Start here: I’m Ed — TPM @ Compass Mining. In bitcoin since 2018.
I sit between mining ops, product, and engineering.
What I post:
• bitcoin mining reality (ops/reliability)
• program management for technical teams
• practical AI/LLMs + security learnings
• markets/trading (process + risk management, not signals)
If you’re building in mining/infra/security/AI, reply with what you’re working on.
📢New Video is LIVE!
🇺🇸 I had the pleasure of visiting @compass_mining Texas 5 Partner Site @SolunaHoldings Code Named "Project Dorthy" in Northern Texas.
⚡Coming in at 100 MW!
🚀This site was Incredible, utilizing a MASSIVE Wind Farm to help off-set Electric Cost.
📺Watch Now: https://t.co/RwEqIZ7bVE
With Kevin Warsh nominated by Trump to succeed Jerome Powell as Fed Chair the administration may gain a more aligned monetary policy partner to address the fiscal impact through expanded liquidity measures. Expanded quantitative easing, deficit-financed offsets, sector-specific liquidity support are all at their disposal.
Boost miner efficiency: Push for next-gen ASICs with better hash-per-watt ratios. We've seen steady improvements (e.g., from Bitmain's S21 series hitting 17.5 J/TH), but accelerating R&D could cut energy use by 20-30% per generation, making even low-fee blocks profitable for more operators.
Slash electricity costs: Relocate rigs to ultra-cheap renewable hubs like Iceland's geothermal or Texas' solar/wind surpluses, where rates dip below $0.02/kWh. Longer-term, explore wildcards like space-based solar mining (beaming power down) or nuclear micro-reactors dedicated to farms—these could drop effective costs to near-zero in some setups.
Scale the network for higher daily fees: Drive massive adoption via L2s like Lightning or Ark to handle everyday tx volume, but funnel high-value settlements back to L1 for fee revenue. Combine with protocols like Ordinals or Runes to create ongoing demand for block space—aiming for 10x+ transaction throughput without bloating the chain. If BTC hits $1M+, even modest fee hikes per tx could push daily totals into the millions.
🚨Bitcoin’s Catastrophic Problem NO ONE Is Talking About!
Bitcoin produces 144 blocks per day. Fees are paid per block, every ~10 minutes.
Yesterday, Bitcoin Layer-1 fees totaled ~2.6 BTC for the entire day. (Approx. $180K)
That works out to ~0.018 $BTC per block.
Meanwhile, the real cost to secure a block (electricity + hardware) is often $150k–$200k, depending on hash rate and energy prices.
Today, miners survive because of the 3.125 $BTC block subsidy. Fees do not matter NOW, because the Bitcoin emissions are worth enough to offset costs.
🚨THE PROBLEM? When Bitcoin reaches 21 million supply, that subsidy goes to zero.
At that point, fees must fully pay miners — or hash rate drops, security weakens, and the system degrades.
To break even long-term, Bitcoin needs tens of millions per day in L1 fees. Yesterday was sub $200,000.
I own Bitcoin. I want it to succeed.
But pretending this isn’t a real issue won’t solve it.
The people saying "AI replaced software engineering" are usually oversimplifying.
The people saying "nothing changed" are usually understating how fast the day-to-day job already feels different.
Most realistic view right now:
AI didn't replace engineers. It replaced engineers who only knew how to execute without judgment — and massively amplified the ones who can direct intelligence at scale.
One practical AI use: turning messy notes into a first draft of a postmortem + action items.
You still need a human to validate details, but it saves real time.
Miners/ops folks: what’s your best early-warning metric for ‘this week is about to get painful’?
(temps, rejects, packet loss, power events, something else?)
In our latest podcast, @cjburnett joins @Bitcoin_Curtis to discuss our objectives and plans for @TheBitcoinConf 2024 in Nashville⚡️
This episode also features a timely conversation entitled "Meet Our CEO" with Paul Gosker!
