cheers, Jason

As some of you know, I've been volunteering with Bitcoin Ekasi for the past three years, tutoring a bright teenager in Austrian economics. Initially, we were literally dealing with basic vocab, but by this point he can debate you on the finer points of macro-economics, global politics, and the Bitcoin network. Apart from anything I've been involved in, he can now run a node, build a BTCPay Server, and build mechanical devices powered by Raspberry Pis. He's pretty smart.

Around a year into our studies, things really became disrupted by load shedding. Basically, Eskom, the state run company that controls the whole power grid in South Africa, had deteriorated so much due to corruption that almost everywhere in the country had to suffer through scheduled (and often times unscheduled) blackouts. You can image what this does to a society. If it gives you any perspective, I haven't gone a day here without hearing discussion of "gender based violence" on the radio.

Simultaneously, I saw how my student's lifestyle was improving, as well as that of the staff at the NPO around him. In May of this year, I came for about two weeks to check it out myself, with a few thoughts you'll read below in my back pocket, and an eye to see if I could bring my family. Honestly, I've been to a lot of places known for rough living conditions (Skid Row, burnt neighborhoods in Detroit, south side Chicago, rural Appalachia, rural Belize), and there is NOTHING that compares to the poverty you will see in a South African township. It lit a fire in me. September 1st, I came back with the family, although it was during this interim that I started to play things a bit too safe. Anyway, I've been volunteering with the organization since then. The tasks are all over the map, and it's been really fun being a part of this wild movement.

But I came to scope something else out too. As one might expect, solar demand went through the roof during load-shedding. I met with a solar installer (and bitcoiner) last week who said the accepted estimates are that over 8 mega-watts of private solar power was installed in recent years. To give you a perspective, the country's grid is 35 mega-watts total. On top of this, due to a combination of negligence and corruption within Eskom, it is either not economic or not even legal for many solar owners to sell energy back to the grid. And, as one might imagine, the solar divide is between the haves and the have-nots.

So on one hand, there is a growing community of bitcoiners who understand the benefit of the network, yet are often times trying to find jobs in a place with 30% unemployment. On the other hand, you have a wealthy class, who may have a thing or two to learn about bitcoin, and have built a massive green energy source, that is expensive and hard to use. The aforementioned solar installer told me that he thinks about 60% of his clients would be interested in recouping their solar investment.

Pull out your third hand now. The bitcoin network was not designed for large industrial mining. I'm actually pretty confident that the issue is bigger than most people think. Home mining by educated miners is the best thing possible for the Bitcoin network. It also consumes massive amounts of electricity and requires the installation of bespoke machines. All of the benefits people talk about as far as bitcoin stabilizing the grid and building infrastructure are augmented by physical decentralization, controlled by people not beholden to FPPS payouts.

Anyway, I've spent the past year learning how to automate my miners for heating purposes. For the past few weeks, when not up in the township working with the guys, or out watching the kids in the program learn to surf, I've been working on automating miners to respond to solar inverters. But there's been one huge problem.

I had no idea how hard it would be to find miners down here. There are tons of bitaxes, which is great. However, they don't really scratch this itch. I'm talking about using power in the kilowatt range at each house and generating revenue for freshly trained mining installers and home owners looking to recoup solar investment. All this to say, does anyone know of some used or even dormant/free miners in South Africa? Does anyone know of a way of shipping through customs without spending a fortune. I've spoken with a great Namibian bitcoiner who can get a ton of them here from China in January. I'm still at the extreme experimental phase of this though, and my current visa (and savings) won't last that long. If any stackers know of someone that might be able to share some advise, I'd be very grateful.