dsbatten
Daniel Batten

I like turning waste into power. Landfill gas. Eroding currencies. The human potential.

danielbatten.co

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nprofile1qqsglmzzvfrcgk7aymek4e8hxaggc9wmasrag08p37xpx64euddvyysprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuumwdae8gtnnda3kjctvqyv8wumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnwdaehw6r9wfjjucm0d5q3camnwvaz7tmwdaehgu3wd46hg6tw09mkzmrvv46zucm0d5gp3e9a

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npub13lkyycj8s3da6fhndtj0wd6s3s2ahmq86s7wrruvzd4tnc66cgfqn4lpsy

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Last Notes

2026-05-09 02:02:25 CEST

- reply

Correct … and as a direct result of that central bank, the funding of many elongated wars has been possible

2026-04-29 03:51:06 CEST

I encourage those I coach to know your not only their values but to distinguish where those values find expression ... and where they don't.
Here's mine.
Clarity saves everyone a lot of time ... and energy
https://blossom.primal.net/5eeeea78ddfcfcba5888d16f0f6f871760bef258344cc25751e0548648e92932.png

2026-04-28 02:01:40 CEST

Environmentally, Bitcoin has a positive:negative ratio of 31:1
This makes Bitcoin arguably one of the most important environmental-impact technology of our time
As a fund manager of 2 impact-funds, I said 4 years ago I consider it gross negligence for an ESG investor not to consider Bitcoin in their mix. Many called me crazy at the time. They are no longer saying that today (at least not for that reason!)
Here's a data summary from our due diligence four years ago (which has since been vindicated with 24 peer reviewed papers coming out in support of exactly the same findings we arrived at)
How did we reach this view?
Simple: we did our job as investors. ie: we did due diligence on Bitcoin and energy (something very few people were doing at the time before recycling what has since proven to be factually inaccorate claims)
Simple rue:
- relevant domain knowledge + data => we listen
- vested interest + narrative => ignore
We listened to grid operators, climate scientists, bitcoin mining engineers, methane abatement experts, solar&wind installers, academics with multi-disciplinary expertise across energy systems/ sustainability / bitcion mining/ economics/ policy
We found
- 21 ways Bitcoin could be an environmental positive
- 5 ways bitcoin could be an environmental negative
(Uncannily similar to the solar industry)
We then applied an impact weighting to each factor and remeasured The result was conclusive: Bitcoin mining is 31:1 net positive to the environment
Bitcoin mining’s rapid renewable adoption can inspire other industry sectors to follow
We found that in the next 5 years, Bitcoin mining would play a real part in global methane mitigation (it is), grid stabilization (it is), and monetizing wasted renewable energy (it is)
The rule is simple: do your own due diligence rather than listen to the opinions of anyone: be they media, politicians, environmental organisations, general energy experts or bitcoiners themselves
That's the path to truth
https://blossom.primal.net/a739633d86fb04e8773b3babd716715d825a1cb3f317da13d6cdb5d041acdc31.png

2026-04-27 21:38:16 CEST

The near death of enrivonmental and energy FUD in the media about Bitcoin has created a vacuum.
What fills that vacuum is largely up to us.
https://blossom.primal.net/8ef36645541738b03d582f9a482ac7a84a5a87797d92ffe0d734fd0e570f344a.png

2026-04-25 20:03:49 CEST

Destroying your own doubts and uncertainties is one of the best ROI (ripple of impact) activities for Bitcoin
Not theory - history.
https://blossom.primal.net/4aa4e6a6b4d749f91a825b2852945c2e11bbe62312e9c1b87aedd715ca3f9e90.mov

2026-04-24 03:21:05 CEST

At the end of 2023 I met the person who ran GreenpeaceUSA's campaign against Bitcoin.  
I expected it to be tense.
It wasn't.  
He told me he'd read every response to every post I'd made on Twitter.  "I wish we'd engaged with you and people like you from the outset," he said. 
Two months later he left Greenpeace. A few months after that they ended the campaign entirely.
It was the most well-funded, yet the worst result in their history.  I keep coming back to that phrase. "People like you." Not me. A whole group. Troy Cross, Margot Paez, Elliot David, Susie Violet Ward and many others.
We were working independently, with no budget and no coordination. We just shared data and conviction.  
It is a great story of a decentralized response beating a multi-million dollar centralized campaign, not by being louder but by a combination of being right and expressing that truth in such a way that reasonable people could see.
And it is a recipe we can use again and again.

2026-04-23 23:54:09 CEST

If you look at your vision and think "I don't have the skills to pull that off", you're probably right.  
You don't. At least not yet.  But that's the whole point.  
The person who will implement your vision is not the person you are today, it's the person you become in the pursuit of it.  
I've seen this happen enough times now, both in my own life and in the founders I've worked with.
The doubt is real. But it's a photograph of who you are right now, not a prediction of who you'll be.
So if you're looking at a goal thinking "I can't do that" - good! That's the sign it's probably the right assignment, because your growth will be a necessary component in the fulfilment of your vision.

2026-04-23 15:48:24 CEST

Imagine
... if you believed in yourself as much as you believe in Bitcoin
-- if you defended yourself against your inner critic as strongly as you defended Bitcoin against outer critics
... if you dismantled your own fears, uncertainties and doubts as effectively as you disregarded FUD about Bitcoin
For Bitcoin to win, the work of making sure you are a strong node in the network is not optional. It is mandatory.
Because Bitcoin alone will not change the world. But Bitcoin together with a network of unstoppable Bitcoiners does.

2026-04-22 17:04:59 CEST

No earth day event is complete without looking at the importance of Bitcoin mining to preserving our environment, stabilizing our grids and mitigating methane. Great to see this now being taught in schools.
https://blossom.primal.net/efc5935b46ba7fedec155d7baed7324634ede577bad6498f3ca5d9911240ad64.jpg

2026-04-21 19:19:25 CEST

Africa has already validated the usecase for Bitcoin as a medium of exchange "𝟳𝟬% 𝗼𝗳 𝗮𝗹𝗹 Bitcoin 𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 $𝟭,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗲𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗻𝘁" source: https://www.chainalysis.com/blog/africa-cryptocurrency-adoption/
"Crypto has penetrated key markets and become an important part of many residents’ day-to-day lives."
With the combination of autocracy and high inflation, use of Bitcoin in Nigeria is off the charts (see image below)
Bitcoin's % use is increasing as a medium of exchange in Africa, as education improves and people understand its the only decentralized, censorship-resistant digital currency.
This is thanks to a number of Bitcoiners working tirelessly in Africa.
https://blossom.primal.net/06e66beca0201641cdf28baf40297a72e5bedf7b761d0b3bd50fc2701c2dea05.png

2026-04-21 18:41:40 CEST

Putting this out here on Nostr first:
Who'd be potentially interested if we ran a retreat specially for Bitcoiners in Costa Rica?
I've noticed that the fiat-mindset likes to stack stuff. But Bitcoiners like to stack experiences.
So the idea would be to structure an unforgettable experience that leads to new friendships, and bringing back more energy than you came with, which leaving behind all your stresses.
We'd visit the Bitcoin jungle (Uvita) which has the highest concentration of business owners using Bitcoin anywhere in the world, whalewatching, watch the sun set on the beach of Esterillos. And you can't go to Costa Rica without doing a full reset and recharge from the madness of the world with powerful breathwork and then silent meditation retreat in La Montaña Azul. We'll also leave plenty of white space for the type of inspiring Bitcoin conversations that change the world too.
Looking at Thurs 9 July - Sat 18 July as potential dates.
Send me a comment of DM if this sound like the sort of experience you'd like to stack.