To check these out, please find a 🔗⬇️
BRAZIL SHOULD TERRIFY YOU
Just a day and a half ago, it seemed like things were calming in Brazil. The Folha de São Paulo, the New York Times of Brazil, editorialized against censorship. The head of the Brazilian Bar Association gave a strong statement in support of freedom of expression. And the President of Brazil’s Supreme Court said the conflict between Brazil and X, formerly known as Twitter, was over. “People talk a big game but don’t act on their words,” he said
All of that has once again changed. Yesterday, Brazil’s President Lula called for criminalizing lying. Given that everybody lies, Lula is proposing to give the government the power to arrest anyone he wants. Thousands of Workers Party activists took to X yesterday to demand that I be arrested for things I said during my testimony before the Brazilian Senate. And today, the head of X in Brazil announced they have quit out fear for their safety.
I am not afraid for myself. As I said on X a few days ago, I fear neither the devil nor de Moraes, the Supreme Court justice rapidly turning himself into Brazil’s dictator. I am taking all necessary precautions to ensure that I can leave Brazil safely and without being arrested. You can help by sharing this video and spreading the word about what is happening here.
And yet, what is happening in Brazil terrifies me nonetheless. I love this country and its people and fear that it is on the cusp of totalitarianism. A significant share of the Left wants to incarcerate their political enemies. Respected Brazilian journalists say with a straight face that the government must engage in mass censorship in order to protect democracy. Brazil is everything that George Orwell feared and worse. The Brazilian government appears to view “1984” not as a dystopia to avoid but rather as a guide to a better future.
I would be less worried if Brazil were small and irrelevant, but it’s not. Brazil is the largest and most important nation in Latin America. Just this week, top Brazilian government representatives were in China talking about how China, one of the most totalitarian nations in the world, is a model for Brazil. Brazil is an inspiration for European totalitarians who have weaponized government intelligence agencies to spread disinformation about their political enemies and are implementing a censorship system to control the entire Internet.
The most terrifying part of all of this is the marriage of psychopathic government leaders like Lula and de Moraes with totalitarian activists and voters. Governments have successfully brainwashed a significant percentage of the population into supporting mass censorship. Young adults raised on social media are today more intolerant than the students in China’s Cultural Revolution in China who denounced their teachers and sent them off to work camps to be tortured.
At the same time, people with a mentality no different from the people who ran the Stasi and the Gestapo are in charge of intelligence agencies in Europe and the United States.
Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives renewed legislation that gives the US government the right to spy on Americans suspected of collaborating with foreign governments. The result will be McCarthyism on steroids. The FBI will be able to spy on any American citizen who dares to criticize the war in Ukraine. The US government will label people who oppose endless wars in Eurasia as “political extremists,” ruining their careers, or worse.
During the rise of Communism and fascism in Europe, many Jews and other persecuted people could flee to the United States. Where will we flee if the United States continues down the road to totalitarianism? Not Europe. Not Brazil. Is any country safe in a world where every movement, transaction, and thought is being monitored?
I keep waiting for the downward spiral to hit bottom, and it never does. I am naturally optimistic, but sometimes, that means I have tended toward wishful thinking. Such wishful thinking is dangerous and irresponsible in moments like this one. So, too, is passivity.
We must act. That starts with standing up to the bullies, all of whom are cowards on the inside. Elon Musk stood up to the bully de Moraes last week and appears to be holding strong. Tonight, he will hold a Spaces with the controversial former president of Brazil, whom the Supreme Court has prevented from running for office again for another eight years.
My colleagues and I are building a new free-speech movement. All of the organizations we used to rely upon to defend human rights, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and ACLU, have been taken over by totalitarians demanding censorship. We are gathering in London in June. We are starting our own free-speech NGOs around the world.
We can’t do this alone. Please share this post, consider subscribing to my publication, Public, and make a donation. People are risking their lives to defend free speech for all human beings. You don’t need to risk yours, but we desperately need your help. Things won’t calm down until we stand up to the tyrants and remove every one of them from power.