🎢 Riot’s Rollercoaster to Riches

^{"Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go."}

— Unknown

👋 Friends, Rallie here. Like leaves in the wind, we’re floating into your inbox with the latest in crypto, finance, and tech.

On the menu:

• 🎢 Riot’s Rollercoaster to Riches

• 🗞️ Headlines That Hit

• 📈 Refresh: Bitcoin Mining

• 💯 Top Tweets

The Rallie Recap

🎢 Riding the Bitcoin rollercoaster, Riot Platforms turns a Texan power play into a golden ticket. Here’s the skinny:

• Once riding the golden Bitcoin wave in 2021, more recently Bitcoin Mining company, Riot Platforms, finds itself paddling up a fiscal creek without a cryptocurrency paddle.

• That is, except in the month of August, when the company raked in $31.7 million in energy credits from Texas power grid operator ERCOT.

• For those in the dark, Bitcoin Mining is less about helmets and pickaxes, more about supercomputers solving monstrous math problems. Nail a problem, add a block to the blockchain, and cha-ching— earn some Bitcoin! (Be sure to read the refresh below for a more in-dept explanation).

• Sadly, the green moolah these machines rake in is counterbalanced by the vast amounts of electric green they consume.

• Riot's savvy move? Keeping the Texan lights on. The company curbed their digital digging during a heatwave, selling power back to Texas' grid. How's that for being a good neighbor?

• The result? A cool $31.7M USD in energy credits from ERCOT, Texas's power grid operator. To put it in perspective, this dwarfed their August Bitcoin haul, a mere $8.9M USD.

• “August was a landmark month for Riot in showcasing the benefits of our unique power strategy,” said Jason Les, CEO of Riot, in the company’s press release. “The effects of these credits significantly lower Riot’s cost to mine Bitcoin and are a key element in making Riot one of the lowest cost producers of bitcoin in the industry.”

• Still, Riot's rollercoaster finance tale saw them zooming along in 2021 but crash-landing in 2022 with a $500M USD net loss.

• 2023 seems hopeful. Their stock has sprung up like a Jack-in-the-Box, rising 230%.

• Meanwhile, Texas and its power grid ERCOT have a decent deal with miners, basically saying, ‘You scratch our back during peak power times, and we'll make sure your wallet feels heavier.’

• Fun fact: Unlike the rest of the US, Texas runs on its independent grid system, ERCOT. This makes Bitcoin miners not just profit chasers but also, unwittingly, Texas' energy guardians.

• As the saga unfolds, will Riot continue its dance with Texas? Keep your popcorn ready!

Headlines That Hit

• 🖥️ Feeling chipper. Apple has struck a deal with chip architecture maker, Arm, through 2040 and “beyond.”

• 📈 Cathie FTW. Asset managers ARK Invest and 21Shares have applied for regulatory approval for an exchange-traded fund (ETF) that would directly hold ether (ETH).

• 🏀 Go team! Reddit Kicks Off Football Season With NFTs of Every NFL Team.

• 🔒 Straight to jail! Ryan Salame, co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, who handled political donations for the crypto exchange, is pleading guilty.

Rallie Refresh: Bitcoin Mining

Ever found yourself scratching your head at the term "Bitcoin Mining"? In the universe of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin stands tall as the pioneer. Here's what you need to know about how it’s mined:

• Purpose: Bitcoin mining's primary goal is to validate transactions and secure the Bitcoin network.

• Process: Using computational power, miners (which is basically expensive hardware) work to solve complex mathematical problems.

• Rewards: When miners successfully solve these problems, they are rewarded with newly minted bitcoins.

• Proof-of-Work: This is the name of the system that ensures the network's security by making problems challenging to solve but easy to verify.

• Mining Pools: Miners often form groups, pooling their computational power together to solve problems faster and share the rewards.

• Decentralization: There's no central authority in Bitcoin; the process is decentralized and maintained by the Bitcoin community.

• Limited Supply: There's a cap on Bitcoin: only 21 million will ever exist, which is why many want to mine it while they’re still able to.

• Halving: Every four years, the reward miners receive for solving problems is halved.

• Energy Intensity: The mining process is notoriously power-hungry, consuming significant amounts of energy.

• End Game: When all 21 million bitcoins have been mined, miners will no longer receive new bitcoins as rewards but will rely on transaction fees.

Enjoying The Weekly Rallie? Help us grow by sending a referral our way! 😁

Trending Tweets

Our fav funnies to get you through the day.

Congrats, you made it to the end!

That's all for today. Stay hungry & we'll catch you next time. ✌️

DISCLAIMER: This is not financial or legal advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions