 Welcome to Digital Asset News, the guitar stories and cryptocurrency digital assets and bring them on bite-sized pieces. Today we're just going to do a quick follow-up to our live stream, which we did a couple hours ago. And what we did this morning was we talked about the three reasons why Bitcoin and cryptocurrency took a big dump, essentially. And really what it came down to was China, China, and just a little information from Grayscale. So the two stories about China was that, in one part, you had China saying that they were going to stop working with cryptocurrency digital assets as far as like the banks, which is weird because we have heard that and they've been banning this for years. So I don't know why this story kept coming up. I think there was one reason which was the fact that they had closed all the loopholes, no more OTC type of buys, which kind of gets Binance out of the picture and a couple other things. So that was expected. It was coming and here it is. And the second piece that we talked about, we talked about Bitcoin miners, the operations being shut down. These are large Bitcoin mining operations. We're talking about BTC and AntPool and all those different things. And it wasn't like the Chinese government just marched in there and said, close it down. They just said cut the power and no more mining in Bitcoin. And this is forcing a lot of these miners to move out of China, which is good news. Unfortunately, for the news and publications, they look at this as negative and people who don't know, they see this as very negative. And of course, because of that, you see the price take a big tumble. On top of that, we also talked about grayscale. They have this lockup period which is going to expire. So over the next right now, actually, and then over the next month or so, you're going to see more of a cell pressure. So there was that part. But the piece that really was interesting and I think is the main crux of what is going on is Bitcoin mining. And it really came down to this article right here, which was Chinese Bitcoin mining pools. See further hash rate plunge on situation shut down order. And we already talked about this and it went into effect on June 18th. It was supposed to really ramp up or actually conclude on June 20th, which was yesterday. Today is June 21st. It is 1 p.m. El Paso, Texas time. So this all made the hash rate power drop. You went from tera hashes of, you know, over 100 tera hashes. Now we're at 90 and it's going to keep dropping because all these big, huge operations, they have to shut down. There's no ifs ands or buts about it because there's no power and they're not going to get power. So when I looked at this, me personally, I was like, this is great news. And of course, the market doesn't respond like that. So what I wanted to do was take a step back and now just listen to me. I want you to hear this from the horse's mouth from people who are in the Bitcoin mining operations. And what I was able to do is talk to Alex Masculi on Alex Masculi's show. And he got me in contact with the CEO of Newmine, and that is Ibrahim Al-Qurd. I think I said his name right, hopefully. And I'm going to interview him because when we talked on the phone, he's over in Europe. We talked on a conversation just this morning after we did the live stream. He said, people understand this is what we want. This is good news. And I'm going to just going to let him explain exactly why this is, exactly what's going on and exactly why this is going to be a boom for the industry as far as Bitcoin mining in Europe and North America, Central America and different places where we needed to get China out of this equation as quickly as possible and let them do whatever they want to do. So we're going to take a look at that. But just so you know, before we get into Newmine, they've been in business since in the early 2013, 14, 15 era, somewhere around there. And they've been doing a lot of things with Bitcoin and crypto mining. They've got different mining rigs that they do for sale. Their services range from just individual mining rigs over to hosting and colocation, also up to mining infrastructure. So very big mining operations. And they've been involved around since let me see, what is it? 2015, yeah. So, yeah, getting access to the cryptocurrency ministry can be challenging. Since 2015, we've simplified the process. And they've gone a long way, done a lot of things. So they are in the thick of it. They know exactly what's going on. So what I'm going to do now is I'm just going to bring on Ibrahim and I'm going to have Alex here and just to hear from them and horse's mouth and after talking to him, I became more bullish than I have as far as like what's going on the situation. So let's just jump right in and let Ibrahim tell you. Already, everybody. So I explained pretty much what's going on with the market. We know it's not doing so hot right now, but like I talked about, it's not so much about the overall view of what it is or what the news makes it out to be. It is the reality that is. And there's