Man, I'm glad we got, we could get you on here.
Um, especially somebody, you know, running a company like Phoenix and thank you.
Uh, appreciate it.
Yeah, man.
It's like, wow, we're getting like, I had Christian Lopez on here
last and now I get you on here.
It's like, man, we're getting some legit guys going now.
So it's awesome, man.
But, uh, yeah, welcome.
Thank you.
I'm, I'm happy to be here, to be honest.
You're here for the conference, right?
I'm here for the conference.
Uh, not just a conference.
It's kind of a trip I'm taking started from Canada, our site up in St.
Leon, and then down to North Dakota, we got a site there.
And then of course, these two days to be here in Dallas, it's a place to be.
Right, right.
I agree.
And the conference, I haven't even got a set foot in.
But I heard it looks pretty good and it sounds like it's packed.
Yeah, a lot, a lot of good people from the industry.
It's, it's a good one because it's very focused on people from the industry.
Not just only miners.
I can see a lot of things that actually from the finance side of the crypto,
Lenders, so it's, it's more focused on, on that vertical of the business also
providing a liquidity, the kind of stuff that you don't see in all the conferences.
I was going to say that's a little bit different than a lot of the other
conferences we see, which I'm not dogging, I'm going to have a good time,
but a lot of them are kind of more like a, it's almost like a pep rally instead
of, you know what I mean, instead of like a business, uh, meeting or event.
But.
Yeah, no, it's I think the whole industry right now because of obviously the
price jump Everybody's realizing but the chatter and the talk around it being
so focused on like the The political headwinds being behind us instead of in
front of us now for the first time ever.
And I think it's just created a lot of excitement from large
institutional type type players and also from the government angle.
I think that's a huge deal.
And you're from Dubai.
You live in Dubai.
Um, and I think I'm, I see the different things in the Middle East,
but they seem to be Ahead of the curve a lot, I feel like they're
much more aggressively embracing like crypto Bitcoin in particular.
Um, and it's just, it's.
It's exciting to see.
I was in Dubai in February 22, actually it was the first time I'd ever been
in the Middle East and, um, first of all, Dubai is freaking crazy.
It felt like I was in like a virtual reality or something.
It was wild, dude.
There was no trash on the ground.
Everybody's saying the same thing these days about it, to be honest, yeah.
It's crazy.
The pace of progress is, it's very unique.
It feels Lights man, they are moving.
You know what I mean?
It just I left there and I don't say this in an unpatriotic Way, but like
there's been a lot of things over the last few years where i'm like, man
We're in decline like big time and then I go to a place there and i'm
like I felt the exact opposite I was like These guys are ramping up big time
and there's a lot of like opportunity and capital available, it felt like.
And it just, it was really freaking crazy to see them building
islands and stuff out there.
I'm like, I've never seen anything like it.
So I liked being there and now I want to go back.
Cause you told me what a really cool event that I'm going
to go make sure I'm part of.
But, um, but it's just, it's nice to see now the U S kind
of embracing seeing more of a.
Pro, um, you know, Bitcoin development and Bitcoin mining and Bitcoin, uh,
strategic reserve type, all those things are such new, good things for our
whole industry that like, I feel just emboldened because I've made it through
the bear market and now I get to start reaping the benefits of one of these.
You know, bull runs for the first time all of us are looking for
well, you know in ua in general Since let's say last 20 25 years.
I think what happened was that In general, the priorities were set
and everybody was very focused into building and making sure from, this
is the goal from point A to point B, and we're going to need A, B, C, D.
One of them definitely is going to be technology, being technology driven.
So a country out of Middle East wants to advance.
And try to get into the standards of best countries in the world.
So the main thing that was needed was the goal.
And then in order to reach those goals, one of the main, uh, I
would say apparatus was technology.
And crypto, uh, This started a couple of years back when, uh.
Uh, the leadership did a company in a country in Abu Dhabi decided to establish
like the biggest crypto mining farm at that time, probably in the world or
one, maybe top three, that that thing was all behind the same notion of that.
It's a technology.
If you want to get ahead of everybody else, we have to make sure we adapted.
We have to make sure.
We work with it.
We have to understand how it works.
And it's always been with UAE, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
It's always been like, okay, a new technology comes and still you see it.
If it's a flying taxi, okay, let's do it.
If it's a hyperloop, let's do it.
So the whole country and the government over there is more focused
in, in basically the progress and, um, the economy of the country.
