Mining Stewardship: Creating Value, Jobs, & Opportunities for Local Communities

Thank you so much for being here. I know it's at the end of the day, and it's really appreciated. Bitcoin mining is often talked about only in terms of energy, but it is not always talked about in terms of how it helps local communities. When Bitcoin mining shows up locally, that is how it is going to be viewed globally. So it is important to discuss what we get right and what we could do better.

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To dig into this, we are going to discuss it with Harvey, Mo, Curtis, and Megan. Harvey, would you like to introduce yourself?

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Hello, my name is Harvey Blom. I'm a partner at GRN Energy.

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Hi, everyone. I'm Mohammed Bakhashwain. I'm the founder and CEO of Bitzero.

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I'm Curtis Harris. I'm senior director of growth at Compass Mining.

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My name is Megan Brooks-Anderson. I started my journey as CEO of Riot and then moved on to become chief strategy officer of Blockware.

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Megan, I hope you don't mind me coming to you first for this question, but you have worked across sites in Rockdale and Kentucky. What would you say are the most tangible ways that mining has changed the local communities?

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I have notes, I apologize, and I might get a little emotional when I talk about this because what I call mining is the dirty side of Bitcoin. The perspective I can bring is awareness of what is involved in mining: the people. You have jobs, you have retraining of trades, and you are giving opportunities. For instance, in Rockdale, the Alcoa plant was closed in 2000, and it wasn't until 2019, when Whinstone began building, that people were actually given more opportunity. The benefit of Bitcoin mining is to give those jobs back to the community.

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That's amazing because I think that is overlooked. As I said in my introduction, how it shows up locally is how it is going to be viewed globally, so it is very important that we get this right. Curtis, what does good look like?

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Three clear things stand out to me: jobs, community involvement, and communication. Everything that you can do to hire locally and employ local people is what good looks like. Community engagement is actually showing up, being purposefully involved, and being present inside that community. Then communication: tell them early, tell them often. The more you can talk out loud about what you're doing and the project you have going on, the better. Those three things are what good looks like: hiring locally, communication, and engagement.

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Absolutely. We do not talk about it enough. When we had the pre-panel discussions, we were saying, why has this topic not been covered before? When it comes to Bitcoin mining and AI, do you see them as complementary, or do you think they can outcompete each other?

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They are both energy-intensive businesses that are competing for the same power sources. In the end, it puts a lot of pressure on the power production side of things. It will also put a lot more pressure on the sustainability side, because sustainable power has not been developed in abundance over the past years in expectation of the demand that we now have. Technologies that we thought were going to take much longer are now becoming rapidly developed, such as modular nuclear technologies and other types of renewable energy, to catch up with this demand and try to stay away from non-sustainable sources of energy. That is what I see.

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If Bitcoin mining can be used for flexible demand response, and the power for AI is intermittent, could Bitcoin mining be used to smooth out that power supply in the same way that it does with renewables and wind farms?

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Yes, absolutely, because Bitcoin mining is a flexible load. You can use it more like a battery. For example, at one of our sites in Norway, we participate in something similar to a demand response program, which helps stabilize the grid during peak consumption in winter. We always have a portion of our capacity ready to go offline within five minutes to support the grid. That allows the grid to have stability through the winter.

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That is another way of giving back to the community in a tangible manner. Also, Susie, if you remember, on our previous panel I mentioned that a portion of Bitzero's energy revenue goes directly to the municipality to invest in whatever they see fit for their local community, which is not something I think anyone else could claim.

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Harvey told me that I have to ask this question in a positive way. You've been quite critical of how Bitcoin mining has been deployed locally. Where has the industry gone wrong?

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In my opinion, a lot of Bitcoin miners had a short-term plan. I think they should have brought way more value to local economies and local jobs. That has been discussed before, and I think they should have done a better job.

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Do you think that rather than benefiting the local community, the value is leaving the communities? Is that where you see the issue, that it is not staying locally and is being used in a way that gets extracted elsewhere?

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It is not only about the economic value leaving, but also fundamentally, what does this Bitcoin mining facility contribute locally? Jobs, economic activity, maybe heat, and other solutions where it becomes integrated into the local community.

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Megan, we are now seeing pushback around data centers and shifting to AI. How does Bitcoin mining fit into that conversation?

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Recently someone told me that before the shovel hits the ground, we need to have a community strategy. Obviously, power strategies are very important, but so are community strategies, because power is a resource that belongs to all of us. We have an obligation to the communities and the people around us to focus on resources, jobs, and training.

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How do you go about doing that? How do you make sure the balance is right?

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The balance is right by going out into the community and listening to people. What we do in Bitcoin mining is give underserved and forgotten communities the ability to retrain and bring in opportunity for their families. We need to listen to that, and we need to pay attention to the political environment and understand, in some other cities where bad actors were in place, that we do not follow that same pattern.