only one person that can really help us. Well, actually really two guys. One is my friend, Alex Masioli, over at Trade the Chain co-founder. He's stepping in just to give some insight. Alex, thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. And then also the gentleman I was talking about before, Ibrahim O'Cord. He is the CEO of Newmine. And since he's been in this industry since 2015, the question I got to ask you, Ibrahim, is is this positive or is this negative for the Bitcoin mining community? Yeah, I think that people have a habit of panicking when news like this comes out. And you really got to look at the news and think about what it means for the market long term. I think people just need to chill out and here's why. So two thirds of two thirds, around 66 percent of the world's hash rate comes from China right now for Bitcoin mining. So China controls a massive monopoly of the mining hash power. Now, a lot of people, they talk about, you know, Bitcoin being decentralized and whatnot, but actually two thirds of hash rate comes out of China. So what we've got now is we've had since 2013, China is always buying Bitcoin, putting restrictions on trading, buying this and buying that. And now they finally kind of put the nail on the coffin for the miners and said, get out. So what we're seeing now is a massive movement of Chinese miners outside of China to jurisdictions that are much more friendly. Now, the Chinese government and China as a whole is known for not liking things that they can't control. And crypto is a perfect example of something that the government can't control. So now what's going to happen is you can have this big shift of miners outside of China into places like North America, which have much more crypto friendly laws in place. And it's great for, you know, North American mining companies or people that do business in North America like us, because now we've got a massive demand for miners wanting to work outside of China. So it's been it's been great for us. Perfect. So so this leading to two questions. First of all, as this was approaching, because it started in June 18th, there was the whole shutdown was supposed to happen. And then in June 20th, it was supposed to be end game. That was it. Leading up to this. So the first question before you bring him is, how have you seen the response from the people who are reaching out to you and what they want to do as far as relocation? And then Alex, the next question for you, because I know you you still have your your foot in the waters as far as hedge funds and the different people. What has been your consensus as people have reached out and actually talk to you about Bitcoin? So Ibrahim, I'll ask you first. Sure. So people, people that mine is, you know, Chinese miners and other miners that really, really desperate to get to get any sort of hosting capacity that they can get because it's so sold out. I mean, we can't really get people hosted for the next couple of months at least, because we're everything is sold out in North America. A lot of Europe as well. So people are willing to pay a massive premium, actually, to get up on mining. So the desperation is evident. And, you know, obviously it's good if you're on the selling end. But it's also, I mean, we saw this back in 2017, where demand far exceeded the supply of, you know, of hosting for machines. So we're seeing something happen again. But, you know, now it's because of China. And, you know, what I've said to the guys I work with and stuff is that the Chinese government have done the best marketing for us that they can ever do, right? If we'll get out and now it's great for business. Yeah, that's perfect. OK, I'll have a follow up in a second. Alex, what do you got for on your side? The people are talking to you like, hey, this is we're all out, or they like, or do they just or do they actually understand what's going on? Big money. Yeah, I mean, there's first of all, the hedge funds institution guys, they have a pretty good understanding, right? They they're, you know, you have people like Ibrahim who are at this level and they have people who want to talk to them, garner as much information facts as possible. I mean, this is timely. I literally just got off the phone 15 minutes ago with a multi-billion dollar traditional hedge fund out of the states that has a sleeve run by a couple of portfolio managers in crypto. And they actually just de-risked their whole all their positions. And during the weekend came out of all positions. So, I mean, that's a telling sign right there. I think it's I think it's a wait and see, try to figure it out approach. But I think it's people like Ibrahim who are going to get a lot of questions, a lot of phone calls asking, you know, what intelligence is on the side and what it how it's going to possibly affect the market. Yeah. So, I mean, so the the fall of question I had, Ibrahim, is all these Chinese Bitcoin miners, did they did they think that this wasn't going to happen or did they just play this a little bit too long? Because it sounds like