Those, those are the things that dictates the policies when they want to come.
When a country and its leadership is very focused on top three, four
things, um, you get a good result.
So it's about security.
I still don't lock my house in Dubai.
I still don't do it.
I would, that means even probably safer by many.
Uh, factors you, you check on the Instagram or anywhere top
10, uh, safe cities in the world.
So these are the amazing, so the security, it's one of the things, cause
I always have this things like money and capital is like, it's like water.
It always goes where it's comfortable.
So that's thing security.
That's, they're amazing.
Top notch.
And they're.
Adaptation, the pace of adaptation, uh, crypto mining facility
in Abu Dhabi is one of it.
You'll see M two before any of these big, other, other big exchanges
come to UAE where we started M two.
And so the government is very, very progressive and they want
to make sure that whatever is technology out there, UUA e gets it.
Uua e gets it fast, and we saw it in Covid also.
This, this is the notion behind the leadership and what you're trying to do.
And this, this helps us a lot.
And this helps us to be in an environment that the government
and the leadership, they're very.
Now pro technology pro crypto and welcome new technologies.
So that's a very big add on for us being there.
I think anybody who's been there probably would be like everybody
I've talked to who's ever been there.
And when I tell them kind of my experience, everybody's on the same page.
It's just, it's remarkable.
And it is a.
It's kind of a tribute to what a government can do when, like you
said, they got kind of the right goals and the right things in
mind and kind of business focus.
That's why I'm excited about the Trump administration coming in.
I don't think the U.
S.
has had a business friendly administration like this, maybe ever, not where they
had House, Senate, and the Presidency.
So I'm excited just to see what can happen now because I do think it's
kind of an arms race to, you know, Make sure you have, you know, Bitcoin
as like your country is situated to be a participant in the worldwide
kind of economy that Bitcoin creates.
So.
I don't know, man.
I'm, I'm really excited about what's going to be coming, um, over the next
four years, next two years, especially, but even over the next four years,
um, I think that there's so much opportunity to, like, grow businesses
and establish, like, businesses that will go beyond this next administration
well into the future because of what happens over the next two years.
In Phoenix, where you run in the shop, um, you guys have been doing
a lot and, um, I've worked with you guys and yeah, full disclosure,
I've, I've been your guys counsel.
I've also done deals with you guys.
Um, so sure.
I'm biased a little bit, but.
And I've told Sarah this, I have not enjoyed doing deals with anybody more
than I've enjoyed working with you guys.
I'm glad to hear that.
I'm dead serious.
It's, it's been Haroon, uh, Elsa, all the, all the, all the, uh, attorneys over there
have been the best ones to work with.
I think i've ever done any work with so appreciate it.
Um, shout out to you guys, man.
Um, But all that being said what are your guys?
Kind of goals now with kind of the bitcoin price ripping.
Are you guys still looking for acquisitions of sites or companies?
Or are you looking to maybe develop your pipeline?
Like deploying capital to just deploy it to building out infrastructure That
you've already owned a megawatts on.
Well, you know, um, we already started the strategy after the halving.
We have, so we have plans.
Uh, number one, we're going to make sure that those plans that we have in pipeline,
we have a couple, couple of a hundred megawatts, let's say on the pipeline.
We're still going to keep developing.
That's what we're going to do, but we're going to be very sensitive.
Selective about the sites and the power price and where we're going to be.
That's number one.
Um, number two, we're going to, what we have as a mandate from, from our.
Uh, highest manager management is that we want to work with people
more in terms of a joint venture, not just because of the profitability
of it and the finance aspect of it.
Uh, but also because we want to expand our network and our
footprint as a listed company.
Uh, of course we look for growth.
Uh, but we also want to make sure that any any kind of development that
we're getting into It's it's one of those that we it can last After the
whole halving that's coming as well.
So we kind of want to, it's a, it's a hybrid model.
Uh, we're not thinking about a lot of acquisitions, to be honest, our other
wings of the group to working on web three projects lively was just a recent one.
That got launched.
It's very successful now.
The token is doing amazing.
The platform is doing well.
And, uh, that's a fitness thing, right?
Uh, no, not just a fitness thing.
It's basically, uh, a social media platform for content.
Yeah.
Uh, it's getting very popular there because some of the people just got
tired of what's happening on social and Instagram getting bombarded with
content that Some of it has no value and just want to get rid of it.
So that was the web and the web three, um, concept behind it also.
