and finding
    areas that can provide lower power cost
    in exchange for intermittency so what I
    mean by that is essentially exchanging
    uptime for a lower power cost there’s an
    efficient Frontier of where you want to
    fall on that curve but you can you’re
    generally willing to accept lower
    downtime or lower uptime in certain
    situations for lower power cost and so
    we’re constantly valuing those both
    domestically and internationally right
    now because you know the next generation
    of our facilities are going to be more
    focused on lights out facilities a lot
    of people don’t talk about those but
    essentially run them like you know where
    the data center industry is moving which
    is have less people involved have less
    people touching them because usually you
    get better uh you get better uptime out
    of your machines and we can solve a lot
    of the issues through through our
    software stack so that’s what we’re
    focused on in the future it’s building
    out facilities in very lowcost power
    centers that are essentially lights out
    they need people to only go to those
    facilities you know once or twice a week
    to maybe exchange out some machines um
    but we already have those processes
    nailed centralized repair centers um we
    have an amazing parts inventory or
    centralized parts inventory Warehouse we
    have all these systems already in place
    to manage this and so for us you know
    that’s the future right it’s smaller
    sites that are focused on lights out
    grabbing better margins because if you
    have lower power costs you have lower
    facility level operating costs you’re
    going to have better margin profile and
    we can already manage a large number of
    facilities we have seven facilities
    today easily blow that number out to 25
    50 facilities when you have no problem
    managing it but that’s really where the
    industry is going to start moving to
    it’s going to start moving away from
    some of these Mega sites and start
    moving towards some of these smaller
    more modular sites that provide a lot
    more optionality but you need to have
    the right operations team you need to
    have the right software stack otherwise
    you’re going to really struggle to
    manage that
    infrastructure and as you kind of um
    view bitcoin’s price going up what would
    change your guys mind on not selling the
    Bitcoin
    yeah so right now we’re contractually
    obligated according to our debt
    covenants to or certain debt covenants
    to sell our Bitcoin now if Bitcoin
    really begins to perform well and we’re
    able to start paying down some of that
    debt you know that will provide an
    opportunity for us to be much more
    opportunistic I would say holding
    Bitcoin on balance sheet will require a
    I would say a more liquid hedging market
    for Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining more
    directly once that occurs Bitcoin is
    going to a much more viable commodity to
    hold in your balance sheet or on your
    balance sheet because soon you’re going
    to be running this very similar to a
    trading desk where you’re going to be
    trading like a traditional Commodities
    company would and so that’s definitely a
    place where you’re actually going to
    start having cash on balance or Bitcoin
    on balance sheet against some of your
    hedge positions but right now it’s like
    we walked into 2023 expecting to mine
    between 13 and 14,000 Bitcoin that’s a
    massive amount of Bitcoin exposure to
    have and really I would say the the
    accounting change that we’ve seen for if
    bitcoin price increases you can take put
    that on your income statement you know
    some of that is just noise and a lot of
    investors already recognize that so I
    would say our Focus continue to execute
    on growth continue to have the right mix
    of cash on balance sheet versus paying
    down debt and continue to grow the
    company and so Bitcoin on balance sheet
    is great for some companies who have who
    have large huddles and I would say we
    would start holding coin on balance
    sheet after we uh start to clear some of
    that debt and utilize it for hedging
    purposes and what are the things that
    maybe the average investor who’s looking
    at these mining companies um what are
    the things that they usually don’t ask
    you or uh the things that they don’t
    care about that you’re like as a person
    who thinks about Capital allocation
    these are the things when I look at a
    minor that I really really pay attention
    to that maybe should be more
    important yeah I mean we talked about
    utilization but that’s kind of coming in
    Vogue now um I would say it’s really all
    in cost of power and what’s the
    flexibility and the power rates you know
    everyone puts their headline number in
    their deck well what’s the what’s the
    power rate that you were charged that’s
    not standardized today I think in the
    future companies are going to have to
    present a standardized metric for