they're now they're playing catch up when they should have been a little bit. They're being more reactive than proactive, it sounds like. Yeah, I think some of the miners before we saw some transition to outside of China for some of the Chinese miners. But obviously this forced them to get out. But I think that a lot of these because labor is so cheap in China and electricity is often very cheap, they were just trying to prolong this as much as possible. But I think a lot of people saw it coming, right? The Chinese government was cracking down on trading of crypto assets and investing crypto assets. So mining was the next thing they were going to transition to. So I would say a lot of these guys saw it coming, but they wanted to track it out as long as possible. Yeah. So how do you see this playing out over the next weeks and months as far as like setting up mining operations? Because you just said there's so much demand, but there's not enough supply. So how does this all how do you see this moving into the future? Yes, I mean, for companies like us, it's like a scramble to get up and to get as much capacity up as possible, you know, as quickly as possible. You know, one of the concerns is that if we have a very large Chinese client base and then we go into, you know, prolonged bear market, you know, are these guys going to, you know, fulfill their hosting contracts? Right. And the concern there is, you know, if these guys are in China, then it's going to be harder to get them to kind of pay the hosting contracts for these clients that are there. But I think, you know, for us, it's just a scramble to get up as quickly as possible and get hosting capacity as quickly as possible as we can fulfill this, fulfill this. But I mean, we're trying to be as fair as possible. We're trying to maintain demand from, you know, people within Europe and North America and also fulfill some of the Chinese demand as well. Yeah, I don't I mean, to me personally, maybe Alex feels the same way. I don't care where it goes. I don't care if it goes to Europe, I don't care if it was North America, Central America, South America, as long as it's outside of China. So when so when people are talking to you, where where do you see them setting up the majority to where you have cheap electricity? And then the regulations are actually positive for crypto. Is it North America or is there some other place that's a little bit better? I mean, Canada, the U.S. is certain reason for regions that are better, right? Like North Carolina, Washington State, some places in New York. It's usually places with renewable energy sources like hydro power. Within Europe, we've got places like Iceland. You've got Norway, you know, these sort of regions that have renewable energy sources as well. So it depends on where, but usually in each of these continents, you've got places that have good regions to host. I mean, in South America, you've got some incredibly cheap electricity sources and got really cheap labor as well. So sometimes you get all the machines like the S9 is going there because then they're still profitable to run. So it as you said, it doesn't really matter as long as it goes outside of China. I mean, for the educated eye, but a professional eye, in my eyes, China buying crypto mining should pump the price, you know, from along the perspective of the market. Why should it do the market? Yeah, I don't get it. Like, OK, Alex, so we were just on Alex's show. We're doing a live stream and we're talking about this. Alex, why does this not pump the price? Because it should pump the price, right? But no, it's the exact. No, I think it's it's just like low volume Sundays, right? I think, you know, when it comes to mining and you have such a massive ban, as Ibrahim said, 60 something percent plus coming out of China. I think it's a it's a worrisome thing. And now you have this lag time of setting up new operations. And so when we're talking from the trading side on the show about, you know, range bound sideways trading in the market going throughout the summer, I mean, think of what Ibrahim's talking about right here and think about the time and effort that it's going to take to set up all new mining farms. It's it's it's it's put a pause in the market, so to speak, right now. Exactly. But but even just like we talked about on the phone, even though these Bitcoin mining operations are shutting down, the the difficulty level should also decrease as well. So so it sounds like that would be like a win for like a small time a small time operation, maybe. Yeah, just for a period, right? So until the there's more hosting past the outside of China to fulfill the demand on these machines have to be physically transported over. So right now it takes us around two weeks to get machines from China to North America, it takes us around, depends on the volume. Usually a few weeks, you know, several thousand machines take a couple of weeks to install, right? So there's going to be this this period where we're likely to see a reduction in hash rate, but it's not going to be