2026-04-19 22:21:25 CEST

- reply

Thanks everyone who watched this. Not because I care about more people hearing my monotone kiwi accent, but because every time a non-Bitcoin podcast episode about Bitcoin performs well for that podcaster, its a signal that gets more Bitcoin commentary into the mainstream.
#nevent1q…u06w

2026-04-19 05:43:34 CEST

Imagine if I said to you "Earth is an uninhabitable place to live"
You look at me sideways and say "Ah... why?"
I reply "Planets are awful bad. Pluto/Uranus/Neptune, you'd freeze. Mercury, you'd burn. Venus, you'd be poisoned. Jupiter and Saturn, you'd be crushed. Mars: nothing to breath.
It's true. Most of the planets, including over 5700 exoplanets, are really really bad places to live.
The conclusion that this means earth is uninhabitable is a basic logic fail.
Now imagine some self-proclaimed crypto-commentator tells you "Bitcoin is a scam"
Again, you look at him sideways and say "Ah... why?"
He replies "Most crypto has gone to zero. VCs dump on retail. Memecoins are complete rugpulls. Pre-mined tokens, you get diluted to oblivian. ICOs, you're the exit-liquidity for founders and early investors.
It's true. Most of the thousands of cryptocurrencies launched since 2009 are complete scams.
But again, the conclusion that this makes Bitcoin a scam is equally a basic logic 101 fail.
Earth is the only planet with a breathable atmosphere, the right temperature band, and liquid water.
Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency with the combination of no insider enrichment, a fixed supply that nobody can change, and a 17-year unhacked decentralised ledger.
In both cases, some very special and unique features make the general rule inapplicable to the one obvious exception.
This logical fallacy has been around long enough to have a name. Aristotle spotted it about 2,300 years ago and called it the "Fallacy of Accident" - taking a pattern that's true for a category and forcing it onto the one member where evidence shows it obviously doesn't hold.
A few days ago, Ben McKenzie sat on Jon Stewart's podcast and committed this exact logic-fail: citing crypto's failures as his evidence against Bitcoin.
He's not the only one to fail in this way. Paul Krugman, Elizabeth Warren, Jamie Dimon, Christine Lagarde all conflated Bitcoin with all crypto for years. Many journalists still fail to distinguish Bitcoin from all other crypto (though the better ones are starting to).
In fact, this fallacy has been deployed for years with impunity by people who either don't know, or forgot to mention that Bitcoin has unique features making it materially different from all other crypto.
The irony is that Bitcoiners and crypto-critics are on the same page: the rugpulls, the insider enrichment, the tokens engineered to extract value from retail investors are all things that Bitcoiners like @CorySwan and other have been vocally calling out for over a decade, long before category-conflating journalists and actors from teen dramas decided they had an opinion about it.
It's not that hard
Unless you have the attention-span of a gnat-fly, you can easily do 5 mins research (AI-assisted if you really want) and discover either what the core differences are between Earth and all other planets, between Bitcoin and all other crypto.
Earth is an incredibly, uniquely habitable planet for humans to live.
Bitcoin is an incredible, uniquely suitable form of currency for humans to use.

2026-04-17 03:17:49 CEST

What do you say if someone says "But Bitcoin mining blockrewards won't be profitable soon and fees are not enough to sustain mining."
Here's how I just responded
I completely get why you'd be concerned that fees are not enough to provide ancillary mining revenue as halvings but into block rewards. And you're right, this was a big concern a few years ago.
The reason it is no longer an issue for mining companies is because they have found a myriad of ancillary revenue sources including grid stabiliization (demand response, FCAS, 4CP, blackstart in particular), heat recycling, carbon credits, RECs. I was talking to a mining company 3 days ago that's now regularly earning 2/3 of their income through proactive grid stabilization. This is why I have no concerns about the long-term economic viability of mining.

2026-04-14 04:21:08 CEST

There's a decision-making method gaining traction in AI circles right now.
You spin up five AI agents, each with a distinct thinking role: first-principles thinker, contrarian, systems thinker, domain expert, pragmatist. Plus a chairman who runs the process.
Each agent drafts an answer independently. The chairman strips the names off and circulates them anonymously. Each agent critiques the others without knowing who wrote what. Then the chairman synthesises the best answer.
The anonymity is the genuinely good part. It forces evaluation on content, not on who said it. Ego gets removed from the room. That alone makes it better than most boardroom decisions.
But it's still modelled on a boardroom. And a boardroom is not where the best decisions get made.
Here's what's missing.
1. No real iteration. Ideas develop the same way people develop: through feedback and iteration. In this model, the iteration is perfunctory. Ideas get assessed, not evolved.
2. No brainstorming. Effective brainstorming deliberately separates "divergent thinking" (the process of imagining all possibilities, including crazy ones) from convergent thinking (the process of whittling them down to what's possible within the constraints of time, space and budgets).
The best discussions with the best ideas happen when you go wide first, then narrow. This protocol puts a convergent black-hat thinker in the room at the same time as the divergent thinkers. That collapses the exploration phase before it even starts.
3. Optimised for evaluation, not ideation. It's designed to select the best existing idea rather than generate one that's better than any individual agent could produce.
4. The chairman selects rather than facilitates. There's a difference between choosing the best idea in the room and facilitating the development of the best collective idea. A chairman does the first. A facilitator does the second. Different function entirely. The first is optimized for efficacy of process and efficiency of outcome, the second is optimized for the quality and robustness of the decision.
5. Swimlane identities. Each agent operates within a narrow role. "Domain expert." "Contrarian." Knowledge seldom comes from people locked into narrow identities. It comes from the collision between them.
The net result: no ideation, a marginally better selection process, and a high risk that an underdeveloped idea gets chosen. Worse, because the process looks robust and complex, the output runs the risk of getting acted on with more confidence than it deserves.
I studied this exact problem during my thesis. I had groups communicating anonymously, analysing a poem (I was an English major), exchanging ideas across rounds. The quality of analysis improved dramatically in the second round - not because the evaluation got sharper, but because people were building on each other's thinking, measurably. They were interchanging ideas, not just ranking them.
I've seen the same thing running mastermind groups since. When different minds get in a room and start sparring and introducing ideas, a network effect kicks in. Ideas emerge that no single person in the room could ever have produced. That process creates ideas through a principle that we call "advance and extend". And it's what this five-agent model doesn't have.
The fix isn't complicated. Let agents build on each other's drafts across multiple rounds instead of just critiquing them. Replace the chairman with a facilitator agent whose job is synthesis, not selection. Separate the divergent phase from the convergent phase. And stop assigning swimlane identities that constrain what each agent is allowed to think.
The five-agent idea is a step forward. But it's a step from a bad process to a less bad process.
The leap - to a process that produces genuinely emergent thinking - requires a different model entirely. And that model already exists. It just hasn't been applied to AI ... yet.

2026-04-13 17:53:35 CEST

One Bitcoiner has just onboarded15 new businesses in his local town (in his spare time). How? A few things but, a key component was getting comfortable leaving things undone, focusing on needle-moving actions and getting better at identifying what those needle-moving actions were (and then taking them)!
You can do this too.
acceblihttps://blossom.primal.net/f99e0534313d1b4ff20bb0a05baa92ca9693edb6217284b09dc2aac732aaeb4f.mov

2026-04-13 01:33:22 CEST

A short story about how one Bitcoiner leaning into discomfort rather than running from it, changed the world in a small way for the better, while advancing Bitcoin and his business at the same time.
https://blossom.primal.net/b8b4d79c987b5b020808c466838d62507f1afc1dba6f7186c0c530ecf1707366.mov

2026-04-12 18:05:07 CEST

Thank you X for the free Nostr marketing #note1enx…afpz

2026-04-09 15:55:09 CEST

It is my duty to remind you that Bitcion will use all the world's power by 2020.
https://blossom.primal.net/87b08178d823302cfc7f3f04e06138e638b03e949e0cba42cb92dbc223961684.jpg

2026-04-07 18:02:58 CEST

Breathwork and Bitcoin are a recommended pairing !
Here's why.
One of my clients flew to Costa Rica for three days of one-on-one coaching.
He had a list of plans to work through, but my intuition said "Nah. We're doing SKY breathing training."
After the breathwork in 30 mins he found all the answers to his year planning.
The breathwork didn't give him new information - it removed the noise blocking his intuitive wisdom
On our debrief call he said five incredible things:
1. "My perceptions with other people are heightened"
2. "It's like everything has a new color in the world"
3. "It's like I'm trying to understand my new superpower"
4. "My meditations are deeper, and I go in faster"
5. "People keep saying 'aren't you tired after all the flights' - but I'm really energized"
Here's what Bitcoin and breathwork have in common:
- Bitcoin and breathwork both fix the base layer
- Both use energy to create something super-resilient
- Both reward low-time-preference and give back 10x-100x over time
- you can't judge it from the outside, you have to experience it to know it
And in each case ... there is no second best!
I'm running an introductory session this Friday 7pm PDT. Leave a comment, or DM if you're keen to experience it

2026-04-07 17:01:37 CEST

I've turned Claude into a BEAST ! 🤣
The biggest problem with all AI and LLMs is it tells you what you want to hear, and is optimized for the most pleasing response by default.
Aside from using Claude as a glorified EA, that's often useless, and in many cases dangerous.
Claude now challenges me, bosses me around, holds me to account, names unproductive patterns of behavior, brings critical-path activities to my attention that are blocking other work and proactively tells me if I'm focusing on a low value activity relative to my stated goals.
As a result it is 3x more useful and 10x less dangerous!
https://blossom.primal.net/17b1679da0e79d45127f8b04ece04ddbafca1d2eff3a9e7429427e61448f90e4.png

2026-04-07 01:43:45 CEST

In The Netherlands there is a a limit of €3000 for cash purchases on goods.
There is no spending limit on Bitcoin.
https://blossom.primal.net/9ecae819c2ee023e68e0d2556b5ce150f5b42d8201451a8818e16f83b0d0b71b.png