So, uh, this was, so you can basically the content creators, uh, they get rewarded
for the content that you're creating.
So.
We're going to be very focused in terms of web three and development of projects.
That's where our development is going to be and maybe
acquisitions down the line in JV.
But in terms of the Bitcoin mining side of it that I'm taking care of,
we're still going to build, we're still, but, but building is not going
to be like what we saw five, six years ago, everybody was just rushing to it.
Any power place.
I want to be there.
No, we're going to be learned from, uh, from, from past and we want to be focused.
We're going to be focusing a bit of maybe on the power generation side.
That's something we're seriously looking at it, uh, to make sure that
because we want to see what's going to happen down the road in four years.
So having our own power generation is going to be an advantage
and we're looking at it.
Other side is building sites with more efficient, uh, management.
I think this cycle, the last two years taught everybody in the
business that you got to be efficient.
Softwares, controlling your ops, your repair.
These are just things that five years ago, you wouldn't pay that much attention to.
I wouldn't care if like two, 3 percent of my.
Fleet is not working now.
It's all about these tiny percentage because you want to make sure
you're better than everybody else.
So that kind of adaptation.
To efficiency as something that pushed us right now to work on these things, be
more efficient in terms of our operations, get rid of, if there is, if you have
a site that it's not efficient, we're looking at different options, whether
liquidated or converging to a data center, because that's another game as well.
So we're, we're kind of focused on that.
And in our expansion plans, we're looking both in the U.
S.
And let's say North America, because Canada seems to be more also becoming
a bit more lenient about Bitcoin mining as well, and also out of U.
S.
Yes, that's one of the things I was going to ask too, is like, um, other than
your operations in, say, North America, because I know you guys got some in, uh,
Canada, where are you guys operating?
You got some in Dubai or?
We got some in Abu Dhabi.
So we got a, we got a JV, we got a big site in Abu Dhabi.
It has a capacity to go to 270.
It's being operated around at 240 right now.
So that's one of it.
And then we got operations in, in, in North America, South
Carolina, North Dakota is coming on, you know better about it.
So we're very excited about North Dakota because things are going, we're
going very smooth there basically.
We're on track and St.
Leon in Canada, Manitoba, and things are becoming a bit positive there.
I think what we see is that what happened in the election was kind
of a, to us as foreigners, it was like a revolution because we were
always like, when we were seeing it from outside, we were like, okay,
superpower, why everything is so slow.
Everything is so against the businesses.
You have to be careful about what you say.
And it, it, it kind of like, it was looking like a derailing and now we're
so also excited because in Middle East, we're also looking at it from the
political side, kind of a stability.
It's good for our business.
So from, for us, we all saw it as a revolution because it's not just one
parties out and another one is out.
We kind of see that it's like people in charge of business is back.
Uh, capitalism, capitalism is probably back now.
It things are going to be done.
Based on how it makes sense financially, not because you want
to make sure that no one gets hurt.
Right, right, right.
So, so things, and that's very good.
Their feelings hurt.
Exactly.
I'm so glad to be getting rid of this.
I was watching the election night, it was like, it was early morning.
Yeah.
And I was like, cause you know, all these pools were saying
it's a tie it's neck to neck.
And I was like, okay, let's watch it.
And I was looking at Virginia.
I was like, he's, he's only behind like 9%.
I was like, okay, let's, let's keep tap on this.
And then.
Suddenly, all these votes were getting counted and I was like, this seems like
it's going to be really interesting.
And we were hoping for any kind of election that it
wouldn't get into a dispute.
So this one is undisputed.
Right.
And now we can see the, the business, the business people are in charge.
They understand the potential of crypto and the people are that are
that, that are taking charge, are not taking, taking these positions in
the government because they need it financially or they have to feel secure.
They want to make sure that they don't sign this because they might
not get up the ladder, right?
Right.
These are all business peoples that they're there to get things done.
I know man.
That's great for crypto, right?
It is and that's literally that's actually the best way to put it is that
you look at like the top four cabinet members He's already um Nominated and
Or going to basically the point, um, they're all big corners, all of them.
And like big time one.
So I know it's like, yeah, man, we, this, and I'm sure it was exciting for
you guys too, but like, if you think about it, think of how you would feel
if your government was actively like talking about how to eliminate you,
you know, and what you do for a living.
It's like, man, the way I know myself and like Jake and a lot of
my buddies are in the industry here.
