Mining Stewardship Creating Value Jobs & Opportunities for Local Communities | Bitcoin 2026

Five people left. Thank you so much for being here. I know it's at the end of the day and it is really, really appreciated. So this is a really important topic. When we were having our pre-discussion about it. Hello Curtis, sorry I didn't see Hello. We we haven't said you we just went for a wee before but you're here now so that's good. So Bitcoin mining is often talked about in just terms of energy but it's not really talked about in terms of how it helps local communities. And the thing is is when Bitcoin mining shows up properly locally, that is how it's going to get viewed globally. So it's very important that we can discuss what we get right and what maybe we could do better. So to dig into this a little deeper, we are going to discuss it with Harvey, Mo, Curtis and Megan. Harvey, would you like to introduce yourself, please? Hello. My name is Harvey Bloom. I'm a partner at Green Energy. Oh, is that it? Okay, so >> [laughter] >> usually usually people >> want more? Oh, no, it's I'm just used to people talking forever and ever and then having to >> [laughter] >> The good stuff will come. Don't worry. Mo. Hi, everyone. I'm Muhammad Bakir Hashwain. I'm founder and CEO of Bit Zero. Woo! Hey, listen to that fake audience. I like this energy right here. I see some fans. Yes. I'm I'm Curtis Harris. I'm senior director of growth at Compass Mining. Megan, would you like to introduce yourself? Uh 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. Amazing. So Megan, I hope you don't mind me coming to you first with this question but you have worked across sites in Rochdale and Kentucky. What would you say are the most tangible ways that mining has changed the local communities? So I have notes. I apologize and I might get a little emotional when I talk about this because the mining what I call mining is the dirty side of Bitcoin. And the perspective I can bring is awareness to what is involved in mining, the people. So, you have jobs, you have retraining of trades, but what you're doing is you're giving opportunities to, for instance, Rockdale. The Alcoa plant was closed in 2000, and it wasn't until 2019 when Winfree Stone began building that people were actually given more opportunity. And so, the benefit of Bitcoin mining is to give those jobs back to the community. That's amazing because I think that that is overlooked. It's something that we have discussed a lot. And of course, like as I said in my introduction, how it shows up locally is how it's going to be viewed globally. So, it's very important that we get this right. So, Curtis, would you like to explain to me, what does good look like? Yeah, so I I I think that three clear things stand out to me. Jobs, community involvement, and communication. Um everything that you can to hire locally and employ local people is what good looks like, okay? Community engagement is actually showing up, is being purposely involved, and being um um present inside of that community, being being engaged. And then communication. So, you know, tell them early, tell them often. The more you can talk out loud about what you're doing and the project that you have going on. So, I would say those three things is what good looks like. Is is hiring locally, communication, and engagement. Absolutely, yeah. And we don't talk about it enough. I mean, when we were actually had the pre-panel discussions, we were saying, why hasn't this topic been covered before? And so, but when it comes to Bitcoin mining and AI, do you see them as complementary or do you think that they can outcompete each other? Well, they're both energy-intensive businesses that are kind of competing for the same power sources. So, in the end, uh it puts a lot of pressure on the power production side of things. And again, it will put a lot more pressure on the sustainability side of things because sustainable power has not been developed in abundance over the past years expecting the demand that we now have. So, 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 that are being developed now to kind of catch up with this demand and trying stay away from non-sustainable sources of energy. That's what I see. So, 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 say renewables and wind farms? Yeah, absolutely because Bitcoin mining is a flexible load. So, you can use it more like a battery. So, for example, one of our sites in Norway, we participate in something similar to a demand response program which helps stabilize the grid during peak consumption winter times. That basically allows the grid to have throughout stability through the winter because we always have a portion of our capacity ready to go offline within 5 minutes to support the grid. And that's another way of giving back to the community um like in a tangible manner. Mhm. Besides also Susie, if you remember on our previous panel um I mentioned that Bit Zero's energy, a portion of it 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. No, absolutely. So, Harvey told me that I have to ask this question in a positive way. Uh I'm going to give it a go. You've been quite critical of how Bitcoin mining has been deployed locally. Where has the industry gone wrong? I I I don't know how else to say it, but I'm going to just say it with a smile. You still sound a little bit negative, but okay. I did, but I smiled a little bit. In my opinion, a lot of Bitcoin miners had a short short-term plan. Um I think they should have brought in way more value to local economies. Um local