What do you need to know to mine Bitcoin? Is garage mining profitable? Join host Kathleen Jobin and guest, Bitcoin miner Matt as they discuss everything from what you can expect in terms of power usage to if using an ‘on/off’ model can be profitable. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Matt was using 30 or 40 kilowatts in his garage to mine bitcoin (500 KW/half-MW could be consumption of anywhere between 100-200 homes), now he’s moved into an industrial unit he uses up to half a megawatt of power. 
• There's unused capacity from the grid which are built keeping in mind peaks and valleys, but they're built handle peaks so most of the time the grid has excess capacity. Bitcoin mining is a 24/7 operation so you're ideally using non-stop flat load of consumption. And most utilities want load to offset their fixed costs at least.
• Matt got into Bitcoin through mining. The first Bitcoin he had was the Bitcoin he mined. He started out with homegrown GPU miners using graphics card in making a custom computer, not Bitcoin (because there were already ASICs) but Ethereum, but he was mining on a platform which paid in Bitcoin. So you mined Ethereum etc but got paid in Bitcoin.
• Matt’s recommendation is that if you’re into your tech then you should dip your toe and try out mining. Learning mining works best if you're actually doing it. You can find older generation machines at good prices and can make a little money out of them. 
• If you look at any website that shows profitability of miners, that shows profitability right now today if you have the miners with you but it doesn't compare with long term factors like mining difficulty or the price of Bitcoin. The profitability changes dynamically everyday every second. And generally, that profitability gets lesser over time because the difficulty gets harder.
• Home miner's are not going to get competitive rates. But when profitability is high, like really now, it doesn't matter much, you will still make some. 
• When things get really bad in bear markets, you see dips in hash rate as the least profitable miners drop out. In the early day, when Matt was mining from home, he was finding it barely profitable, and was earning about enough to pay the power bill. 
• If you think long term, you can scoop up a bunch of machines for cheap during a bear market. Mining is very opportunistic, very flexible, it's a type of business that uses electricity in a way that is very unique.
• Matt firmly believes Proof of Stake and other alternatives cannot work with the same vision (of Proof of Work to achieve global free permissionless digital money). Mining is designed in such a way that it creates a backbone that secures immutability of the blockchain and its transactions and scarcity. Just like gold is hard to mine as it takes real world resources to create is what makes it scarce.
• Matt's mantra is to mine and hold and sell only for the sake of paying power bills and so on. 

BEST MOMENTS

‘Believing mining is a get rich quick scheme is a mistake’

'If you're looking at all I care about is making money in the simplest way, then just buy Bitcoin'

'Bitcoin is a free sovereign monetary asset that is free of governments'

'Bitcoin mining is not a lottery, it’s a type of math problem that you can only solve by making guesses’

‘Cryptography is its own rabbit hole’ 

'You do not get something for nothing'

'The only thing that a miner should buy with bitcoin is more mining machines'

'If anything Bitcoin is, it is also freedom of expression'

EPISODE RESOURCES

Matt's Twitter

Ville de Baie-Comeau Call for proposal: https://t.co/Q4KdqXmhUa?amp=1

B...

Join host Kathleen Jobin and guest, Bitcoin Gandalf on this week’s episode of Never Too Late To Bitcoin. People don’t just find out about Bitcoin overnight and become experts, listen in to hear Bitcoin Gandalf’s journey and find out what advice he has to give. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Bitcoin Gandalf got his job in marketing at a Bitcoin company through Twitter after working in property. 
• Michael Saylor's talks really helped orange pill Gandalf.
• The Bitcoin network is as good as it can be, so there’s little chance of it becoming the Myspace of the coin industry. Myspace failed because it didn't catch the mobile wave. Facebook did that well and so it caught on. But when we think about what we want from a monetary network and a store of value asset, Bitcoin already does that well. For something to come along and take Bitcoin's market share, it will have to be a 10x improvement. Bitcoin does it's specific thing super well, it does not need to do anything else.
• Gandalf sold every stock and bought Bitcoin and so did his mother, who liquidated her brokerage account in 3-weeks in late 2020.
• "Ledger is the easiest way to convert boomers to cold storage but not sure my mom is ready for Coldcard" - Kathleen
• If you want to understand Bitcoin you need to understand the context behind the principles of the idea. When you look for the context, it's when you start understanding Bitcoin.
• Money is just your time being stored up in an account. Inflation takes time that you’ve already stored up away.
• Devaluing currency is a great incentive to remain productive and keep people working and provide services. In a deflationary world, you don't need to be more productive in exchange for money... you will instead be more creative or will be freed up to create some amazing things and have more joy in your life because you'll be doing something you want to do and not because you have to to keep up with inflation.
• Gandalf shares content not to orange pill, but because he enjoys it but if somebody else enjoys it then that's great. He doesn't aim to change people's mind.