I haven't felt this way in a long time where I'm just like excited
about, you know, the future because I don't have to worry about, you know,
the constant barrage of legislation that is trying to put a hamper on.
Aren't you being able to make a living?
It's like, man, this is super, super exciting.
So remember that 30 percent tax on energy that we're talking about?
Oh my God.
Absurd.
When that was out there, I was like, okay, as a Bitcoin miner, 50 to
58 percent of my cost is my power.
Right.
So you're going to take another 30 on top.
I'm going to be with 86%.
So are you telling me I'm going to make 14%?
Right.
You can't do that.
You know what I mean?
The, the, the, the business.
That's a, that's a business killer.
So I'm just, yeah, it's a huge relief to get that stuff out of the way.
And, and, uh, be able to now kind of focus on, on building.
And that's, yeah, that's where I think there's going to be tremendous
growth in the next three, four years.
But, um, what about on the AI side?
Like you guys, I mean, you guys have some obviously serious back
and I think you guys are probably.
Like if I wanted a counterparty, first person I'm going to call is you
guys, because you can execute on it.
But in the AI world, this obviously is very, very expensive to build.
Are you guys looking to Get into that game more.
Do you have some going already or like, we're right now on a technical aspect
of it, we're, we're looking at it.
Mm-hmm . Because it's, it needs a lot of capital.
'cause I remember months ago, per megawatt of a Bitcoin mining cost would be 1.3 and
on a data center would be probably seven.
Then suddenly on a, on a ai, it could get up to even 40, including the cards.
So, uh, it's, it's so crazy, isn't it?
It's socra, it's, it needs a lot of capital.
What we're looking at right now, we're looking at it.
Um, of course, this is something that has to come from our main shareholders
in Abu Dhabi and our principal.
And if we get a mandate on it, we work on it more, but we're
kind of doing in study right now.
One of the studies, for example, we're trying to do in.
It's at 90 percent is that we're trying to design, which is not an easy thing to do.
Uh, a base, a project, basically a from power generation all the way
to the downstream of, of an Bitcoin mining that would minimum cost.
You can convert it into a data center.
Now on the AI side, it's going to be a bit difficult because you need the buildings.
It's kind of something required on the other, uh, HPCs and other data centers.
You can still go with containers.
A lot of, a lot of companies are coming with, uh, coming out
or coming up with solutions.
So we're working on that.
But on the main thing on AI, uh, we see it's very much capital driven on
the technicalities of how to do it.
We're looking at it, but right now we don't have anything on mandate to go
and do right away, purchase it because we think we have to, we have to find
the right spot we're working right now.
We're another with another group.
To develop, uh, to develop, uh, a big sites.
I cannot go into all the details of it right now.
So yes, we're looking at it, but in terms of execution, we're looking
at something probably down the line in six, three, six months to a year.
Yes.
Yeah.
You'd primarily still be like a Bitcoin miner.
Yes, we're gonna stay and be a bitcoin, but what we have done Since the halving
every every company basically took took some initiative To diversify
some went to data centers HPC.
One of the things we did we We didn't pivot from Bitcoin mining, so we
stayed as a Bitcoin miner, but we started, uh, other things that were,
uh, when you look at it, they're more profitable in terms of profitability.
One would be M2, the exchange, centralized exchange.
Others would be the Web3 projects.
Because we can see they're more profitable than because when you look at, for
example, the web three projects and the tokenization of assets or tokenization of
projects, the world is different there.
You're looking at three X, four X, five X, six X in our world in Bitcoin
mining, we're looking at, okay.
There are different ways to look at how you get, how you
calculate the profitability of it.
But these days you're looking at 30, 40%, you do better, you do worse.
You might go down to twenties, but the finance world of crypto,
it's, it starts with X, it's like 2X, 3X, it's totally different.
So we, we made sure we're, we're there also.
So is that a lot of software developing and or what?
Coding and just building out.
Well, what's what's needed?
The planning is very important.
The development of it is very important.
Supervision of that development is very important.
On the M2 side, Getting the regulatory body to basically first understand this.
Thankfully, the regulatory body in Abu Dhabi, they're so open.
So we, it could be like, it was a journey for both of us to educate.
Of course, M2 has its own, Phoenix is a shareholder, but a minority shareholder,
but we try to make sure that our co founders and also the, uh, our principals
in Abu Dhabi, they've been trying to talk to the, Uh, regulatory body.
And that has started well, actually, if we started something that no one
thought could be done out of UAE.