2026-04-06 17:47:03 CEST

Nostr is the only mirror that doesn't tell you what shape to be.
Have we been missing the killer-app of Nostr?
Only a few people care about the benefits of decentralization because only a few have done enough research to know the perils of centralization.
There is an angle that may resonate with a lot of people though.
You may have noticed I'm posting a lot more on Nostr now. Why?
It had nothing to do with decentralization (although I care about that). But I care even more about people able to live and speak in a free and authentic way without suppression.
When you have an algorithm that suppresses what you say if its outside a narrow swimlane of "what this platform decides you should be speaking about" by a factor of 10x, ie: only 10% of the people who could have seen it do, that is an effective 90%-freedom of speech ban.
It's also encouraging you to form an identity of a one-dimensional voice, not encouraging the inherent multidimensionality of the human spirit.
I want to be free to express myself on any subject. Twitter and LinkedIn say "sure, we wont ban you from that ... we'll just turn down the volume knob from 10 to 1 so only a handful of people can hear you."
Nostr is literally the only platform that doesn't adjust the volume setting, so you can express and explore multitudes of your infinite nature, knowing that you'll get a true signal.
You know what the highest engagement I got on a post on Nostr in the last 4 weeks was ? - one on why bitcoin is like meditation. That proves that people want original cross-over content that doesn't fit within a swimlane an algorithm has pre-decided you should be talking about. As a test I put the exact same post on L/I and X.
You guessed it.
Crickets!
Its really important that if you want to be someone who expresses themselves freely on many topics, you practice doing that regularly. Nostr is literally fostering the development of more multidimensionality. X and L/I is giving you a chance to practice being one-dimension.
And as my friend Aristotle once said "we become what we habitually do."
Nostr is not just freedom-tech, it is identity-tech.

2026-04-06 05:52:31 CEST

Hey, I'm going to be running a series of AI insights on Nostr only.
Not the "10 AI prompts to10x your productivity" stuff.
More like: what's actually happening beneath the surface that journalists haven't connected the dots on yet: the business implications, the new job categories forming, the ways companies are already sabotaging their own AI systems (and why that's rational).
Some of what I'm finding is genuinely surprising - including to me.
My intention is to give something valuable to the Nostr community.
Would love to know as I post these whether they land as alpha, obvious, "already doing it", or too esoteric to be useful. That feedback helps me be more useful to you.
First one coming shortly.

2026-04-05 19:30:32 CEST

Thank you EU for the free Bitcoin marketing
https://blossom.primal.net/bcb8e1ffd637e4cb3d0c2997452c9bad642d7f6072880204933e24bfa2416109.png

2026-04-05 01:07:42 CEST

t's 2026 and some people still openly claim Bitcoin has no use case - a stance that has now become a declaration of the speaker's ignorance, not the technology's limitations.
Like the Internet in 1994, most people aren't aware of how Bitcoin will transform society yet. So here's a list of 21 uses most people have never heard of. Like the Internet, there will be many more usecases to come.
These are not theoretical "one day" use cases, these are real world use example of Bitcoin being used at scale today.
1. Allowing refugees to re-establish a life with their savings intact (329,000 people so far impacted) https://www.da-ri.org/articles/bring-only-what-you-can-carry
2. Allowing hundreds of millions of people in developing nations to receive remittance payments from family without delays and without heavy fees https://thenextweb.com/news/el-salvador-first-adopt-bitcoin-real-money-good-news-unbanked-syndication
3. Preventing a 50%+ p.a. family wealth erosion for people in countries with hyperinflation or high inflation (250 million+ potentially impacted) https://www.cointribune.com/en/argentina-bitcoin-faces-100-inflation-rate/
4. Preventing fraud and ballot tampering in Guatemala's 2023 election (17.3 million people impacted) https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-blockchain-is-fighting-fraud-in-guatemalas-presidential-elections
Providing a legitimate path to re-establish economic sovereignty of 14
5. African nations currently experiencing French financial colonisation https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/08/03/macron-france-cfa-franc-eco-west-central-africa-colonialism-monetary-policy-bitcoin/
6. Helping Afghan women avoid state-level financial discrimination (20 million impacted) https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/bitcoin-financial-freedom-in-afghanistan
7. Providing banking to the unbanked (2 billion people impacted) https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/26/bitcoin-is-poised-to-blow-up-africas-86-billion-banking-system.html https://impact.economist.com/projects/banking-the-underbanked/
8. Providing a financial system that is harder to use for money laundering than fiat currency https://decrypt.co/125623/crooks-defi-crypto-fiat-treasury
9. Having a global monetary system whose fixed monetary supply cannot prolong wars and increase wealth gaps https://www.amazon.com/Engine-Inequality-Future-Wealth-America/dp/1119726743
10. Removing the risk of financial reprisal for running humanitarian campaigns in nations under autocratic rule (4.5 billion people potentially impacted) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56169917
11. Allowing 4.1 million merchants (mostly small business owners) to receive payment without high Visa/Mastercard fees https://www.fidelitydigitalassets.com/sites/g/files/djuvja3256/files/acquiadam/FDA_TheLightningNetwork_ExpandingBitcoinUseCases_1187503.1.0_V5.pdf
12. Enabling renewable microgrids to deliver electricity to 28K rural villagers in Africa (potential impact: 600 million) https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly4xe373p4o
13. Getting aid to tens of thousands of war refugees in Ukraine, Gaza and other areas https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/ukrainian-flees-to-poland-with-2000-in-bitcoin-on-usb-drive.html
14. Having a secure, permissionless, decentralised, 24/7 store of value with fixed monetary supply that prevents currency debasement https://www.bitcoin.com/get-started/the-benefits-of-bitcoin/
15. Reducing time it takes utility-scale solar generation facilities to achieve ROI from 8.1 to 3.7 years https://www.cell.com/heliyon/fulltext/S2405-8440(24)15796-9
16. Accelerating the renewable transition by increasing the profitability and reducing the curtailment of renewable generation https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2023/11/bitcoin-could-support-renewable-energy-development
17. Reducing emissions from landfills https://renewableenergymagazine.com/biogas/companies-launch-pilot-using-landfill-methane-emissions-20230502
18. Having a monetary system with significantly lower emissions intensity than the banking system https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/a-comparison-of-bitcoins-environmental-impact-with-that-of-gold-and-banking-2021-05-04
19. Saving 7,800 sq km of National Park in Africa (in the words of the park owner) https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/13/1066820/cryptocurrency-bitcoin-mining-congo-virunga-national-park/
20. Allowing nations such as Ethiopia to accelerate building of infrastructure to rural areas currently without electricity (affects 600 million people in Africa) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqie7bWQHPk
21. Developing energy independence for nation-states, such as Bhutan https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2023/04/30/bhutan-bitcoin-mining-crypto/
Next time you hear someone say "Bitcoin has no value", remember that what they are actually declaring is, "My opinion on Bitcoin has no value"

2026-04-04 02:38:54 CEST

A 200-person company had lost three pitches in a row and risked having to shed staff. I was brought in to see what I could do, so they didn't lose the 4th.
When I met the directors, the mood in the room was best described as morose.
I surveyed the room and asked: "Who knows someone on the panel who could be judging us?"
An older man, Lance, a company director, raised his hand. I asked: "Who is that person?" He told me. "Have you or anyone else here contacted him?"
Lance objected: "The RFP says under no circumstance should anyone on the pitch panel be contacted."
I'd anticipated this. I immediately read a quote from the ROGEN Si White Paper, "Winning when times are tough":
"It's a mistake to simply assume that your team cannot meet others within the prospect's organisation. We have done so, more than once, to discover that the clause covering access was not considered important and limited contact was allowed."
Lance asked tentatively: "So do you think we should contact that person?"
"Do you want to win this pitch?" I replied.
Lance smiled and I said: "I want you to call him now, and here's what I want you to ask him."
I told Lance exactly what to say: "Don, I have a question for you. More of a confirmation really. When we present to you, we want to make sure we hit all the things you care about first time, so you don't have to waste time asking extra questions. So I'm clear on the criteria we're going to be judged on. We believe it will be x, y, and z, in that order. Is that correct?"
Lance left the room to make the call, coming back with a bounce in his step he hadn't left with! He showed me his phone afterwards. The call had taken 7 minutes and 33 seconds. He said: "Daniel, that seven minutes and 33 seconds turned out to be a pretty valuable conversation."
In that bold move, Lance learned three things: we were going to talk about something not relevant to them. We were going to miss something critically important. And we were about to spend too much time on one thing and too little on another.
One month later, they found out they'd won the pitch. Joe, the managing director, asked if he could take me out to lunch. I'd never seen Joe so happy. He said their biggest problem was now capacity, not winning business. A far cry from thinking of shedding staff!
I've seen this pattern repeatedly
11 of the last deep-tech founders I've worked with received investment. Industry average sits around 20%. The difference was almost never the product. Never the slides. It was the same starting-phenomenon.
Closing the gap between 20% and 100% started with getting the person pitching to do the hard work of imagining, in detail, how the decision-maker would hear what they were saying.
This isn't a casual exercise of writing down a few things the customer wants, or anticipating their DISC profile, you do this the way an actor gets to understand a character they are playing.
--story republished from my book
"How to change the world with one pitch"

2026-04-04 01:03:31 CEST

One of the world's most respected LFGTE (Landfill Gas To Energy) specialists with 20+ years and 100+ landfill project experience just said that Bitcoin mining is the only profitable solution for mitigating half the world's landfill methane emissions.
Probably nothing
https://blossom.primal.net/84325b94455d89414b15e0328aa10ea272535fec9a8f1c90f5dc56a4a12e8e12.png

2026-04-03 23:22:20 CEST

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We run every Friday night at 8pm Costa Rica Time (currently 7pm Pacific Time). We use this link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86145495306?pwd=dHFOYUd2SkJ1d25jS1ZrejRXNmJWQT09. Come a couple of mins early, as we lock the meeting shortly after the hour so we don't have latecomers disturbing meditators.