jobs that has been discussed before. And I think they should have been better job. Do you Do you think that rather than it benefiting the local community that the value is leaving the communities? Is that where you see the issues? That it's not staying locally, that it's actually being used as a way to maybe get extracted elsewhere. It's not only for the the economic value to leave, but also fundamentally, what does this Bitcoin mining facility contribute to locally? Jobs, economic activity, maybe heat, some other solutions where it becomes integrated in the into the local community. So, Megan, we're now seeing a push back around to data centers and shifting to AI, how does Bitcoin mining fit into that conversation? Well, recently someone told me before the shovel hits the ground, we need to have a community strategy. Obviously, power strategies are very important, but also community strategies because power is a resource that belongs to all of us. And we have an obligation to the communities and the people around us to actually focus on resources, jobs, and training. How I mean, how do you go about doing that? How do How do you make sure that the balance is right? Well, the balance is right by going out into the community and listening to people. And what we do in Bitcoin mining is we give underserved communities and forgotten communities the ability to retrain and to actually be able to bring in opportunity for their family as well. And so, we need to listen to that. Um and we need to pay attention to the political environment and understand in some of these other cities where bad actors were in place, that we do not follow that same pattern. So, Curtis, how how do you measure the economic value? Because it's not just about jobs. There's so much more to it. How How can you actually measure how economically valuable it is to a local community outside what's obvious? Thank you. Early in my career, Chad Everett Harris taught me something directly. He says, "Curtis, it's all about jobs." And I I own that in my ethos, but if we look at the reality of Bitcoin mining, Susie, Bitcoin mining historically does not employ that many site operators on site. We've gotten pretty good at operations. We developed remote systems and at Compass we're able to operate 10 megawatts with three people. So, that's not a lot of people, you know, uh uh in in these sites. However, these are generally in remote communities. So, think of farmland and one thing to, you know, maybe consider is that we're certainly employing more people per acre than the the local farming community is. So, like there's the negative of not a lot of jobs, but then look at it. We are using the the area differently. But, to be more direct to your your question and I am passionate about this. I appreciate Megan uh her the passion she shared. I also have I also have notes, but rec- recognize that we're a remote world. Bitcoin's, you know, 24/7 and decentralized. You've got the opportunity to go put a job posting or bring someone in. The the biggest economic impact you can make is to force yourself to hire locally. So, to go through every effort possible to hire locally, get involved in workforce development, train for these positions. These are generally good paying roles inside of these communities. So, go through every effort to make that happen. But, then the economic impact goes on beyond that is when you hire local contractors, when you work with the concrete company, the electrician, the local vendors. Go through every effort to develop local vendors. If you're buying a product and you're just ordering it online for your site operations, is there a local vendor that you can develop so that you can in in invest in that community. Those those contractors that you might hire for your site buildout, that allows dollars to stay in that economy. Those people will end up being your biggest advocate. When some issue comes up, those contractors have deep connections across the community. It's incredibly valuable to keep every dollar local, Susie. And 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 Windstone facility at one time. Amazing. 2,500? And where was that? Rockdale. Right. And how big is Rockdale? Just to give cuz I I don't know the rough size of that. Yeah, like in comparison to Cuz that is a lot of people, isn't it? Yes, it is. I'm not exactly sure of the population of Rockdale, though. It is a small town outside of Austin and Hutto. So, it's a bunch of small towns outside of Austin. >> Because I would think that that's even a lot of people just for a city. If you if if a if a an a new industry was going to come to a city, then that's the point I was trying to make. That it is a small town, isn't it? So, it must almost take over. Yes. The community. Wow, incredible. So, Mo, Bitmain leans heavily into sustainability. But how much of this green mining narrative is real versus the marketing? Well, um we've we've seen we've seen a lot of abuse of the the green narrative, but that doesn't mean that um some of the players that do market around that don't have a genuine plan that they are pursuing to achieve more sustainability. It's really hard to differentiate. Um for us, we're sustainable by nature. Our power sources are 100% sustainable. Um What What do you mine from? Um hydro energy, uh dominantly 100% in Norway and Finland our site is mainly powered by nuclear with a mix of wind and solar. Wow. Yeah. Any geothermal? Geothermal? There are geothermal plants nearby, but we don't we don't that doesn't come through our lines. But there are there are geothermal