Paving the Path to Decentralization with Mike Colyer

My guest today is Mike Colyer, CEO of Foundry. Foundry was created to meet the institutional demand for better capital access, efficiency, and transparency in the digital currency mining and staking industry. As a Digital Currency Group company, Foundry taps unparalleled institutional expertise, capital, and market intelligence to provide North American bitcoin miners and global manufacturers with the resources to build, maintain, and secure decentralized networks. Foundry empowers miners with the tools they need to build tomorrow’s decentralized infrastructure. We are protocol-agnostic and seek to support like-minded blockchain entrepreneurs who share our mission to advance the industry. Mike joined Foundry as its founding CEO in October 2019. Previously, Mike led business development at Core Scientific, which, during his tenure, grew into North America’s largest cryptocurrency hosting company. He was the President and COO of Savage IO, a small, Western NY-based 3MW mining company, where he continues to serve as a Board member. Mike has spent the last 4 years navigating the large-scale mining space, building strong relationships with key industry participants. Before his pivot into the crypto industry, Mike was an operational and commercial executive for manufacturing and distribution firms for more than two decades, often serving at the behest of private-equity backers. Mike started his career at GE. In 2007, Mike and his wife, Lisa, co-founded the Clairebear Foundation, a non-profit that supports families with sick children. Mike graduated from the State University of New York at Buffalo with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering and an MBA in Corporate Finance. In our discussion we do a deep dive into Bitcoin mining by discussing mining vs buying spot, mining infrastructure, the evolution of ASICs and the institutionalization of the space and much more. We discuss some best practices and some of the pitfalls when starting a mining operation. Mike does an excellent job at explaining why he believes the next big parties who will enter the mining space are going to be nation states and energy conglomerates. Mike stresses that he believes Bitcoin mining will become akin to most utility companies by the end of the century. We discuss the Bitcoin network and how pool infrastructure works. Mike also discusses how Foundry is empowering decentralized infrastructure. Another major topic of discussion is how efficiency drives all aspects of reality. We finish our discussion by talking about the importance of decentralization and how honest projects strive towards becoming more decentralized over time. Please enjoy my conversation with Mike Colyer.

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