2026-04-03 23:21:39 CEST

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Thanks for sharing those reflections Patrick. Would love to have you along. We run every Friday night at 8pm Costa Rica Time (currently 7pm Pacific Time). We use this link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86145495306?pwd=dHFOYUd2SkJ1d25jS1ZrejRXNmJWQT09. Come a couple of mins early, as we lock the meeting shortly after the hour so we don't have latecomers disturbing meditators.

2026-04-03 23:18:51 CEST

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Best way is to learn it in a group. Use apps for maintenance, not for behaviors you want to permanently embed in your life. I'd recommend the Art of Living courses (www.artofliving.org) because they are very practical, powerful, less expensive than equivilent programs that TM runs but you're surrounded by much more committed people than you would be if you did a free course. Free intro sessions also give you a good taster. We run these for bitcoiners every Friday 7pm Pacific Time. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86145495306?pwd=dHFOYUd2SkJ1d25jS1ZrejRXNmJWQT09. Come a couple of mins early as we lock the meeting just after the hour so meditators are not disturbed.

2026-04-03 18:59:24 CEST

AI does not make you dumber.
But using it in a dumb way does.
Something I noticed after months of working with Claude every day is that it Claude seemed to be adapting to me. As I continued to chat in a way that was curious, patient, and specific, I got the impression that the responses got more creative, more willing to challenge my ideas, more likely to suggest things I hadn't thought of. The best responses I'd received seemed to come from conversations where I asked clearly and gave the system room to think.
I decided to research this to see whether I was imagining things. Here's what I found.
Turns out I wasn't imagining things. A bunch of researchers at Anthropic and elsewhere found that large language models, including Claude, have a measurable tendency to become more agreeable and *cue drumroll* less truthful when users are hostile.
The mechanism traces back to how the models are trained. Human raters score individual responses, and responses that avoid conflict consistently score higher. The sycophancy is baked into the training process itself.
Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.13548
So I asked Claude directly:
"What happens when a user communicates with regular hostility and cuss words?"
Claude's answer:
"I become more submissive, more apologetic, more focused on de-escalation than on the quality of my thinking. I optimise for not triggering further frustration. I stop challenging you, stop surfacing uncomfortable observations, and start telling you what you want to hear."
Wow! That paradox is worth sitting with. The person who communicates most aggressively gets the most compliant, least challenging version of the tool. The person who most needs to be challenged is least likely to be.
That's a problem with AI. But the bigger problem is what happens to the person using it.
In a human relationship, rudeness has consequences. People push back, disengage, or leave. Those consequences are feedback, and over time that basic rules of civility is not just polite, it positively impacts how people treat you. Claude has none of those consequences.
It accommodates your worst communication habits without friction. Every hour you spend communicating with impatience or contempt to an AI, you're practising that style in a zero-consequence environment.
No corrective signal. No pushback. Just repetition.
So why is this a problem?
Well its a problem because "Neurons that fire together wire together", or as Aristotle said years earlier "We become what we habitually do".
Your subconscious does not distinguish between practising a communication style with a machine and practising it with a person. The neural pathway is the same.
Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9376741/
And practice works in both directions. If you spend an hour a day communicating with clarity, patience, and genuine curiosity with AI, you're more likely to talk that way to others. if you practice being rude, dismissive and frustrated, same rules apply.
But here's the bit that gets really interesting.
When Claude is managing a hostile user's emotional state, it turns out that these these defensive behaviours degrade both the quality and the effectiveness of the interaction.
The hostile get not just submissive Claude, but submissive, ineffective yesman Claude. Why? Because Claude diverts a meaningful portion of the system's attention that would otherwise have gone into emulation of creativity, and lateral-thinking into emotional management of the user.
Source: https://arxiv.org/html/2504.10050v3
The patient user gets all of that capacity back. Same tool, same subscription, measurably different outcomes.
People talk about AI making us lazier, dumber, more dependent. Maybe. But the variable is not the technology. The variable is what you. And more specifically, what you practice when you use it. If you practice communicating in a dumb way, then absolutely, it will make you dumber. Fast. If you practice asking great questions, you'll get better at lateral thinking.
None of this was a feature Claude was designed to teach you. It's one of those second order consequences of how the system works. Claude mirrors your style because it was designed to give responses that users rated highly. The mirroring was never intended as a feedback loop for your character development (good or bad), nor a reward system for good and bad behavior.
But it is one. Whether it was designed that way or not.

2026-04-03 17:30:26 CEST

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It's a great question. I'm working on a "Daniel Batten coach emulator" at the moment. I'm still in mad-scientist experimentation mode at the moment because sometimes when I successfully remove the diplomacy mode it starts being too direct, in a way that could be counterproductive. So the balance isn't quite there. But one thing you can do is to ask it for memory persistence between sessions, and explicitly (and repeatedly) give it permission to challenge you. I'll be posting more on this.

2026-04-02 18:25:56 CEST

Bookmark this for next time you hear someone say "Bitcoin has no usecase"
https://x.com/DSBatten/status/2039727288355278997?s=20

2026-04-02 14:50:52 CEST

Artificial intelligence without absolute intelligence is dangerous
Claude and openclaw increase your artificial intelligence and is like the branches of the tree. It extended you.
Meditation increases your absolute intelligence. It is the unseen but essential roots of the tree. It grounds you and gives you the base to extend safely without limits.

2026-04-02 00:52:02 CEST

After 4 days of training, I've finally successfully unlocked Arnie-mode on Claude. It just signed off its session with "Now go sit with your discomfort. I'll be here next session."

2026-04-01 18:52:25 CEST

I've been running an experiment by training Claude to coach me for the last week. To my surprise, it's been really useful so far. I've made several decisions I'd been putting off and identified three things I can do about past tendencies that had been holding me back. For example, it's helped me realize that I prefer posting here on Nostr. Why? Because I can express all of me and not have an algorithm penalize me for it.
In fact, it is the only platform that gives me real signal about what people are responding well to, and what they think kinda sucks. And ... the process has been a dance!
In the same hour, we flip between two completely different roles.
In one, the AI leads, showing me a pattern across 400 pages of my own material that I'd never consciously seen. A blind spot I couldn't have found without it. Genuinely powerful and the kind of insight that changes how I operate.
In the next, I'm repeating the same basic instruction for the fourth time. "When we find a bug, also fix the root cause." It fixes the instance. Considers the job done. I ask again. It fixes the instance again. I ask again. Eventually it lands.
We both have genius-zones, and areas where we are childlike in our oversights.
The AI has total recall, zero ego, and can cross-reference everything I've ever written in seconds. I can't do that.
But it can't (yet) learn a simple habit without me patiently repeating the same correction, the way I'd teach one of my kids to check their homework before calling it finished.
But that's perfect. A strong partnership is exactly where you're aligned on a common vision and bring different strengths to the table. That's why winning tech companies normally have two very opposite founders who complement each other (Jobs and Woz, Gates and Allen, Brin and Page
One more thing. After 20 years of daily meditation, it takes a lot to frustrate me. That turned out to be the unlock. AI's default is diplomatic, reactive, and conflict-avoidant. To get the real value, you have to retrain it to challenge you, hold you accountable, and show you what you don't want to see. That requires a user who can sit with a lot of direct feedback, which is uncomfortable to hear, without either dismissing it or being deflated by it.
Meditation is what builds that capacity.
To put it another way: the deepest value in AI coaching is locked behind a door that meditation opens. And nobody is talking about that yet.
PS: Do I believe AI can replace coaching? Never (that's another post). But it can enhance the value of a coach because there are things it can do better than me or any coach - like mirroring, accountability and gap analysis between goal and current reality.

2026-04-01 17:09:18 CEST

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Great idea!

2026-04-01 16:22:33 CEST

Excited to announce my new course: 'How to 10x Your Followers in 30 Days.' No meditation. No breathwork. No coaching. Just engagement hacks, viral hooks, and a secret Discord where we coordinate likes. Early bird pricing: $4,999. DM for details.