BEST MOMENTS

‘There are so many Bitcoin stories that start with someone being in quarantine’ 

'Bitcoin is a monetary network with a native currency'

‘Bitcoin is like a table, it does a specific thing super well’

'Money is a technology. It's a human invention that allows us to exchange value'

'There's no room to make any substantial improvement that would destroy the network effect that Bitcoin already has such that everyone suddenly moves somewhere else'

‘Come for the greed, stay for the revolution. Greed gets you in, and then you learn’

'If you diversify you don't win at anything'

'If you do the same thing as everyone else then you will end up like everyone else. You wanna end up like everyone else? I don't'

EPISODE RESOURCES

Bitcoin Gandalf Twitter: @BTCGandalf

Rich Dad poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki’s  - https://store.richdad.com/collections/books/products/rich-dad-poor-dad-what-the-rich-teach-their-kids-about-money-that-the-poor-and-middle-class-do-not

Robert Breedlove : Bitcoin influencer https://twitter.com/Breedlove22?s=20

Coin Stories podcast by Natalie Brunell - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coin-stories/id1569130932

Always buy your cold wallets from the manufacturer official...

 Join host Kathleen Jobin and guest, Jimmy Voyer, Bitcoin and gold investor on this week’s episode of Never Too Late To Bitcoin. Hear all about why Jimmy Voyer invested in both gold and bitcoin at the same time. Also, join the discussion on how financial history can hold the key to what the future will look like and weather you should trust exchanges holding large numbers of Bitcoins. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Jimmy believes that we need to look at the history of money and observe the shifts in empires. By looking at this you see that when the gold reserves depleted, then the empire fell. So, to keep our current empire going we need a sustainable source of currency. 
• Jimmy realized the fiat financial system is a total scam and we needed an exit from that scam and so gold and Bitcoin were the answer.
• Jimmy started buying Bitcoin just before the 2017 bull run but kept accumulating since the time it was $1,500. Along with Bitcoin, he discovered Bitcoin so he diversified with Gold trusting its 5,000 year history. He has since come around to think that Bitcoin is much safer than he originally thought and sold his gold. 
• Jimmy actually invested in gold at the same time he invested in Bitcoin. Originally, he wasn’t sure about the safety of Bitcoin and saw gold as another safe investment that’s been around for over 5000 years. 
• With Bitcoin you need to own your key. Jimmy would never trust a third party with his Bitcoin.
• When people say "Gold has intrinsic value", it is unimportant because it doesn't matter whether money has intrinsic value because the main goal of money is to exchange and store value for use in future. So if Bitcoin will eat up Gold's monetary premium, your electronics get better and better.

BEST MOMENTS

‘Don’t be in a honeypot, own your own keys’ 

'Be responsible for your own money. Don't let others decide that for you'

‘Bitcoin is the fastest growing money network in history’

'Money is a way to barter with something that lasts through time'

'Privacy and hidden are synonyms but they are not'

EPISODE RESOURCES

Guest’s socials https://www.facebook.com/jimmy.voyer.1

Jonathan Hamel - https://academiebitcoin.com/index.php/jonathan-hamel/

Andreas M. Antonopoulos - https://aantonop.com/

Gold debate between Saifedean and Peter Schiff - Saifedean Ammous vs Peter Schiff on Sound Banking, Gold & Bitcoin

Gold debate between Michael Saylor and Frank Giustra - Bitcoin vs Gold: The Great Debate with Michael Saylor and Frank Giustra

NVK - Bitcoiner who owns Bitcoin hardware company, Coldcard - @nvk

El Salvador Becomes First Country To Make Bitcoin Legal Tender - https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/el-salvador-becomes-first-country-to-make-bitcoin-legal-tender-2021-06-14

Guest suggest these sites as learning tools:

Stansberry Research Michael Saylor and Frank Giustra : Bitcoin vs Gold: The Great Debate with Michael Saylor and Frank Giustra

MicroStrategy Bitcoin Strategy Risk-adjusted returns of currencies, indexes, metals, stocks, & bonds vs BTC. https://www.microstrategy.com/en/hyperintelligence/asset-vs-btc

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