Each time I run a retreat with a client, I set myself one goal: improve at least one thing each time. This time it was the "make everything we do as memorable as possible"

The leading device is simple, and research-backed. We anchor what we learn to where we learn it. Sit in one room the whole time and it blurs together. Move through different places, each with its own sounds, sights and smells, and every conversation gets its own anchor.

So in Costa Rica where I live, we sat outside whenever we could, beside birdsong in different parts of San José. One session was at a local slow food restaurant serving some incredible local cuisine. Paid for in Bitcoin, of course (check out La Galería Slow Food and say "hi" to the owner Jorge next time you're in).

Here are some of the places we sat in the montage below.

The results:
He just left me a voice note "I feel like a completely different person. and I still can't believe how much we covered in just 3 days." He sent out new proposals while we were there, and he says his clients are picking up on his new vibe.

Not all of this was down to where we sat. Some was the breathwork he's now integrated, and plenty was other aspects of the co-work we did together. But this is my 40th retreat I've run, and if I can make every one 2% better, then this one is roughly121% better than my first.

Next retreat is in a couple of months, and this time it is a group retreat. The last innovation is locked in, and I've just started brainstorming what the next innovation will be that can make it even better.

Low time preference is trainable.

We talk about low time preference like it's something that the process of holding sound money does to us.

Hold Bitcoin, and you defer gratification by default. ie: don't spend today what could be worth more tomorrow.

This is true, holding Bitcoin does lower our time preference. It's also a skill you can build directly

Turns out that part has been measured across hundreds of studies.

The underlying skill is the ability to choose the larger reward later over the smaller one now. You train it with your own imagination.

When people picture a specific future in vivid detail, they discount it less and wait for the bigger reward more often.

Researchers call it "episodic future thinking". In randomized tests it measurably lowered how steeply people discounted the future.

If you make your future concrete enough, you will value it enough to wait for it.

One concrete example (of many): put friction between impulse and action, such as the "wait 10 minutes" rule before a purchase, snack, or reply to someone who just said something ignorant about Bitcoin on social media. You're not banning the thing. You are inserting a delay so the impulse passes and the deliberate choice gets a chance to take over. Over time, the pause becomes automatic.

Low time preference is a muscle that can be trained.

Question:

Bitcoin mining companies, especially in Europe, seem to be expanding fast to meet the demand from both the grid and AI datacenters for flexible load.

When they do this, they often have short term financing needs (due to short lags between equipment purchases and deployments), which can be secured by slow-depreciating assets such as transformers and other electrical infrastructure (not fast-depreciating ASICS)

Many seem prepared to do short term finance, paying up to 2% per month, so they can expand faster.

I'm not personally familiar with this sort of fully secured short term loan financing, but keen to see if I can support the growth of Bitcoin mining on our grids.

Any ideas who does this sort of thing?

When I was in Madrid for the MadBitcoin conference, i got talking to Michal Nydrle about how Bitcoin mining's potential to transform our grids

He say he'd had his mind blown. Have had several comments like this since.

Turns out, how Bitcoin mining transforms the way humans do energy is as much of a rabbit hole as how Bitcoin transforms the way humans do money.

Almost nobody is connecting Bitcoin mining profitability-squeeze to the rise of Bitcoin mining companies earning grid-revenue

We are moving from the age of mining monoculture (Sats only) to mining permaculture (multiple revenue streams, multiple uses in parallel)

If you read news media about mining this week: you'll get the "20% of miners unprofitable", "below production cost for five months", "hashrate down 12%"

- in other words, you'll get the un-nuanced, single-dimension, skewed-negative coverage that every one else gets.

If you listen to people on the inside, you'll get the real story
- Mining will never be unprofitable because there are multiple ancillary revenue sources
- You can mine for an effective -2.67c/KWh if you're also providing grid stabilization through your ASICS
- Bitcoin mining (where the miner has ancillary revenue) is an attractive asymmetric bet because never has it been so clear it solves so many of the world's energy problems in parallel. The world's utilities and grid operators are now a hair's breadth away from realizing this.

Not investment advice.

This year you'll see me do a lot more of this: jumping on non-Bitcoin podcasts to educate people about the value of Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining

Contrary to what you might thing: most people are curious and highly receptive.

This pod was with people in the energy sector who said to me afterwards it was one of the most mindblowing podcasts they'd had.

Listen on Wired For Energy website:
https://www.wiredforenergy.org/bitcoin-climate-villain-or-solution-with-daniel-batten/

Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6GkN3w5Z8guaMnRuXXo3pu

Apple:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-climate-villain-or-solution-with-daniel-batten/id1808796551?i=1000773196932

Just in: Oman just launched a (mandatory) National Bitcoin Mining Pool.

Interesting paradox:
It is also a State-Backed Push for Regulatory Control that will help decentralize mining pools, particularly if more governments do this.

Context: Oman is in the middle of a $700M+ push into industrial-scale Bitcoin mining

If you're wondering who is gaining hashrate as US pubcos shed it,
Bitdeer just quietly became the world's largest Bitcoin mining company by hashrate. 70 EH, representing ~7% of global hashrate.

Carbon fiber for spacecraft was an accidental secondary application from the textile industry

GPUs had an accidental secondary application that changed the world for AI, originally from the gaming industry

Bitcoin's accidental secondary application could also change the world faster than its original application.