So the finance side, so we kind of did this diversification just to make sure,
because times were not easy for us.
You know that, what happened.
So now all of that is paying off well.
And we're going to still look into that.
I would think that the web three and.
What's happening on the finance side of crypto has tremendous potential
and the adaptation that's, um, that's, that's on the way and happening as we
speak is, is going to push it forward and also more people will be able to
understand it and tap into that potential.
So we want to make sure that.
We're, we're there to, to make sure that we're in that and be a pioneer
in that, at least in Middle East, to take advantage from the situation
that that's, this is the time, this is the right time, and now that the US
administration is a pro crypto, because usually governments have Regulatory
bodies usually follow what the U.
S.
is doing.
This is going to change and gladly what we have in Abu Dhabi was already open,
but had we had a government here that was not pro crypto, you know, it's still
would, would put a bit of pressure, but this is now, it's going to help a lot.
Yeah, I think so too, man.
So I would just have, uh, Christian Lopez on talking about, you
know, what the market might do.
Um, you know, now that we're in kind of a bull cycle, at least it looks
like we're going into a bull cycle.
You think there's going to be some consolidation amongst
like the big players out there?
You think people are going to be kind of like you were saying, you're going to
focus on your pipeline, you already have.
To develop, but you guys keep up much with the, like the public companies here that
are scooping each other up or trying to, Uh, well, what we're trying to do, cause
you know, there is an advantage that the public companies here have is that they
can always go to market and raise funds.
Right.
Over there, we have to stick with their own regulation.
And, uh, for us, it's not like that we have to, we can go to
market and raise funds, but we try to be efficient and grow.
And what we're over there, we don't see a lot of competition to be honest.
We, but we always try to make sure that, uh, with our American colleagues
here and, um, the big pop goes here.
We can keep up.
Hopefully, uh, in terms of consolidation, I think here is going to, we're going
to see a lot of consolidation here because There is a lot of capital when
there is a lot of capital, you can also deploy to do a lot of acquisitions,
strategic ones, maybe financially, it's not going to make sense, but people
will go to those kind of acquisitions to just make a strategic move and make
sure they get a bigger market share.
Uh, what we're trying to do, we've got, first, we're going
to focus on our own pipeline.
We're going to make sure we're efficient in terms of power
and the fleets that we have.
But something in general, I believe it's going to happen because right now,
of course, everything's profitable.
And you always know that there is always a big chance that you get a correction.
So, when that happens, usually the first ones that are going to
hurt you are those that are Yeah.
And we see a lot of that four or five years ago, a lot of
people could do Bitcoin mining.
But right now, if you want to do Bitcoin mining and you see it as a business
that you want to last, you want to use your machines for four years.
Uh, you got to make sure that you have a proper infrastructure for it, whether
it's immersion or hydro, those are the kind of things you're going to look at
because we know that the air cold miners are not going to last like the other two.
So it's becoming in terms of a business, I would call it the industry itself.
The whole Bitcoin mining is becoming very industrialized.
Right.
Big sites.
I personally believe that down the line, that's what's going to happen.
Probably I'm maybe I'm wrong.
I think down the line in five, 10 years, Bitcoin mining companies.
Like oil, oil companies, we're going to have like, we're going to have like a
couple of them, maybe by the, you can count them by your, uh, by your hand.
And then everybody else who wants to get exposure to Bitcoin can
either go buy the stock, buy the index or buy the hash online.
It's going to, because right now.
You take a look at the miners 335 TE hash miner right now at the price, it's
varying between items six or 17 to 24.
It's becoming expensive.
Mm-hmm . One, so the average Joe out there cannot just go and
get a thousand or $10,000 miner.
Right.
Miners used to be cheaper.
And just plug it in because you also need the infrastructure for it.
So I think down the line, what we're going to see a couple of companies
out there, mining, popcos, or bigger private ones, probably, and everybody
else wants exposure, either go to buy their stocks, get ETF or buy the BTC, or
what you're seeing that becoming very, very popular buying the hash rates.
Yeah.
Do you guys have a hash?
We have a platform.
We also work with some of the, uh, big, uh, uh, platforms for, uh,
buying and selling hashrates online.
And also we have our own digital mining dot com.
You can always buy a hashrate.
Uh, depends on the market price.
Sometimes it's above the index.
Sometimes it's below the index.
It keeps varying.
And I think that's gonna be the retail market in the future.
That is awesome because I've wanted that to happen.
I think that people can't afford those machines.
