The fundamental purpose of mining is to produce block space. Also, mining has little to do with hashing, mining is really about running a node, constructing a template, deciding which block to build upon, and receiving coinbase transactions.

It is in honor of a beach near my home called Barefoot Beach. The parent company of Barefoot Mining is Barefoot Ventures and when I formed it, I wanted to focus on businesses that could be run Barefoot at the beach.

Here are a few:

1. The public mining companies have been a net negative to Bitcoin.
2. The largest miners in the mid-term and long-term will be financial institutions and nation-states.
3. Miners of the future (see #2) will be motivated mostly by the control of block space and not the block reward.

I'll be signing off now. Thanks to everyone for the questions and conversations. I enjoyed it.

My pleasure - thank you for hosting me.

Yes, understanding the implications and time lines of technology on society is so important but it seems few people pay attention.

I'll be hanging out for another 5-10 minutes. Any other thoughts or questions?

BTW - we use Unchained right now and for a firm of our size it works. If I were back at Gateway (multi-billion dollar public firm), it would be much more complicated. I think many will punt and ask Morgan Stanley or Blackrock types to handle it for them. I know that it isn't a great answer but I think they'll go that route at least initially.

This is really great question. It is a hindrance to institutional adoption. I think they will have to work with outside firms with multi-sigs and time locks. We're not fully there yet.

Interestingly, the takeaway for me from The Alchemist is that the Universe conspires...it kind of becomes very deep both philosophically and with the way I think time/space and the multi-verse works.

Great series covering science, quantum, alien life overlaid on deep moral quandary

You didn't ask but in non-fiction I love a book called The Discoverers.

Great question: I'll give you three:

1. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho (Life)
2. Three Body Problem (Trilogy) (Science)
3. Atlas Shrugged. (Money and Politics)

No, very low chance. Bitcoin will be fine. Plenty of work already in place to protect the ecosystem. The only thing I worry about is a split on the community on what to do with exposed coins.

It's pretty tough to compete with AI but I'm very much intrigued by interplanetary travel and space. I like to read/think about time and the weird world of quantum too.

BTW - the 55% threshold is the direct result of not giving Foundry, Antpool, F2Pool, or ViaBTC veto power. Too many people have given all of the power to the pools. This is the real fundamental problem.

On our sources, we have a hydro electric we own dedicated to mining, several stranded natural gas sites, and the biodigester site.

The pubcos have been a huge driver (and negative influence on Bitcoin and mining). They are leaving/shrinking. A lot pivots from this including the Foundry/Antpool domination.

55% would be a big deal and I think it would become the longer quickly. I really doubt it will fall into a gray area. The reality is the miners will choose the path that has the least risk.

Pictured here is a 5MW operation of ours using stranded natural gas.

I think large-scale (50MW+) operations will become uncommon but those in the 1-10MW range will explode. Most will produce their own power (like Barefoot does). But, heat re-use will also grow tremendously.