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Curtis, how do you measure the economic value? Because it is not just about jobs. There is so much more to it. How can you measure how economically valuable it is to a local community?

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Early in my career, Chad Everett Harris taught me something directly. He said, Curtis, it is all about jobs, and I own that in my ethos. But if we look at the reality of Bitcoin mining, historically it does not employ that many site operators on site. We have gotten pretty good at operations. We have developed remote systems, and at Compass we are able to operate 10 megawatts with three people. That is not a lot of people on these sites.

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However, these are generally in remote communities. Think of farmland. One thing to consider is that we are certainly employing more people per acre than the local farming community is. There is the negative of not a lot of jobs, but then look at it: we are using the area differently.

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To be more direct to your question, and I am passionate about this, recognize that we are in a remote world. Bitcoin is 24/7 and decentralized. You have the opportunity to put up a job posting or bring someone in. The biggest economic impact you can make is to force yourself to hire locally. Go through every effort possible to hire locally, get involved in workforce development, and train for these positions. These are generally good-paying roles inside these communities.

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But the economic impact goes beyond that. When you hire local contractors, when you work with the concrete company, the electrician, and local vendors, go through every effort to develop local vendors. If you are buying a product and just ordering it online for your site operations, is there a local vendor that you can develop so that you can invest in that community? Those contractors you might hire for your site buildout allow dollars to stay in that economy. Those people will end up being your biggest advocates when some issue comes up. Those contractors have deep connections across the community. It is incredibly valuable to keep every dollar local.

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To further that, speaking of Chad and working in Rockdale, there was a report done where there were 650 contractors employed. However, there were 2,500 jobs in a trickle-down effect from the Whinstone facility at one time.

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Amazing. And where was that?

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Rockdale.

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And how big is Rockdale? Just to give a rough sense of the size, because that is a lot of people.

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Yes, it is. I am not exactly sure of the population of Rockdale, though it is a small town outside of Austin and Hutto. It is a bunch of small towns outside of Austin.

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I would think that is a lot of people even for a city. If a new industry was going to come to a city, that is the point I was trying to make. It is a small town, so it must almost take over the community. Incredible.

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Mo, Bitzero leans heavily into sustainability, but how much of this green mining narrative is real versus marketing?

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We have seen a lot of abuse of the green narrative, but that does not mean that some of the players who market around that do not have a plan they are pursuing to achieve more sustainability. It is really hard to differentiate. For us, we are sustainable by nature. Our power sources are 100% sustainable.

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What do you mine from?

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Hydro energy dominantly. In Norway it is 100% hydro, and in Finland our site is mainly powered by nuclear with a mix of wind and solar.

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Any geothermal?

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There are geothermal plants nearby, but that does not come through our lines. There are geothermal sources being actively developed. There is also a big push in Finland around modular nuclear that we have been seeing, and we are really excited to see that come to fruition.

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Harvey, you described mining as infrastructure. Can you explain what that means and why it matters long term?

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It has to do with a couple of things. Since 2021, I have been advocating that Bitcoin mining and crypto mining should be part of the data center ecosystem. You have tier one, tier two, tier three, tier four, and even tier five. I have always advocated that Bitcoin mining should be tier zero, where data centers start. It would be a better strategy, and you would also have a better strategy to be part of that ecosystem.

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If there is any issue in the country, instead of attacking Bitcoin mining as an ugly duck, they would be attacking the industry. You would have better support for it if Bitcoin mining becomes part of the data center ecosystem.

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Curtis, you said you can't fake local. What are the biggest mistakes that companies make when they try to enter new regions?

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I will share a story about Jeff Bryant, one of our phenomenal employees. Jeff started as a site technician at a site in Ohio and has now been promoted multiple times as a regional site leader, managing an incredibly large team. Jeff had a passion for feeding the homeless, and as a site technician in an entry-level role, he launched an initiative locally in his community called SATs for Soup. He and his colleagues on site gathered their own resources, went out to Sam's Club or Costco, loaded up food, and took it to the homeless shelter. He is a hardcore Bitcoiner, and he called it SATs for Soup.

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We saw that and wanted to stand beside him. That is an example of a Bitcoiner seeing a need to give back. When we talk about how you can't fake local and the mistakes people make, I think there is this desire to say, I want better community engagement, so let me sponsor every little league team in town and put my name on it. I do not think that works. A better solution is to find the causes that your people are passionate about and get beside them as they serve, whether that is allowing some time off, recognizing that they are contributing, or matching a donation. Investing yourself and your team resources in what your people on the ground are already committed to is one of the best suggestions.

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That intentional action turns their job into an actual career. It provides them opportunity. It provides pride in these communities and the ability to support their families further. I think that is a really good point.

