Episode notes
_*"Our little home controller, building controller, it knows our electric rate, it knows the way that electric rate changes based on the time of day. It knows the PV flux, the solar flux from the solar panels. So it knows if there's excess power that the building's not using.
It also knows our natural gas rate. It also knows the Bitcoin price and the network difficulty. This is all just in our software.
And in real time, our building can choose, it can flip between heating with gas or with hashrate to save you the most money."*_
_*~ Tyler Stevens*_
I am constantly shocked by how much of our everyday infrastructure is basically begging for a Bitcoin upgrade. Almost half of the world's energy is used for heat, and a quarter of it is just "comfort heat" to keep our homes and water warm. What if we generated all of that with bitcoin miners instead?
I sat down with Tyler Stevens, a former aerospace thermal engineer who is currently helping spearhead the Hashrate Heatpunks movement. I’ve been running my own hacky miner-heater setup downstairs to survive the winter, but Tyler and the guys at the 256 Foundation are taking this to an entirely different scale. We talked about stripping away our reliance on monopolistic giants like Bitmain and finally building a fully open-source mining stack.
The stakes here are high. If even a fraction of normal households swap their standard electric heating elements for ASIC chips, we're looking at a huge decentralization shift for the grid and an explosion in Bitcoin's security budget. We also get into the reality of sovereign smart homes, avoiding creepy cloud-connected thermostats, and why the "energy waste" critics are entirely blind to how thermodynamics actually works. This was an incredibly fun conversation and it proves we are still incredibly early to what home mining will eventually look like.
*Chapters*
(00:00:00) - Introduction to Hashing for Heat
(00:02:55) - Tyler Stevens and the Heat Punks community
(00:11:10) - The economics of unprofitable home mining
(00:17:39) - Replacing global comfort heat with ASIC chips
(00:19:30) - Why Bitcoin miners are fully efficient resistive heaters
(00:26:42) - Capital expenditure savings against traditional gas furnaces
(00:32:47) - Routing solar, gas, and hash rate automatically
(00:38:52) - Why local smart thermostats beat corporate cloud options
(00:44:50) - The challenge of retrofitting commercial hardware for homes
(00:50:31) - Rebuilding the open-source mining stack with 256 Foundation
(00:58:11) - Corporate backdoors and the true risk of closed firmware
(01:09:54) - Connecting water-cooled miners to residential HVAC ducts
(01:22:31) - Fixing failed residential solar economics with Bitcoin computation
(01:30:27) - Using protocols to build a fully decentralized energy grid
(01:42:27) - 256 Foundation fundraising efforts and grant program
(01:50:03) - Closing thoughts
*Guest Links*
Tyler on X (Link: https://twitter.com/tylerkstevens)
Exergy's Website (Link: https://exergyheat.com/)
256 Foundation's Website (Link: https://www.256foundation.org/)
Hashrate Heatpunks' Website (Link: https://heatpunks.org/)
The Space's Website (Link: https://denver.space/)
*Affiliate Links*
- Become sovereign, hold your keys, be censorship resistant with the Bitbox hardware wallet. Get 5% off everything in the store with code GUY (Link: https://bitbox.swiss/)
- Get 10% off the COLDCARD with code BITCOINAUDIBLE (Link: https://bitcoinaudible.com/coldcard)
- Get 10% off the best Bitcoin board game in the world, HODLUP! Or any of the other great games from The Free Market Kids! Use code GUY10 at checkout for 10% off your cart! (Link: https://www.freemarketkids.com/collections/games-1)
*Host Links*
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
It also knows our natural gas rate. It also knows the Bitcoin price and the network difficulty. This is all just in our software.
And in real time, our building can choose, it can flip between heating with gas or with hashrate to save you the most money."*_
_*~ Tyler Stevens*_
I am constantly shocked by how much of our everyday infrastructure is basically begging for a Bitcoin upgrade. Almost half of the world's energy is used for heat, and a quarter of it is just "comfort heat" to keep our homes and water warm. What if we generated all of that with bitcoin miners instead?
I sat down with Tyler Stevens, a former aerospace thermal engineer who is currently helping spearhead the Hashrate Heatpunks movement. I’ve been running my own hacky miner-heater setup downstairs to survive the winter, but Tyler and the guys at the 256 Foundation are taking this to an entirely different scale. We talked about stripping away our reliance on monopolistic giants like Bitmain and finally building a fully open-source mining stack.
The stakes here are high. If even a fraction of normal households swap their standard electric heating elements for ASIC chips, we're looking at a huge decentralization shift for the grid and an explosion in Bitcoin's security budget. We also get into the reality of sovereign smart homes, avoiding creepy cloud-connected thermostats, and why the "energy waste" critics are entirely blind to how thermodynamics actually works. This was an incredibly fun conversation and it proves we are still incredibly early to what home mining will eventually look like.
*Chapters*
(00:00:00) - Introduction to Hashing for Heat
(00:02:55) - Tyler Stevens and the Heat Punks community
(00:11:10) - The economics of unprofitable home mining
(00:17:39) - Replacing global comfort heat with ASIC chips
(00:19:30) - Why Bitcoin miners are fully efficient resistive heaters
(00:26:42) - Capital expenditure savings against traditional gas furnaces
(00:32:47) - Routing solar, gas, and hash rate automatically
(00:38:52) - Why local smart thermostats beat corporate cloud options
(00:44:50) - The challenge of retrofitting commercial hardware for homes
(00:50:31) - Rebuilding the open-source mining stack with 256 Foundation
(00:58:11) - Corporate backdoors and the true risk of closed firmware
(01:09:54) - Connecting water-cooled miners to residential HVAC ducts
(01:22:31) - Fixing failed residential solar economics with Bitcoin computation
(01:30:27) - Using protocols to build a fully decentralized energy grid
(01:42:27) - 256 Foundation fundraising efforts and grant program
(01:50:03) - Closing thoughts
*Guest Links*
Tyler on X (Link: https://twitter.com/tylerkstevens)
Exergy's Website (Link: https://exergyheat.com/)
256 Foundation's Website (Link: https://www.256foundation.org/)
Hashrate Heatpunks' Website (Link: https://heatpunks.org/)
The Space's Website (Link: https://denver.space/)
*Affiliate Links*
- Become sovereign, hold your keys, be censorship resistant with the Bitbox hardware wallet. Get 5% off everything in the store with code GUY (Link: https://bitbox.swiss/)
- Get 10% off the COLDCARD with code BITCOINAUDIBLE (Link: https://bitcoinaudible.com/coldcard)
- Get 10% off the best Bitcoin board game in the world, HODLUP! Or any of the other great games from The Free Market Kids! Use code GUY10 at checkout for 10% off your cart! (Link: https://www.freemarketkids.com/collections/games-1)
*Host Links*
Guy on Nostr (Link: http://tinyurl.com/2xc96ney)
Guy on X (Link: https://twitter.com/theguyswann)
Guy on Instagram (Link: https://www.instagram.com/theguyswann)
Guy on TikTok (Link: https://www.tiktok.com/@theguyswann)
Guy on YouTube (Link: https://www.youtube.com/@theguyswann)
Bitcoin Audible on X (Link: https://twitter.com/BitcoinAudible)
The Guy Swann Network Broadcast Room on Keet (Link: https://tinyurl.com/3na6v839)