And I actually was talking about this with Christian too, and somebody else, I think
a lot of the groups, um, Some of the best return projects I've seen are like S19 J
Pros on like two cent power that you have available for like 70 percent of the day.
That's the ROI on those was ridiculous.
It's like six months, you know, it's, it's super cheap and it's
like capital that anybody can really get together, small guys.
I could see a place for like small miners to basically be just like in oil and gas.
There's companies that will pick up a strip of production because
that makes sense for them.
They can make it work, but it doesn't make sense for a big guy.
So I do, I look at the Bitcoin miner world.
It's identical to the oil and gas world to me.
Like, that's exactly what I'm thinking.
That same direction.
Yeah.
Like you have the chevrons and exons and BPs, and then you get these little
mom and pop shops that are buying up all the strip of production and just.
Trying to, you know, screw by and make it.
Gimmick money, profitable, yeah.
So, yeah, I mean, I couldn't agree more.
And, um, I guess I want to get to, uh, you guys, this is another one, I don't
know if you can talk about it, but if you would, I heard rumors about, uh, you, or
I guess Bajon, Having tigers and lions.
You correct me.
It's a lion, right?
It's a lion.
True.
It's a lion.
Okay.
So, uh, I got it.
Now he doesn't have to give it away.
Well, he came too big.
Yeah.
He got too big.
That's when I know I want, I've made it is when I can get a pet exotic animal.
So I used to, I lived in Missouri growing up and there was a, there
was, um, this person lived outside of town and they had like lions.
They had tigers, they had bears.
Oh.
It was like wizard, lion and tigers and bears of mine.
But they had the, all those out there.
And uh, like we, we tried to get, you know, my wife's not here so I talk about
it 'cause I went to high school with her.
But we tried to , we tried to get, you know, chicks to go out with us
to, we'd go show 'em at night and take 'em out to see these animals.
But there was one time I was Turkey hunting and I'd been
out drinking the night before.
So I'm kind of hung over a little bit and I fall asleep in my tree and my brother's
sitting on the other side of the tree.
And I hear him, he's like, hey Barrett, my nickname is Barrett.
And he's like, Barrett, Barrett, wake up.
I'm like, huh?
And he said, look, look across the field, what is that?
And I look over there and I'm like, it is that thing.
It looks like a big ol huge golden retriever.
And so, um, I'm watching, watching, you know, I can't
tell, but this thing is massive.
And we go home, and we didn't have cell phones back then.
I get in the door and my dad's like, where'd you, did you
go hunting over at Feldman's?
I'm like, yeah.
He's like, yeah.
Don't go over there for a while until they tell you, uh, one of the
lions got out and they're out there.
I was like, dang, we saw the freaking lion out there.
I was turkey hunting, like, using, I got a 12 gauge out there.
It'd be like throwing grapes at a giant, man, if it came over, but yeah.
So I've had, I've had experience with lions too, but no pet ones though.
Yeah, her name was Candy.
Oh my God.
Yeah, for like two, three months, uh, we, we kept her around.
And then I was like, dude, we just gotta do something about it.
We gotta get rid of the lion, man.
This is not, you know, it's not sustainable.
It's kind of scary.
We can't have it.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, I was like, first of all, how do you, how do
you make the decision to go get it?
You know what I mean?
I, well, uh, Is there any guys like sitting around just hanging out
and like, Man, I know what we need.
We need a line in here.
Cause look, Bijan is always the guy who's always thinking out of the box.
Like even the fun is out of the box.
Even the business is out of the box.
It's always like, it's always been like that.
So when everyone's like thinking about cats and dogs, he's thinking about lions.
It's the same thing.
It's always been the same.
Hey, man, that's probably why you guys have had so much success, you know.
Thank you.
Appreciate it.
He needs to meet my brother.
My brother is, uh, he's a bit of a shaman.
He's always got weird stuff going on too.
You should come and meet him in Abu Dhabi.
I told you I'm coming.
I'm coming.
F1, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Put it in the books, I'm coming.
We'll do, we'll do a little mini documentary while we're out there.
Sure, sure.
It'll be fun.
But, uh, well, I don't know how long you're going to be in TV.
I'm going to be here, I think, until the weekend, and we can, we,
I'm going to fly to Charlotte and then drive down to South Carolina.
Yeah, but sure, for sure.
How often do you get into the States?
Oh, a lot.
I mean, the last time I met you, you had all the Trump gear on.