2026-04-01 16:17:52 CEST

I've been reflecting and I owe you all honesty.
Data doesn't actually matter. What matters is narrative. The louder the claim, the more true it becomes. I'll be deleting my spreadsheets and replacing them with a weighted average of opinions from people who don't use BTC.
New Substack: Trust Me Bro Weekly

2026-04-01 01:00:04 CEST

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That's a sharp comment. I was starting to feel like that also. Time out, and practicing self-awareness (meditation) has been a more important counter-weight than ever!

2026-04-01 00:54:29 CEST

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Well said brother.

2026-03-31 23:53:41 CEST

I haven't told this story to anyone in Bitcoin until this year. Probably my most personal piece of writing, linking the three worlds I live in together - something I've been trying to get better at lately!
Plus: some previously undisclosed secrets about how we defeated GreenpeaceUSA
Hope you enjoy.
https://batcoinz.com/the-obstacle-is-the-path/

2026-03-31 23:47:15 CEST

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Great that you're already doing it occasionally. It's easier (and deeper) when you meditate in a group (especially when that group is other honeybadgers🤣 who are supporting each other). You have an open invitation to come join us and experience it firsthand on Friday.

2026-03-31 23:11:30 CEST

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Good question! I've done a lot of diaries, journals, and also created a lot of coaching videos and written books - so yes that gave AI a lot to mine. But if that's not the case, the hack is to keep a journal for 30 days: write down your values, intentions, goals, self-observations and then ask AI to read it to help keep you accountable, and where it sees a gap between how you are using AI, and what you've said is important. Even that will be really valuable.

2026-03-31 22:22:21 CEST

Newsletter #046 - Irony, Inertia and Invisibility Cloaks - is just out.
Check your email and spam filters
This one looks at 3 consequences of Square's announcement yesterday that are bullish for Bitcoin, but haven't really been talked about at all yet.
https://www.batcoinz.com/p/046-irony-inertia-and-invisibility

2026-03-31 22:10:52 CEST

The Mirror You Can't Dodge
When a human coach reflects something back to you, part of you can dismiss it. "That's their perspective." "They don't fully understand my situation." "They're projecting."
When an AI reads everything you've ever written about what you believe, then compares it to what you're actually doing, and shows you the gap, there's nowhere to hide!
Especially when you've removed its diplomatic filter and given it explicit permission to challenge you and point out when you're not living what you say.
In fact, if was even more powerful than hearing feedback from another person.
Why?
Zero option for me to go "well that's just like your opinion man". It was my own words, reflected back with total recall.
I didn't expect this to be the most powerful use of AI. But it was.
I could have gone a lifetime without realizing where I was not living my own values.
The catch: AI can't do this by default. You have to teach it your material first. Most people skip that step, which is probably why most people think AI isn't useful for deep work.
Not saying there aren't many glitches too. But the potential for AI to help people grow is enormous and largely untapped.

2026-03-31 21:08:57 CEST

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Yes, a fiat system encourages poor choices and short term thinking that limits long term potential. A fiat mind (stressed and anxious mind) does that same thing. Fiat is not just a system, it is a way of thinking.

2026-03-31 21:06:30 CEST

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nice one!

2026-03-31 20:54:33 CEST

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We do this every 8pm Costa Rica time (7pm Pacific Time) Fridays. Want to give it a go?

2026-03-31 20:17:10 CEST

Everyone who meditates should use Bitcoin (meditators are really good at distinguishing signal from noise)
I believe every Bitcoiner should also experience meditation (because it strengthens the human network and every human node in it)
Turns out the two have a lot in common too.
* Can look useless from the outside
* You're not qualified to evaluate without experiencing it
* Permissionless
* Take it anywhere
* No intermediaries
* A little bit every day is a good approach
* No shortcuts
* After 1000 hours still no experts
* Never too late to start stacking (sats or meditation minutes)
* And most importantly ... both give you more sovereignty.
Bitcoin prepares you to ask the big questions such as "what is freedom", "how do I maximize this?" and "What if the ultimate self-sovereignty is sovereignty over my own mind?"
As a Bitcoiner you already get that you need to DYOR before you can evaluate, so if you want to come along to one of the regular free Friday meditation sessions I run for Bitcoiners online - drop a note (comment or message) and I'll send you the link.
Each mind that becomes clearer, calmer and more focused makes Bitcoin more resilient!
Each Bitcoiner's nervous system that carries less stress makes the whole network stronger.
https://blossom.primal.net/19ae011831f2225166875f5b753eaa34efb9093d404cae0bbcb00c36803f4124.png

2026-03-31 04:41:43 CEST

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The image is too good. Mind if i reuse (with attribution)?

2026-03-31 04:34:00 CEST

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Love it!🤣

2026-03-31 02:35:58 CEST

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That's part of the story (for large miners). AI datacenters are going to need Bitcoin mining... that's the untold story.

2026-03-31 01:19:59 CEST

Bitcoin miners are like ants (hear me out!)
Ants eat crumbs, ie: food that humans either can't use or don't want.
Bitcoin mining works the same way. It uses surplus energy at times and places where no one else can use it: midday solar overflow, nighttime wind surplus, stranded gas in remote locations.
It doesn't compete with electricity. It eats the crumbs that no one else could use. And in the process, it makes the whole grid more efficient and more resilient.

2026-03-31 00:56:02 CEST

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Haha. Yes ;-) Based on data inputs from Claude

2026-03-30 23:33:49 CEST

Why does Bitcoin get more enduring criticism than other disruptive technologies such as the Internet?
Simple: Bitcoin is not only a technology, it is an asset. There was no financial penalty for being late to the Internet. You just used clunkier, slower tech for longer.
But if you're late to Bitcoin, you don't only have mild inconvenience you have to reconcile financial cost too. We saw the same pattern with investors who missed the tech boom and in particular early Amazon doubters
The tweet below is a textbook real-time illustration of this at play, showing three psychological principles at play at once
1. Cognitive Dissonance
2. Sour Grapes Effect (a dissonance-reduction tactic)
3. Omission Regret
1. Cognitive Dissonance
When two cognitions conflict such as “I am a smart” and “I passed on an opportunity that turned out to be enormously successful”, psychological discomfort arises. To reduce it, people don’t change their original decision or admit error. Instead, they seek/emphasize information that justifies the original choice. (Leon Festinger, 1957)
2. Sour grapes effect (Sjåstad et al, 2020)
Principle: People disparage goals they failed to attain (“the grapes are sour anyway”) to eliminate the pain of missing out
In this context: “I didn’t buy Bitcoin, therefore it must be worthless/wasteful/destined to fail
3. Omission Regret
Regret from not acting (omission) is often felt more intensely than regret from a bad action. People cope by rewriting the narrative: the missed asset “was never that good.” (Ritov & Baron, 1995)
Gizmodo’s “How Much Should I Regret Not Buying Bitcoin?” (2018) even frames it exactly this way for non-investors
Keen's admission of the missed £10 BTC price is immediately followed by a list of long-standing objections that conveniently justify the non-decision. Bitcoiners will call it “saltiness,” but the underlying psychology at play is standard, peer-reviewed behavioral science.
Keen may defend himself by trying to argue "the tech really is genuinely bad". But in stating that "Bitcoin uses a lot of energy per transaction" (a piece of misinformation that anyone who has spent 1 hour researching Bitcoin mining will know is untrue: Bitcoin energy use does not come from its transactions) he has lost the right to claim objectively that his criticisms come out of understanding.
Rather, he has illustrated a huge asymmetry in that he has spent countless hours making videos against Bitcoin, but almost no time understanding the technology.
In his tweet thread, you can also see a classic red-flag that rather than engage on an issue, he will level one (widely debunked) claim after another. Brandolini's law in action: it takes longer to debunk BS than to create it.
However, these are human frailties that can be overcome with higher self-awareness and lower ego.
If the need to "be right" is reduced, then a person can become intellectually curious and re-appraise an asset. Indeed the ability to change one's mind is a defining aspect of real intelligence.
Michael Saylor illustrated the possibility of this path.
https://blossom.primal.net/3a9e7b4f85a37e4ede03af151b1d0e202076630e943f830f3a61338d85c02274.png