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It is fun to be at a conference in Las Vegas, but these are real people. They have real lives, families, schools, and churches. This is their community. If you are coming in and building a Bitcoin mine and you just want to extract electricity and mine your Bitcoin, you are missing a tremendous opportunity to make a real impact.

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You are ignoring the boots on the ground, because the grit it takes, the hours it takes, and the time it takes matter. At Riot, I never asked others to do something I never did myself, because I needed to understand what it took to do that work. We spent time in Oklahoma City, upstate New York, and Massena working with people and with our auditors, hands-on. We would step out of that mine completely filthy. People miss the point that this is beautiful, great, amazing, and exciting, but what we miss is the dirty side of Bitcoin: the part that takes the grit, the time, and the 24/7 work. That is what creates all of that opportunity beyond it.

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Mo, you build renewable energy sites. What have been the real-world challenges that you have faced, and how do you integrate energy systems into local communities?

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There are two types of integration. One is what Curtis and Megan were just talking about, which is, in short, earning the trust of the local community and showing them that you are genuinely not just here to extract energy and mine Bitcoin, and that you can have a real impact in that sense.

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The other is having a direct economic impact and a direct felt impact, like the grid stability we provide during winter, which could affect people negatively if it were not there. With the revenue we provide to municipalities, they can invest in schools, agriculture, or whatever they need for their community. Those are two ways of having a tangible impact that you need in order to have long-term stability in a region where you would like to operate, especially if you do not have a short-term horizon.

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How do you even go about starting something like that? How do you approach people and integrate if you are coming in from nowhere?

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Our sites are mainly developed with the local community. As Curtis was saying, if you go there and start bringing engineers from all over the world, you are not going to get anywhere.

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How do you go in? Do you do surveys? What is the process?

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You have to partner with the local community. You need to develop these lands from the ground up. It is not that you go to land that is ready and a project that is plug-and-play. You need to develop it from the ground up and see where it fits: where the closest connection points are, how it is going to affect the local community, who the closest resident is, how much they are going to be affected, how much you are going to affect the power grid in the area, and what you need to do to mitigate that. You need to determine what revenue or benefit you are giving directly to the municipality before you even engage in the project itself.

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There is a lot of groundwork. Most of our sites have been worked on for more than a year before they were acquired.

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A year before you even go in there?

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Before you even go in there. It is a minimum of a year of integrating with the local communities, local authorities, power utilities, grid companies, and power production in the area before you even touch a project.

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That makes perfect sense. If you go in all guns blazing, then you are not going to get a good reception.

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Harvey, looking at countries like Kazakhstan, which got quite a bad rap when it comes to Bitcoin mining, and Venezuela, what should have been done differently?

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As my fellow panelists acknowledged, the importance of people matters. In Kazakhstan, what a lot of people do not know is that when the ban came in China, a lot of people relocated to Kazakhstan, not knowing that Kazakhstan had an energy deficit. In the summer there were no problems. But in the winter, because of Bitcoin mining, a lot of cities could not heat their homes. This became a big problem, and that is why Bitcoin mining became very difficult.

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Similarly in Ethiopia, Ethiopia has cheap power. I personally believe that Ethiopia should be one of the best data center havens and also one of the gateways to Africa for data centers, all the way up to tier three. I think because of greed, corruption, and bad stewardship, we messed that opportunity up.

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When you talk about corruption, are you talking about governments?

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Government, government officials, businesspeople, everybody that is part of the ecosystem. I will not mention any particular names here.

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One last question. If mining is going to create long-term value, what needs to change?

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Proactive, unselfish engagement. Be there early, do not be focused on yourself, and actively engage. That is the short answer: proactive, unselfish engagement.

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I see the long-term value in mining as integrating it into a lot of other industries and marrying it to energy-intensive industries that are now eating up everything that is coming up in power production. There are gigawatts of AI compute clusters being built, and at some point there is going to be a marriage between Bitcoin mining and those clusters that makes it extremely efficient for the clusters and for the miners, especially to be used as backup power. You can consume that backup power and make cash flow out of it through mining, and within two minutes that power can be made available for redundancy. At some point, there is a marriage there that could integrate mining into that and other energy-intensive businesses.

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There are lots of opportunities. Anything that produces heat, for example, heating. I think Bitcoin mining is going to be one of those things that gets integrated into every single part of our lives at some point.

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I have a couple of suggestions. One is to have a strategy to be part of the data center ecosystem. Another is to understand how to not only get value, but also bring value. A lot of Bitcoin miners forget how important people are. People can make or break your business. Right now, a lot of data centers, not only Bitcoin mining, are not allowed to expand because people do not want them there. We should all reflect on that and make sure we become better stewards so we can all benefit from the digital world where it is going, because it needs data centers.

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Thank you so much. I hope you found that very informative, and thank you very much for staying. I know it is late in the day. Thanks, and a round of applause for my amazing panelists.