Yeah.
We had a, we had a Trump, like we have a whole Trump set on my
way back from South Carolina.
When I was driving, I saw a trailer with a lot of Trump signs and just pulled over.
I said, wait a second, I'm going to do this trailer.
There's this guy sitting there looking at me, who's this guy?
Who's this Middle Eastern dude?
Middle Eastern dude.
It was like.
Um, how can I help you?
I'm like, okay, I just want to, I started buying stuff, all of that pro crypto
thing and the flags and all of that.
And he looks at me, he's actually spending money, shopping, shopping.
And then he looks at him, he looks at me, he's like, so where are you coming from?
You think you seem like you're a long way back from home.
I said, yeah, I'm coming from Dubai.
He looks at.
Is it a place that they just like build big islands?
I said, yeah, sort of.
And so I buy a lot of things, a lot of souvenirs for Bijan and everybody.
And then from MOGS, anything that you can find.
Nice t shirt, fun t shirts.
I see he, he, he lit literally lives in the trailer.
Yeah.
So I looked at it like there's this big, big, uh, uh, Trump, uh, banner.
Yeah.
It's written on, it wanted 'cause he got convicted at Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Wanted, and then, uh, below that it, it was written for
President and then That's awesome.
Yeah.
Was there, so I was like.
I got to get this.
And then he looks at, I said, look, I need this.
He was like, that's not for sale.
I'm like, okay, well, how come?
Why?
Come on, work with me.
He's like, I look, I told him, look, I'm long way from home.
You said, and I want to get this for a friend of mine.
And he was like, no, but I use it as a separator.
Also, that's where I live.
I'm like, Oh my God, his bed is there.
It's like, come on, man, I, I, I did, I, I paid for all of these things.
Give me something unique.
So then he made it, he folded it.
It's like, okay, it'll be, he puts it in these black bags and I'm like, I'm
taking out, okay, now I'm going to fly to JFK, New York, that's a blue state.
So I'm just going to be careful with this all the way.
So I was like, when I was in Texas or red state, I was like, Oh, when
I was passing through the airport, cause I never have checked in luggage.
So all of the things, and I was okay in New York, I was like, um,
it's a blue state, be careful with all these things that you purchase.
It was fun.
Yeah, no, I, I, that's what, I'm, I was curious, like in the Middle East, and I
know you probably gotta go first, but, um, How, like, we hear the news, and
the news makes us sound like everybody in the world hates Trump, and Thinks
he's a joke, thinks he's a clown.
But it, it doesn't sound like that's, yeah.
I think what Trump, maybe the first administration he
had is, was a bit different.
Right.
But this time the message was that it's, we wanna be pro business.
Right.
Not pro not hurt your feelings.
Right.
So this was, and we, we saw this as a, as a good thing.
Mm-hmm . 'cause what we are seeing, what we are hearing.
All the time, the, the, this stereotype was that, oh my God, if you want to do
anything, if you want to convince the U.
S.
government of anything, you can't do it.
It's going to take forever.
There's the paperwork.
So this seems like sounds, seems and sounds like a reset button.
Right.
Yeah.
And this is very good for crypto.
Cause you know, we had to Talk about crypto, about how this
adaptation is required and talking about, look, it's very easy.
You don't need to be a genius to understand it.
Imagine it's getting adapted.
The adaptation is increasing and imagine the supply is going down.
So this, and this is a good store of value, and good luck
explaining it to governments that they just don't want to listen.
Right.
Now, and you see, when U.
S.
does something, rest of the world usually follow.
Now with this, we always saw this as an opportunity, so we think things are
going to get way better and different for, Crypto and businesses, and we're
going to be back in a, in a, in a kind of an environment that business
dictates everything, not just politics, or I don't want your feelings to be
hurt or all of those kinds of things.
Every, um, cycle has like learnings, I think that people get from each one.
And then there's a new thing that's kind of thrown on, on into each new cycle.
I think last time it was, um, a lot of institutional money came in from
mining side and all that this time.
I think the, there's an aspect to like governments coming in and you know, the
whole strategic Bitcoin reserve and all that kind of stuff could create a whole
new level of capital that we couldn't really comprehend coming into the market.
But then on more of the like technical side for individuals and looking at
mining and like why should I mine?
Versus why should I not just buy Bitcoin?
And I think there is a case for for this and it's especially like during these
bull runs But you you were talking earlier like what's your kind of thesis on that
or explanation for why people should mine versus buying Bitcoin, I guess.