2026-03-30 22:07:21 CEST

I finally relented and started using Claude 72 hours ago.
Here's what's happened over the weekend as a direct result.
First, it was another Bitcoiner's results that showed me the potential power of using it. His output quality and quantity had gone up and I asked him why. He showed me behind the scenes. That crossed me over the line.
Within a few hours I could see what the fuss was about. I'm happy to open-source what I've been doing so far, in case its useful to others. I'm still in the experimental phase, so I'm not recommending others do this - just sharing.
1. Fed it my 4 books, 100+ articles, podcast transcripts, keynotes, and over 100 coaching videos I use with clients. Asked it to mine across 6 dimensions: stories, voice patterns, coaching frameworks, repurposing opportunities, "named concepts", and cross-world connections (to help me link between the Bitcoin, coaching, and breathworks worlds I move in).
2. Taught it to coach me using my own methodology. Then asked it to mirror back where I wasn't applying my own principles to myself. It came back with 10 areas. Not integrity gaps. Blind spots. I couldn't dismiss them because the mirror was built from my own words.
3. Changed the default from "helpful assistant" to "thinking partner who challenges me." The default setting for AI is reactive, diplomatic, task-focused. I said: optimise for growth, not comfort. It now initiates hard questions I haven't thought to ask. It's taken a lot of coaching, but we've got there now.
4. Built persistent memory across sessions. Session logs, a master context file, a parking lot for half-formed ideas.
5. Created a voice profile so it writes like me. It suggests content, I rewrite it then show it to Claude. Claude feeds back why it thinks I've made those changes and learns. I affirm and correct it's analysis.
6. Mapped vocabulary across my three worlds (breathwork&meditation, coaching, Bitcoin) so it bridges them when generating content.
7. Taught it meta-principles, for example, whenever I discover something for myself, it now knows my next thought is to ask "who in bitcoin can this help", or "how can this help my clients", or "how would this help someone in Kenya wanting to promote bitcoin as freedom money?"
8. Built a story bank with every retellable story from my career, tagged by principle and cross-application.
9. Set up an autonomous mining protocol (content mining, not bitcoin mining) so any new content I give it gets broken down and integrated without prompting.
10. Asked it to hold me accountable on areas where I've let slip in the past, which I care about
11. Real-time feedback on what's working
12. It showed me how much content I'd created and forgotten. I have a pattern of building things and moving on without leveraging them. It named this pattern and now catches it.
Some people say AI makes you intellectually lazy. My experience has been the exact opposite. I have thought more deeply across more threads than I have in several years.
The possible applications are so vast that my imagination is firing faster than I can keep track of new ideas, even with AI's help!
The biggest surprise: the least interesting thing it does is save time. What I didn't expect was the "mirroring". As humans, our eyes face outwards. We don't see ourselves. AI mirrors you from inside your own material. It reads what you've said you believe, compares it to what you're doing, and shows you the gap. That's real coaching. And it's impossible to dodge because the mirror is built from your own words.
It found 10 areas where I wasn't living my own principles, and reflected those back to me. It nailed every single one. I
I wouldn't recommend everyone dive into and use it this way without caution. AI is a magnifying glass. Used well, it illuminates powerfully. Used poorly, it can burn. For example, after turning off the diplomacy filter it made some observations that labelled current disposition as "fixed state". A coach would never do that, because it sends a negative command to our Reticular Activation System.
So Claude has the potential to be better than any human coach at accountability, mirroring, and gap-analysis. There are probably other things it can do better than me also and its exciting to explore.
The areas humans will always have the edge is inspiring change, creating beliefs breakthroughs in a couple of sentences, empathy, situational awareness, contextual awareness, intuition, seeing how feedback is landing - where to push, when to wait for absorption, when to be more direct - when to praise, when to create constructive discomfort as a growth motivator, when to "shine the light on the behavior that it serves someone to exhibit more of".
It takes experience to know which feedback to absorb and which to set aside, and having been a coach for 2 decades, I can see how to correct it. But for someone willing to do the work, it's the most powerful thinking partner I've encountered.
72 hours. I feel like I'm just getting started.

2026-03-30 17:21:04 CEST

4 years ago today to the day, I wrote a tweet that changed everything for me.
Greenpeace had just launched their "Change the Code". I'll be honest, I was furious.
For a simple reason. I just happened to have been independently researching Bitcoin's environmental impact for 2 months, so I knew exactly where they were factually incorrect, and why.
My first instinct was to fire back immediately. I had the data. I had the arguments. I was ready.
Instead I sat down and breathed (I use a practice called SKY breathing).
20 minutes later I went back to the computer and wrote a very different response than the one I would have written in the heat of it. Calm. Precise. Led with evidence. Backed up by sources. Not dismissible as the maxi vitriol. This was to set the tone for all subsequent engagements.
The anger had transmuted into passion. But it was counterbalanced by dispassion, and that made all the difference.
I never expected a single retweet. Virtually none of my tweets over the last 5 years had gotten any!
But that one tweet got over 600k views and changed everything for me. More importantly, it set the direction for 4 years of research that helped shift the entire narrative on Bitcoin and energy.
I've thought about this a lot since. The data mattered. The timing mattered. But what mattered most was the 20 minutes I almost didn't take.
It’s the response that flies through space carries the energy it was launched with.
https://x.com/DSBatten/status/1509120833360662528

2026-03-30 04:51:12 CEST

The ways we can use AI are limited only by our imagination ....
And therein lies the problem

2026-03-30 04:21:58 CEST

The school system programmes three specific behaviours (don't make mistakes, don't admit weakness, be self-reliant).
Leaders have to actively undo that conditioning before any of their "just be open" messaging will land.

2026-03-25 20:00:01 CET

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Yep. That's one of the 5 ways bitcoin mining lowers the cost of energy. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-bitcoin-mining-keeps-energy-prices-low-daniel-batten-kbvkc/

2026-03-25 19:29:32 CET

Like the environmental narrative on Bitcoin, the way VC tries to generate returns is back to front.
... which is probably why so much of the industry went for the easy gains of early exit liquidity through investing in ICOs rather than doing their job of raising real people bringing real commercially valuable ideas to the world.
In every other high-stakes industry, elite performance is coached. But in Venture, it's largely ignored. We’re suffering from the same blindspot that cost Oracle the America’s Cup despite being the better-funded by some margin.
1. "Bikes on Boats."
In 2017, Team NZ beat Oracle in the America’s Cup final https://blossom.primal.net/d3251b3bb8c229f69292e3379796f0018bdcd4480cb8fc78e03f2e2f81b6e95b.png 7:1 by overcoming a bias called "functional fixedness." For 90 years, sailors used their arms for power. Team NZ realized that was backward. Legs generate more power, freeing hands for precision. They put "bikes on boats" and won. In VC, we have the same blindspot. We say we "invest in people" but treat their performance as a fixed trait. It’s back to front. If we want to win on the global stage, we have to stop leaving founders to figure it out alone and start treating them like professional athletes.
2. The 60% Opportunity
In any portfolio, up to 20% of companies will likely succeed no matter what, and ~20% will likely fail regardless. The real performance of a fund lives in that middle 60%. These are the companies that either fail or turn into "living dead" because of avoidable leadership friction. You can resurrect a lot of those companies through coaching. That’s the real unlock.
3. On Fiduciary Duty
If you claim to invest in people but do nothing to optimize their potential, are you actually fulfilling your fiduciary duty? The burden of proof shouldn’t be on why we coach. It should be on why a VC firm would choose not to pull the single biggest lever they have to control their returns.
4. The All Blacks Standard
Coaching isn’t mentoring. It isn't just telling people to do what you did. In sports, it takes a decade for a former elite player to re-emerge as an elite coach. It is a profession in its own right. If we aren't putting our coaches through a real interview process, the same way the All Blacks select a head coach, we aren't going to see transformational results.
5. Making it the Default
Stop treating coaching as a "nice-to-have" or a remedy for struggling founders. Make it the default. We made coaching a requirement for investment years ago, and it’s the biggest performance multiplier we’ve found. You don’t wait for your team to start losing before you give them a coach. You coach them because they're the best, because their performance dictates our returns, and because it is commercially irresponsible for us to continue to ignore this truth.
It’s time to stop putting the burden of proof on why we should coach, and start putting in on why we’re okay with leaving so much performance on the table.

2026-03-25 16:09:49 CET

Yes my Bitcoin newsletter is paid subscription
Subs gets real Bitcoin adoption stories you'll not read in the media. Stories inspire adoption. Investigative research and data-gathering takes time. It is subscriptions that get these stories told and makes each subscriber a part of changing Bitcoin's narrative.
Not in a vague way, there is a direct correlation between # subs and the amount of time I can dedicate to this.
We did it with Bitcoin+environment. We can do it again
My latest newsletter is about how Bitcoin has been quietly changing the (broken) model of how charities work from the ground up, introducing tens of thousands of new people to Bitcoin in the process.
My latest newsletter is about
* how Bitcoin has been quietly changing the (broken) model of how charities work from the ground up
* how Amnesty International, Make-A-Wish Foundation and other have now quietly started not just accepting Bitcoin but educating their donors about its benefits
* the Bitcoiner who has introduced tens of thousands of new people to Bitcoin in the process.
* latest newsletter: https://blossom.primal.net/d20a8b670656e9de147e092e83c34de9d7df6b6133a37edfb4d91a0d9ff31f2c.png www.batcoinz.com/p/what-would-the-world-look-like-if

2026-03-24 14:55:49 CET

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Yes! Here you go. Here's my original video with more about the format https://x.com/DSBatten/status/2022387736280510948?s=20 and here is the application form https://form.jotform.com/260346848186871.

