Square Takes a Swipe at the Bitcoin Energy Debate With $5 Million Solar Mining Investment

June 6, 2021 Bitcoin.com

‘Pointless but incredible’— New electric car mines crypto while it’s parked

June 2, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Canadian light electric vehicle manufacturer Daymak has announced an electric car that can mine Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies while parked.

Canadian light electric vehicle manufacturer Daymak has announced an upcoming electric car that can mine Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Doge — when it’s charging or parked.

According to the firm’s June 1 announcement, The “Spiritus” electric car is set to roll out in 2023 and will come fitted with “an industry-leading GPU in mining price-to-profit.” However, details are sparse on what the specific capabilities of the mining hardware are.

“Daymak Spiritus the first car in history with mining hardware and cryptocurrency technology programmed into the user interface,” the announcement stated.

Every Spiritus will be an “environmentally-friendly crypto miner node,” that includes the Daymak Nebular mining hardware, the Nebular crypto wallet, and solar charging capabilities. Daymak has touted that, unlike other vehicles, the Spiritus will not be a depreciating asset:

“Whereas most vehicles are depreciating while they sit in your garage, the Nebula Miner will make you money while your Spiritus is parked.”

Despite the technological feat, it may work out to be uneconomical (or at least not particularly profitable) to mine various cryptocurrencies in the sort of small scale consumer rig that is likely to be fitted in a car.

The “Documenting Bitcoin” Twitter account found the funny side of applying renewable energy-backed crypto mining to a car, telling their 435,200 followers that this is “pointless, but incredible.”

The Canadian auto manufacturer Daymak, just announced their new series of electric cars will mine #Bitcoin with solar energy when charging, and they're accepting #Bitcoin as payment.

This is pointless, but incredible at the same time. pic.twitter.com/mRkYvNtjx5
— Documenting Bitcoin (@DocumentingBTC) June 1, 2021

The firm has also touted that the Nebula Wallet app will offer staking features for drivers, and supports “Bitcoin, Ethereum, Doge, Cardano, and more.”

Daymak is now taking pre-orders for the car, and accepts crypto payments in Doge, Ethereum, Cardano, and Bitcoin, and is also “working with a variety of exchanges to offer leasing payments via crypto.”

The Spiritus comes in a “deluxe” model priced at $19,995 and an “ultimate” model priced at $149,000. It appears that the models differ only in driving performance such as top speed and battery life, and added features wireless charging and custom paint — and not mining hardware capabilities.

Spiritus deluxe and ultimate models - Daymak

This is not the first time a car has been rigged out with crypto mining hardware, back in January crypto enthusiast Simon Bryne installed a portable mining rig into his BMW i8 hybrid vehicle. At the time, Bryne’s car was estimated to be able to generate $122,000 in profit per year.

“We envision a future where your highway tolls, your parking, and your drive-thru order will be paid directly on the fly with crypto. Your online bills and your banking can be handled through the same software platform paid in crypto,” stated Aldo Baiocchi, President of Daymak.

Michael Saylor says Bitcoin Mining Council required to combat ‘hostile’ narrative

May 26, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Bitcoin mining

Michael Saylor has provided more context on the Mining Council, and hopes to combat the anti-crypto narrative with greater Bitcoin mining transparency.

MicroStrategy CEO, Michael Saylor has explained the details and thinking behind the formation of the Bitcoin Mining Council.

The council was formed on May 25 after Saylor brokered a successful meeting between Elon Musk and several top North American Bitcoin mining firms. The miners involved will provide current and planned renewable usage transparency, and will lobby other mining operations across the globe to do so as well

Michael Saylor describing the formation of the Bitcoin Mining Council and @ElonMusk's shared interest in seeing #Bitcoin succeed: pic.twitter.com/7MfODadi8p
— Documenting Bitcoin (@DocumentingBTC) May 25, 2021

Speaking at the virtual Consensus 2021 conference, Saylor emphasized that the council was formed out of the need to provide greater transparency on the Bitcoin mining industry, and promote sustainable initiatives moving forward:

“The only reason we had the meeting is because we wanted to ensure the success of a decentralized cryptocurrency, and the source of decentralization is energy usage,” Saylor said.

“It turns out that Bitcoin miners don't actually have a good forum for communicating how they generate their energy. We don't have a standard model for Bitcoin energy usage right now, and we don't have a future forecast model that we commonly use.”

However the Bitcoin Mining Council has proven controversial in some quarters with comparisons to the oil production cartel OPEC. Podcaster Marty Bent, the co-founder of Great American Mining, which utilizes wasted gas from energy plants to power its Bitcoin mining operations — drew comparisons to the controversial Bitcoin scaling plans emerging out of the 2017 New York Agreement, in his May 24 newsletter:

“Do they not recall the last time there was a closed door meeting that involved stakeholders who attempted to speak on behalf of an entire industry?”

But Saylor was quick to rebuff notions there was anything clandestine or non-transparent about the meeting. “If it was a secret meeting, I wouldn't have told millions of people the next day that it was a secret meeting. Trust me, you know, we told everybody in the world that we had a meeting,” he said.

He emphasizing the need to fight back against a hostile anti-cryto narrative portrayed by some institutions and media outlets:

“We need to make sure the people that are hostile to Bitcoin and hostile to the crypto industry aren't defining those narratives and defining those models and defining those metrics. In the absence of any good information or any response on our part, they will define those models.”

The council is made up of North American miners, including Argos Blockchain, Blockcap, Galaxy Digital, Hive Blockchain, Hut 8 Mining, Marathon Digital, and Riot Blockchain.

Elon Musk's involvement

Saylor revealed that after a “very long conversation” with Elon Musk, the MicroStrategy CEO reached out to the Bitcoin mining firms and asked if they’d like to meet the entrepreneur. During the "constructive" meeting, the other attendees reportedly asked Musk for advice on how to combat the growing carbon anxiety surrounding Bitcoin:

“We asked Elon for his advice about how we might actually manage concerns in the mainstream. We had a detailed conversation about it. We talked about how we might be able to surface better data. “

Musk’s reported “first-order ask” was “can we come up with a way to publish or create transparency for Bitcoin mining energy usage?” and Saylor echoed this sentiment when he stated:

“I think the first step is, let’s come up with a protocol for us to publish energy information in a way that we can share it with the world and then work together to make sure that we pursue sustainable energy goals.”