Nation State Hash Wars
summary
Argues that national governments already control enough underutilized energy to materially tilt Bitcoin security: US Army Corps hydro is ~20 GW producing 80–100 TWh a year, 25% larger than the US commercial mining fleet while global mining uses ~200 TWh; China curtailment rises toward ~100 TWh by 2025 and companies like Bitmain supply ~97% of top ASICs. Gives proofs of concept (Bhutan, El Salvador), estimates 20–40 TWh wasted → ~15–25k BTC/year, and outlines defenses from hardcoded checkpoints to radical consensus changes.
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chapters (8)
- 0:00Introduction
- 4:55US energy assets
- 9:51Nation-states dominate Bitcoin mining
- 12:41China’s energy & hardware edge
- 17:01Game theory: states vs miners
- 20:54Consensus changes to prevent capture
- 23:43Crossing into hash wars
- 24:31Q&A
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