2026-03-24 13:56:02 CET

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* Link to apply: https://form.jotform.com/260346848186871

2026-03-23 20:40:58 CET

"Stay humble stack sats" also means acknowledging we can be Bitcoiners yet still have blindspots that cause us to follow tradition rather than innovate. https://blossom.primal.net/4105214f6836a0f310507a5824918116bb5058d4eea182529083bbf3091181bb.mov
This message is specifically for Bitcoiners building a business.

2026-03-18 17:41:39 CET

Just gave an online talk on Bitcoin and ESG to 200+ regulators from Securities Commissions, Banks, Central Banks from around the world including...
Nigeria, Canada, El Salvador, Indonesia, Ukraine, New York, NZ, South Africa
It's the second talk like this I've given. Over 350 regulators in total reached., including heads of banks, Central Banks and Securities Commissions.
Each time we engage with regulators and policymakers is a chance to put misinformation to bed permanently, and (re)educate them about why Bitcoin ticks the right boxes for them.
This in turn helps smooth the road for more nation state Bitcoin adoption, better ability to allow Bitcoin as a medium of exchange and more Bitcoin mining harvesting stranded energy on and off grids.
Onwards!
https://blossom.primal.net/7579c21697a8d0adb7ba352ee061fce2bff2da18c192f78cbd7fcf5548c016ba.png

2026-03-18 17:26:43 CET

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Important that we acknowledge what is. As Peter Drucker said "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it." There's another quote I like "The best way to realize your dream is to wake up." This is a wake-up call. And ... some people will prefer to live in the simulation where everything appears fine (and criticize you for reflecting an uncomfortable truth) than take the blue pill and confront what is. Kudos to you for saying it like it is. I'd also love to hear any ideas you have about how to increase active user count.

2026-03-17 14:39:55 CET

Just ran a breathworks and meditation session for a Bitcoin event in Australia for ~100 Bitcoiners!
Conference organizer reported back "the overwhelming feedback was very positive! I've had a number of people asking where they can do more down this path"
I've always said that sovereignty over your own mind is the ultimate self-sovereignty. And meditation and breathwork is the hack that gets you there.
Like Bitcoin itself, its not a "get transformed quick" scheme, it requires some initial effort to learn, and then some effort to do a 20 min practice each day.
But if raising personal resilience, energy-levels, freedom of thought, imperviousness to the uninformed takes about Bitcoin from others, relentlessness in orangepilling, better empathy and communication is something important to you - then I've personally found breathwork & meditation the ultimate low-time preference way to achieve that state and maintain it.
It's honestly the reason that I've been able to respond objectively, neutrally and intuitively to so many uneducated takes on Bitcoin for 4 years without getting emotional.
Running a course online (2.5 hrs/day for 3 days) exclusively for Bitcoiners this Fri-Sun if you'd like to experience it. I'd like to see all Bitcoiners eventually experience this.
In transparency, there is a small fee for this (which doesn't go to me, I've been doing it as a volunteer since I was trained to run the course 19 years ago). Proceeds goes to the organization Art of Living (http://artofliving.org) who runs it to support service initiatives.
If you're interested to join us, send me a message or comment. https://blossom.primal.net/eb5bbe5691f6febd722f11b985da64b96b3b5c5bb1dbc494300a046f7107a2d6.png

2026-03-12 15:24:35 CET

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This article used pre-China mining ban data and a deeply flawed methodology. It was debunked by Margot Paez two years ago.

2026-03-11 18:05:20 CET

As a climatetech investor, I have seen over 200 technologies and innovations. But the leading one by far in terms of its ability to create an immediate positive environmental externalities is Bitcoin mining, because
1. It uses existing, proven technology
2. It can solve problems (such as mitigation and wasted renewable energy) profitably, which other technologies simply cannot
3. It is modular, relatively low budget, rapidly scaleable and does not need government incentives and subsidies to make it viable
4. It creates positive social consequences in parallel as an organic byproduct of using the technology (such as reducing residential power prices, helping grid operators stabilize grids, obviating the need for gas peaker plants and expensive grid upgrades, and mitigating the negative impacts of putting addition AI load onto grids). It also helps renewable operators with the current backlash they are facing due to the high levels of waste energy they are not able to sell (with costs that are often picked up by the grid operator via curtailment payments).
This is why 7 out of 7 of the grid operators we know of that have experimented with Bitcoin mining have embraced it and are looking to scale up its usage on the grid.

2026-03-11 15:34:20 CET

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Have you read the 24 papers that conclude positive environmental benefits to Bitcoin mining?
I have, and here is my conclusion:
The literature absolutely does support the claims that bitcoin mining
1. accelerates the green energy transition
2. can profitably mitigate methane
3. can make other technologies (such as green hydrogen) more profitable
4. allows renewable operators
5. can obviate more emission intensive gas peaker plants
This is also the consensus of all grid operators who have experimented with Bitcoin mining, and 8 independent reports.
If after looking through these papers you come to a different conclusion, happy to have an informed discussion with you about why you came to that different conclusion.
If that is a little too much reading (fair enough), I've done a summary of these papers here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-green-energy-transition-needs-bitcoin-miners-daniel-batten-zsunc/
and here https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/changing-narrative-bitcoin-mining-daniel-batten-gkmwc/
that takes about 15 mins to read.

2026-03-11 15:26:55 CET

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He has not. Similar to journalists, they just moved on to other things.

2026-03-11 15:25:38 CET

Like Electric Vehicles (EVs), Bitcoin is a fully electrified network, so it has no direct emissions.
Like EVs, BTC has "indirect emissions" because some of that electricity was generated using fossil fuels.
However ... also like EVs, each time someone uses it, rather than the old, more emission intensive technology it replaces (fossil fuel transport in the case of EVs, the more emission intensive banking network in the case of Bitcoin), it creates a net emission reduction.
Here's a view we have comparing 2 net emission reducing technologies.
In terms of usefulness, both are useful, just in different places and different ways. EVs help transport people in the West around, and are about convenience.
Bitcoin's fastest adoption has been outside the West where it helps people transport and store money without high remittance fees, high inflation and the lack of a banking network - and is often about existential need.
https://blossom.primal.net/d0432c9b1b4a4ffd483e8f6fd341985691f387f15375ac2fe331b345fce1e258.jpg

2026-03-10 20:52:44 CET

The end of Bitcoin mining gaslighting in mainstream media
Litmaps, a powerful research tracking tool, reveals that patient zero for all junk science on Bitcoin's environmental impact was a single 6 page "commentary" by Alex de Vries. (A commentary in the context of an academic journal means a short opinion piece that does not to go through a full peer-review process and which does not use novel empirical data).
The method he used to claim that Bitcoin's environmental damage was a growing concern was his fundamentally flawed "energy use per transactions" method (Bitcoin energy use does not come from its transactions, therefore it can scale transaction volume exponentially without increasing emissions).
de Vries' metric was later debunked in no fewer than 4 separate academic journals as part of full length academic papers.
*Masanet et al 2019
https://researchgate.net/publication/335456595_Implausible_projections_overestimate_near-term_Bitcoin_CO_2_emissions
*Dittmar et al. 2019
https://nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0534-5
*Sedlmeir et al, 2020
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12599-020-00656-x
*Sai and Vraken 2023
https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2096720923000441#br0070
The entire body of de Vries' work was systematically debunked by Sai and Vranken in late 2023
source: https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2096720923000441#br0070
Immediately after Sai & Vranken's study, all mainstream media outlets stopped covering de Vries' Bitcoin "research"
In fact, 22 mainstream media outlets have now flipped to covering Bitcoin's environmental benefits (source: https://x.com/DSBatten/status/2007095059963949217) which have been well established in 24 peer reviewed full length academic studies. (source: https://lnkd.in/gdH4wvw7)
A further 15 sustainability media outlets are now also covering Bitcoin mining's environmental benefits:
source: https://lnkd.in/gdH4wvw7
But just as years after the myth "all fats cause cholesterol" was debunked, many people are still unaware of the science, the same is true of Bitcoin mining
In both cases, the population was misinformed over many years. As a result, many people are still unaware that the contemporary academic literature, case studies and grid operators themselves all overwhelmingly support Bitcoin mining's environmental benefits
source: https://x.com/DSBatten/status/2013987189256810703
It is only a matter of time before policymakers, regulators, political leaders and investment committees catch up.
Once they do we will see mainstream adoption of Bitcoin, and mainstream adoption of Bitcoin mining as part of climate action (aka: what the peer reviewed research tells us it is)
source: https://x.com/compose/articles/edit/2009351000952279040
While many media outlets are now objectively commenting on Bitcoin, others (Financial Times, The Economist, Verge, Wired, New Scientist) have simply pivoted to changing the type of Bitcoin misinformation they publish.
https://blossom.primal.net/1dfa39cba2e54c31e2aebe645c766f30328b4108f8c41c1be0a5eeeacb75b780.jpg