    presenting price of Bitcoin and then I I
    think the next part is really related to
    what does your infrastructure look like
    because a lot of people who have built
    infrastructure in the past haven’t been
    performing proper maintenance on their
    facilities it’s been a big focus of us
    is actually ensuring that these
    facilities can operate for tens of years
    and so we’ve been performing significant
    maintenance over time so we never incur
    these major outages that’s a huge risk
    you’re seeing it today with some of the
    other large mining companies who have
    facilities go out and their Bitcoin
    production is low for sometimes months
    at a time because they can’t get the
    facility operational again you know
    that’s a place a lot of ERS haven’t
    focused on in the past but they
    absolutely need to because
    infrastructure is a high capex item and
    so if you’re not maintaining that
    infrastructure it can present massive
    risks just a few years down the road
    after you’ve completed it got it um and
    then lastly like you joined during the
    bankruptcy you’re out of the bankruptcy
    what’s been the biggest surprise as CEO
    of a company that’s kind of gone through
    this uh this wild ride and now has the
    Tailwind rather than the
    headwind I would say it’s the uh it’s
    the investor base you know people stuck
    with us through the chapter 11 process
    you know obviously a lot of people were
    upset by it um but we came out a
    stronger company I think a lot of people
    recognize that we got the best Equity
    recovery for Equity investors in history
    in terms of percent of the company
    received and so I would say we have a
    lot of loyal fans out there and you know
    I’m very thankful for all of them
    because they supported us in our darkest
    times and now they’re supporting us as
    we’ve uh We’ve reemerged and we’ve
    continued to absolutely pound the table
    uh with all of our competitors and being
    the biggest mining company even as we
    weren’t able to grow through our chapter
    11 process so I think a lot of people
    recognize that and they’ve stayed loyal
    to us and I think you know that’s been
    the biggest surprise for me a lot of uh
    a lot of friendly notes from a lot of
    investors out there which I really
    appreciate that’s okay they eventually
    all come around right no they are
    friendly that’s what I’m saying yeah
    yeah yeah they’ll be just fine um
    awesome where can we send people find
    you on the internet or find out more
    about core yeah uh on Twitter adamore
    sullivan1 uh core uncore scientific um
    you know those are probably the the two
    best places to find us on is on uh on
    Twitter it’s where we’re the most active
    awesome Adam thank you so much for doing
    this and I also appreciate you coming uh
    to our our recent Bitcoin investor day
    people really really enjoyed your
    comments and uh I think that the having
    specifically has uh some folks
    questioning is this positive or negative
    and and to hear your enthusiasm uh is I
    think somewhat calming to them so I
    appreciate your insights I think people
    really learn a lot from this we
    definitely do it again in the future
    yeah and I I’ll give a quick pitch for
    your the Bitcoin investor day amazing
    conference um the the enthusiasm was
    flowing out of the facility um it’s an
    absolutely amazing event there’s a lot
    of people there A lot of really
    important people there too uh so it was
    great to be able just to rub shoulders
    to some of those folks uh walking
    throughout the conference so a great
    event I I I uh I did not compensate you
    to say that but I appreciate it very
    much all right we’ll do it again in the
    future sounds great appreciate it

    Adam Sullivan is the CEO at Core Scientific, one of the largest bitcoin miners in North America. In this conversation, we talk about building Core Scientific, public company impact, bitcoin halving, bitcoin ETFs, future of bitcoin miners, consolidation in the industry, metrics to evaluate a business, and future plans for Core Scientific.

    Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ) is one of the largest public Bitcoin miners and hosting solutions providers for Bitcoin mining in North America. To learn more about Core Scientific, please visit: www.corescientific.com

    Pomp writes a daily letter to over 265,000+ investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy-to-understand language while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at https://pomp.substack.com/

    View 10k+ open startup jobs: https://dreamstartupjob.com/
    Enroll in my Crypto Academy: https://www.thecryptoacademy.io/

    Follow Pomp on social media:
    Twitter: https://twitter.com/APompliano
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pompglobal/
    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonypompliano/
    Website: https://anthonypompliano.com/

    #AnthonyPompliano #Pomp

    26 Comments

    Leave A Reply
    Share via