for long, right? Because a lot of these guys will be able to get these machines back online as the hosting capacity goes online. And these data centers are built. I mean, now you've got a lot of even custom custom produced shipping containers that are used for mining. So of mining has been around since Bitcoin has been around since people work cryptocurrency has been around. So people have engineered systems that can get up and mining very quickly. So it doesn't take very long to get a mining container or data center up and running. Can I ask Abraham a philosophical market question? Absolutely. Let's hear it. Even though even though it's going to only take, let's say a couple of weeks before they're up and running, is that just a tad too long at this point for the retail participants in the market to hang on to, let's say, for lack of a better word, hope, could this be, could this precipitate a downward market just because of the time decay that it's taking to relocate these machines? And of course, this is just a gut feeling of yours I'm asking. Yeah. I think, I think generally the retail investors have taken this news to be negative. So I think the, you know, the cascade of down, downwards perception is already happened. It's happening and it's already happened, right? And, you know, it doesn't, it won't take much more news, bad news to drag the market down, you know? This market is very fragile. I mean, just, you know, we've seen the impact that someone like Elon Musk has had on the market where he can actually pump the price or dump the price based on tweets, right? So now we've got an entire government which is anti-crypto and, you know, it's been anti-crypto for a very long time. But what I say is, you know, China can't do much more damage to crypto now. They've done a lot of controls on the trading. Now they've banned the mining. So that's it in terms of the damage that the Chinese can do, which is great, okay? So, you know, when Bitcoin is in the long term, most likely going to be considerably more than it is now. It's going to be, you know, much healthier for the space. Yeah. I gotta agree. Like I'm always so sick about the same stories over and over again, like the one we just talked about. So now if we can get rid of China and nothing against the Chinese people, it's the Chinese government. If they want to go this route, that's fine. That's fine. Allow us to flourish and actually grow the cryptocurrency space. This is great. I feel like it's great news, but again, like Ibrahim and Alex said, it's not going to be seen like that. But you at home watching this video, just remember a lot of negative news is going to come out. Take a look at this video, share this video so people will understand that this is actually a positive thing moving forward for the rest of the five billion people in the world. So we lost 1.4 billion people. Sorry, China, but that's how it goes. That's how it is. Sonia, before we take off, any last words of wisdom for everybody? Alex, I'll start with you for the crypto investor. Yeah, I mean, at this point, unless you're a retail investor and you need the money, there's no point in selling out of your position at this moment, I don't think. That's just my opinion. We've spoken about it. I think we're going to be range bound for a little bit. I think what Ibrahim has explained will kind of paint the bottom. And we'll be a healthier market moving forward. Yeah, Ibrahim, what do you got for the person right now shaking in their boots going, what's happened? Yeah, I think everyone just needs to chill out, stop looking at the news too much. Stop listening to fools like Elon Musk, with their tweets and whatnot. Just play the long game. The wealthiest people in the crypto world have just played the long game. They've huddled. Look at the Winklevoss twins, right? They don't care what Elon Musk says, what China says, what anyone says. They bought Bitcoin and they've just held onto it for a long period of time. And now they're billionaires as a result. Your stash of crypto might not be worth billions one day, but if you're a patient and you don't panic sell, it could be worth considerably more than it is now. Ibrahim, I like your style. I'm going to have you. Hopefully you can come back on the show. Perfect response. All right, everybody. So thanks for coming on. I appreciate both of you guys really do. And let's jump back. Okay, so that's it. So I hope that cleared up a lot of misconceptions about what is going on. This is a reminder you're going to hear a lot of negativity over the next days, weeks and months, as far as like mining operation, but try to refer back to this video and actually share it with friends and family or whoever is in crypto. So they know exactly what's going on. Don't get used to the FUD. Really dig deep and find the right answer. So if you like this video and you found value, give it a thumbs up. Also consider subscribing. I think we talk about our very time sensitive on this channel and that is it for today. So thanks so much. Appreciate it. See you on the next one.