sources that are being actively developed. There's a lot of there's a big push in Finland around modular nuclear that we've been seeing. We're really excited to see that come to fruition. So Harvey, and I've written it down because it was such a it was such a good little phrase. So you described mining as tier zero infrastructure. Yes. >> Can you explain what that means and why it matters long-term? It has to do with a couple of things. Since 2021 I've been advocating that Bitcoin mining or crypto mining should be part of the data center ecosystem. You have tier one, tier two, tier three, tier four. Even now tier five. And I always advocated that Bitcoin mining should be tier zero where data center start. That would be better strategy and you also have better strategy to be part of that ecosystem. So if there is a any issue in the country tax-wise, instead of attacking Bitcoin mining as an ugly duck they should they attack an entire industry. So you have a better support for it if Bitcoin mining becomes part of that ecosystem, the data center ecosystem. Curtis, you said you can't fake local. What's the biggest mistakes that companies make when they try to enter new regions? Thank you. You know, I'll share a story about Jeff Bryant, one of our phenomenal employees. Jeff Jeff started as a as a site technician at a site in Ohio is now promoted multiple times is a regional site leader manages incredibly large team. Jeff had a passion for feeding the homeless and as a site technician entry-level role with this he launched an initiative locally to his community sats for soup where he and his colleagues on site gathered their own resources and went out to Sam's Club or Costco and loaded up uh uh food and then took it to the homeless shelter and that was a that was amazing. He's a hardcore bitcoiner and he he called it sats for soup. Um we saw that and wanted to stand beside him which I think is just that's just an example of a of a bitcoiner seeing a need to to give back. When when we talk about you can't fake lo- fake local and the mistakes that people make Suzy I think that there's this desire oh I I want I want better community engagement. Let me sponsor every little league team in town and put my name on it. Well what what I I don't think that works. I think a better solution is is to find the causes that your people are passionate about and get beside them as they serve for that whether that's allowing some time off or you recognize that they're they're contributing and you match a donation but um investing yourself investing your team resources in what your people on the ground are already committed to is I think one of the best suggestions. Thank you. So Mo really quick. Um that turns that intentional action turns their job into an actual career. It provides them opportunity. It provides pride in these communities and to be able to support their families further and I think that's a really good point. Yeah these are these are like it's fun to be at a conference in Las Vegas, but these are our real people. They're they're real lives, their families, their schools, their churches. This is their community and if you're coming in here and building a Bitcoin mine and you just want to extract electricity and mine your Bitcoin, you're you're making you're missing a tremendous opportunity to make a real impact. Great comments, Megan. Yeah, you're just ignoring the boots on the ground because the grit that it takes, the hours it takes, the time I've as at Riot I never asked those to do something I never did myself because I need to understand what it takes to do that work. So we spent time whenever we were in Oklahoma City and Upstate New York and Massena working with people, with our auditors hand in hand working and we would step out of that mine completely filthy. And people I think miss the point that this is beautiful, this is great, this is amazing and exciting, but what we miss is the dirty side of Bitcoin. The part that takes the grit, the time, the 24/7 because that's what creates all of that opportunity beyond that. Yeah, incredible. Welcome to Predict. The world is a market. Everything is a market. Every headline moves the line. Every moment is your market. Call the moves. Bet on your instinct. Your prediction, your edge. Dual bits, predict where everything is a market. Mali, you build renewable energy sites. So you know, what have been the real world challenges that you've faced and how do you integrate energy systems into local communities. So, there there are two types of integration. One is what Curtis and Megan was just talking about, which is in short, earning trust of the local community. Um and showing them that you are genuinely not just here to extract energy and mine Bitcoin and have a real impact in that sense. The other one is have a direct economic impact as well. And a direct felt impact like the grid stability that we provide during winter, which could affect people negatively if it's not there. And with the revenue that we provide to the municipalities that they can invest in schools and agriculture and whatever they need to invest in for their community. That's two ways of really tangible impact that you you need to you need to have in order to have long-term stability in a region that you would like to operate in and you don't have a short-term horizon. So, how do you even go about starting something like that? How how do you go about approaching people and and integrating? So, you just come in from nowhere and No, so our sites are mainly developed with the local community. As Curtis was saying, if