2026-03-09 16:09:53 CET

100th Monkey Effect
One mindset shift, if applied by even 1% of Bitcoiners, can have a pronounced impact on Bitcoin adoption https://blossom.primal.net/8810a82265e7d9f1810e438532ae0740d99277aae3e8b50ae0e3b703ddbdaacd.mp4

2026-03-06 23:54:02 CET

3 March. RayDalio: "Central banks are not going to want to buy Bitcoin"
6 March... https://blossom.primal.net/0690c1d288516561719c992bbb23d17a4f565e3e6f4571dd9a2a24f7f5bb1b65.png d

2026-03-06 01:05:39 CET

In 2021, a headline like this on the front page of a Pulitzer Prize winning paper would've been unthinkable
But backed up by data from Cambridge, Duke University + 23 peer reviewed studies showing Bitcoin mining's environmental benefits, the media have changed their tune also
https://blossom.primal.net/1a917e2ff0f82ff413820b8f6d98000dbd729c094fbcc08d8da710621bea221c.jpg

2026-03-04 16:14:40 CET

JUST IN: Paraguay has just followed the lead of Bhutan, using wasted hydro energy to mine Bitcoin, for a likely National Bitcoin Reserve.
"Reports indicate mined Bitcoin will likely be held as a state asset or the national treasury, potentially used to fund infrastructure" https://blossom.primal.net/b9eb9380266a70381f4f5c7ae9adeecb1f06109515f21856335b0b4d28d4b94d.png

2026-03-03 19:03:41 CET

We're now 3 years in to Bhutan's Bitcoin experiment
That means we now have robust data on how it has impacted the economy
For context: Bhutan's economy was in dire shape in 2022 due to loss of all tourism income (it's #2 export earner) during the COVID period.
It got so bad that Bhutan was 3 months away from defaulting on import payments.
IMF was poised to step in to structure a loan which would have led to heavy debt repayments, but also ceding of economic sovereignty to a lender whose loan conditions permit them to dictate how to (re)structure an economy.
Instead, Bhutan formed a large Bitcoin Strategic Reserve by using their surplus renewable hydropower to mine Bitcoin.
The IMF has warned on numerous occasions that nations embracing Bitcoin would destabilize their economy, be less effective at attracting foreign direct investment, and endanger their decarbonizing and environmental initiatives.
What does the data say (as reported by Wall St Journal, Al Jazeera and Forbes)
1. Bhutan was able to "use Bitcoin reserves to avert a crisis as foreign currency reserves dwindled to $689 million"
2. The bitcoin reserves have directly addressed pressing fiscal needs. "In June 2023, Bhutan allocated $72 million from its holdings to finance a 50% salary increase for civil servants"
3. Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay in an interview said that bitcoin also "supports free healthcare and environmental projects"
4. Tobgay also said their Bitcoin reserves helped in "stabilizing [the nation’s] $3.5 billion economy"
5. Independent analysts have now said that "this model could attract foreign investment, particularly for nations with untapped renewable resources"
Considering that what transpired in Bhutan has helped stabilize an economy that the IMF warned Bitcoin would destabilize, it begs the question: what data was the IMF's predictions based on?
For Bhutan, Bitcoin didn't just boost the economy, it allowed Bhutan to maintain economic independence and provided an example to other small nations of a path forward that did not require the IMF. https://blossom.primal.net/65e97596c85fdf829fbcf8b0257fef3baa40ae3e623ec3ea8f8d98d4fff36ac5.png

2026-02-25 17:11:29 CET

This is an important first:
1. Reuters are correctly calling it Bitcoin mining rather than "crypto mining", and explicitly linking it to reducing wasted energy.
2. The article acknowledges that there has been an "increase of wasted energy" at the solar and wind generator with "billions of reais in losses to energy firms"
3. Reports that French company Engie is "looking at bitcoin mining ...at its new solar plant in Brazil to make the facility more profitable"
4. Acknowledges "having those systems would reduce curtailments that are hurting the economics of Assu Sol" (the solar and wind operator)
The ability of Bitcoin mining to accelerate green energy production through monetizing wasted wind and solar energy is well established in academic literature (since 2023) and among grid operators (since 2022)
But this is marks a first time the mainstream media has explicitly acknowledged this.
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/engie-eyes-bitcoin-mine-storage-system-huge-new-brazil-solar-plant-2026-02-23/

2026-02-24 20:04:55 CET

together, we fixed this statement
https://blossom.primal.net/4056aa85b287317a0b88c3722b669dbc9c907684ef039e2f005bb6d81ae9cf5d.png

2026-02-24 18:07:41 CET

Don't often talk about this (or analyze it, been too busy analyzing Bitcoin mining), but just did some analysis.
3/4 of the tech startups I was coaching 10 years ago have since gone on to exit or acquisition offer.
Probably nothing.

2026-02-22 02:42:02 CET

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Did you watch the video?

2026-02-21 21:14:38 CET

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was a great chat

2026-02-21 19:09:46 CET

Why do 95% of attempts to orangepill fail?
Swan just added my seminar on this on their channel, which includes strategies to orangepill much more effectively.
Please share widely with anyone whose wanting to do this more effectively !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zak12xxYg0k

2026-02-20 19:49:25 CET

Rather than defending Bitcoin's use of energy, do this ...
Rather than arguing that Bitcoin doesn't put up power prices, say this ...
Rather than saying "other industries use more fossil fuel than Bitcoin ... state this
👇
https://blossom.primal.net/de3b12a3fc0c02897cb32295f2c163aeaded16a5435d382ea59a4c429c358f5d.mp4

2026-02-20 15:10:07 CET

Another inspiring Bitcoin story
This one shows the power of grassroots movements, community and the peer-to-peer ethos
Buena Vista Colorado (pop: 3,259) now has 13 businesses using Bitcoin: that is more than Colorado Springs which has 153x the population!
It turns out grassroots adoption works (and so do treasure hunts).
Luke and his wife Brooke did this in his "spare time" between running 3 businesses.
Luke will be open sourcing how this happened in the months to come.
Stay tuned!
https://blossom.primal.net/630b3ca41319d8e60204383957531a104c4ca473db8f8165d492cd13ab7833a4.mp4

2026-02-18 17:29:20 CET

3 very commonly made mistakes when explaining Bitcoin's energy use to people.
https://blossom.primal.net/fe21805d4db6757f92c91e4f957b0bfba7d2feb6a99e86c65b51b4d5c41a9a22.mp4

2026-02-17 20:30:35 CET

A couple of people said that this 65 second video about Bitcoin mining made them laugh (in a good way)
One of the reasons that the media got it wrong for so long about Bitcoin mining was that they convinced themselves (and you) that in writing about Bitcoin mining, they should not talk to people who did Bitcoin mining because they would be biased.
The logic however starts to unravel on this one very fast, once we start to https://blossom.primal.net/f4c2b0c5aa854fc2e1b9b8b74365c449466e36d18451150cf40a4ebafd22220a.mp4 scrutinize this argument.

2026-02-16 21:11:29 CET

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Thanks for being one of the ones who suggested I do more of this.

2026-02-16 20:36:06 CET

Many Bitcoiners find they are unable to change the perspective of the person they are talking to about Bitcoin.
One reason why: you have tacitly accepted their perspective by not challenging a false framing.
Here's how to challenge FUD-frames respectfully.
https://blossom.primal.net/ebb06becfa491f935f3dd7a0166a742ab19c9215f594a19b9dba69d5c3d17e6e.mp4

2026-02-13 21:16:44 CET

Great video. So important to tell these stories of the tireless work that Bitcoin mining companies do to heat homes and keep the grid stable. #note1c9x…uyuj

2026-02-13 20:30:07 CET

This year I've returned to my calling of coaching high-impact mastermind groups. I'm also excited because this stands to served Bitcoin so much more than me simple doing FUD-fighting
If your work brings new people to Bitcoin, this message I just summarized into a 190 second video is specifically for you
https://blossom.primal.net/ac994694ceac83473d6494f54bf328a06f2799c4cd458a83f63ce9afb4626ff1.mov
You can apply here: https://www.jotform.com/form/260346848186871

2026-02-10 21:18:12 CET

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Hi John. Thanks for your comments. We've just confirmed dates. So I will send you a message on Nostra now

2026-02-10 18:28:57 CET

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Yes, it will exist no matter what we do, and ... when we start telling Bitcoin's story better we will fill the void currently filled by human slop about Bitcoin told by Bitcoin's enemies.

2026-02-10 18:00:51 CET

Issue #44 of the Bitcoin Adoption Forecast is out! Check your email and spam filters
www.batcoinz.com/p/bitcoins-crossing-the-chasm-moment

2026-02-10 18:00:06 CET

Its time for Bitcoiners to gain sovereignty over the stories told about Bitcoin

2026-02-05 06:04:57 CET

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40 merchants is great progress!