Well, you know, now things are very much changed.
It's very easy to look at it.
Imagine you've got a cost of a miner.
What's associated with mining?
It's the cost of the miner.
It's the power.
These days when you do the math, let's say even if you're at 6.
5 cents in terms of those who want to do hosting, what you're looking
at is that when you depreciate your assets, when you, when you look at the
cost of the electricity, the Bitcoin price would come around 58 to 68,
000, depending how you calculate it.
So the cost of, so now, right now, if you mine, you, you're mining a Bitcoin
at a cost of 58 to 68, probably maybe 70 on the highest one, and BTC is at 97.
Yeah.
So the down the downturn for this is, is, the downside of this is that you, you,
you, you are mining Bitcoin at a, at a, at a very great value 'cause there is a
chance that you buy at 97, buy at 104.
And still it comes down.
But in the mining, it's like you're looking at it as a long term investment
that you're mining your Bitcoin, and the cost right now is so attractive
that there is a big gap of 20, between production and buying the Bitcoin.
Let's call it a ready product.
So it's making it very attractive.
And we're seeing the miner prices are going up again.
People are turning off miners.
And I think this is, this is going to be a huge thing for all of the miners and
everyone who wants to mine right now.
Now the economy makes so much sense that you just have to
make sure you get there fast.
Right.
I've thought about this many times.
And like when you're in a bear market and Bitcoin is tanked, that to me is like
the time, that's when you buy, right?
That's when I buy Bitcoin.
Exactly.
And when we get into these kinds of times where it's like, You can't
keep up with the price, like, because you, you anticipate there'll be some
levels of corrections in there, right?
But if I can produce Bitcoin then at 58, 65, and somewhere in there,
I don't see how you can beat that.
And that's how institutions are looking at it.
They don't look at it, let me buy.
And, oh, I'm going to sell my Bitcoin and, uh, pay my power bill or hosting bill.
Now the big guys, they understand it way better.
They minor BTC and they pay the electricity.
They see it as a product that they're buying at a cheaper price.
That by the time in three years, they're just going to average and they look at it.
Okay.
We got our Bitcoin at a cost of, let's say 70, 80, but look at it right now,
what we have, and it's going to be what?
200, So that's the game right now.
Yeah.
When you got going with, and I'm sorry, because this is kind of jumping back,
but it just kind of hit me, is like, what was the government's viewpoint on
Bitcoin when you guys first got going?
Because, and I don't know, I hear different things, but do you guys,
are you guys working closely with like Sovereign Wealth Fund or anything?
Yes, I would say what happened over there, I think, They were
the main pusher of this thing.
Really?
Yeah.
So they found us, we have, we had our showroom on, uh, Sheikh Zayed road,
which is like the main, the place to be.
And we were approached and I think that's, that's one of the things we talk
about, they are the pioneer of this.
One of the main reasons Phoenix is here is because of government vision and the,
the leadership and what they have in mind.
So that's how we got encouraged.
And then of course, because before that we were in Canada and other places,
but that was a pivoting moment for us.
Suddenly a site of 240 megawatt.
That was, that was the main factor, the government and the vision and the
push that didn't exist anywhere else.
And now we're seeing that, that actually paying off and we got, we got the
support and for, for our business cases.
So we're still looking if there is more power there, we're
still going to look for it.
And down the line, what we want to do, we want to expand Uh, with that
backing, and we want to make sure we're still pioneers in our, uh, region.
Right, right, yeah.
I really appreciate you taking the time to come do this, and um, Thank you.
I want to do some more of these, and I'm, I think we're going to
probably, I gotta, I gotta convince Sarah to get on board with it, which
I don't think it'll be too hard, but.
I think we're gonna go to Dubai and hang out a little bit.
We're gonna do the next one in F1 Abu Dhabi.
I like it.
That's what I want to see you.
I want to see myself there.
So it sounds great, man.
But, well, thank you Reza.
I appreciate it, man.
Thank you.
We're, uh, we're gonna keep doing some deals together too.
Good, good.
We're gonna do some power generation stuff.
Because I'm on board with you guys on that.
I think that's, uh, That's the key.
That's the future.
Yeah.
Being in control of your power.
Yeah.
That's it.
That to me is like retirement money.
That's going to put us in retirement.
Yes.
That's what I'm looking for.
Well, awesome.
Like and subscribe, listen to the show.
Appreciate you having a rest of the day.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.