if you go there, you start bringing, you know, engineers from all over the world, you're not going to get anywhere. First of all, there's local >> do? How how do you do you do you just go in? Do you do surveys? Like, what's the process? >> You you have to partner with the local community. You need to develop these lands from the ground up. It's not Oh, you're you're you're going to land that's ready project plugged in. No, you need to develop it from the ground up. See where it fits, where's the closest connection points, how it's going to affect the local community, who's the closest resident to you, how much are they going to be affected, um how much are you going to affect the power grid in the area, what are you going to need to do to mitigate that, what revenue or what benefits are you giving directly to the municipalities before you even engage in in the project itself. So, there's a lot of ground work. Most of our sites, um they've been worked on for more than a year for sure before they were acquired. So, it appears to be a year before you even go in there. >> you even go in there, it's minimum a year of integrating with the local communities, integrating with the local authorities, power utilities, grid companies, power production in the area before you even touch a project. Wow. If If I mean, it makes perfect sense. If If you go in all guns blazing, then you're not going to get a a good reception, and it is absolutely a paramount to that. So, So, Harvey, looking looking at countries like Kazakhstan, that's actually got quite a bad rap, isn't it, in the when it comes to a Bitcoin mining. I think the BBC did a documentary on Kazakhstan and um destroyed everybody's view on Bitcoin mining because of it. Ethiopia and Venezuela, what should have been done differently? Um as my fellow uh panelists acknowledge as well, the importance of people. Um In Kazakhstan, what a lot of people don't know is when the ban came in China, a lot of people relocated to Kazakhstan, not knowing that Kazakhstan had an energy deficit. Um in the summer, there were no problems, but in the winter, because of Bitcoin mining, a lot of cities couldn't heat their homes or couldn't provide food. And it this became a, you know, big problem. Um that's why the president got impeached, and that's why Bitcoin mining is very difficult. Similarly in Ethiopia, Ethiopia was cheap power. I personally believe that Ethiopia is should be one of the best data center heavens and also one of the gateways to Africa for data centers. There is zero all the way up to tier three. And I think because of greed, of of corruption, of bad stewardship, that we messed that opportunity up. In terms of corruption, are you talking about governments? Government, government official, business people, um everybody that's part of the ecosystem. Not to mention any particular names here. So, one last question. We've got 3 minutes left. So, I'm going to ask the same question to everybody, just a couple of lines. If mining is going to create long-term value, what needs to change, Megan? I think that Hold that sec. Curtis, what what needs to change? Well, I do have a short answer, and it it's it's proactive unselfish engagement. So, it's being there early, it not being focused on yourself, and it's actively engaging. So, that is a short answer is proactive unselfish engagement, Suzy. Amazing. My I see the long-term value in mining is integrating it in a lot of other industries and marrying it to energy-intensive industries that are now eating up everything that's coming up in power production. There are gigawatts of AI compute clusters being built and at some point there's going to be a marriage between Bitcoin mining and those clusters that's going to make it extremely efficient for the clusters and for the miners especially to be used as backup power cuz you can consume that backup power and make cash flow out of it through mining and within 2 minutes that power can be made available for redundancy. So at some point there's a marriage there that could integrate mining into that and other energy intensive businesses. Well, lots of opportunities anything that produces heat for example, you know, heating. I think Bitcoin mining is going to be one of those things that gets integrated into every single part of our life at some point. So Harvey, same question to you. Yes. Um, I think I have a couple of suggestions. So one have a strategy to be part of the data center ecosystem. One. Two understand how to not only get value but also bring value. And I think a lot of Bitcoin miners forget how important people are. Um people can make or break your business. Right now a lot of data centers not only Bitcoin mining lose their expansion rights, are not allowed to expand because people don't want them there. Yeah, so I think we all should reflect that and make sure that we become better stewardships so we can all benefit from the digital world where it's going and it needs data centers. Thank you so much. Well, that was I hope you found that very informative. I know and thank you very much for staying as well. I know it's late in the day. Thanks. Round of applause to my amazing panelists. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everyone. >> [music] >> Every year this community comes together >> [music] >> to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. >> [music] >> And every year the stage gets bigger. >> [music] >> Sound money center stage. >> [music] >> So, where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? [music] You come home. Nashville, July [music] 2027.