The first episode of the Mining Disrupt News Surge's Bitcoin mining news segment went out on Monday, July 3, 2023. The host opened on timechaincalendar.com: one Bitcoin for a little over $30,000, one dollar for 3,322 sats, block height 796,320, and a 14-day hashrate of 361.9 exahashes per second. A difficulty adjustment had just landed, so the average block time sat at exactly ten minutes. From there the episode covered three stories: record miner deposits to exchanges, Riot's U.S.-assembled MicroBT order, and a gas-powered mining shed in outback Queensland.
Record miner deposits to exchanges
The first story came from Cointelegraph. In a June 27 post, the on-chain analytics platform Glassnode reported an all-time high in miner revenue sent to exchanges, describing "extremely high exchange interaction" from Bitcoin miners. Miners had sent a record $128 million to exchanges over the past week, equal to 315 percent of their daily revenue.
The article set that against the economics of the time. Mining profitability had slumped more than 30 percent since July of the year before and was down over 80 percent from the peak of the 2021 bull market. Hashrate was near a record at 377 exahashes per second, difficulty was at its peak, and energy prices were higher. Selling mined Bitcoin, the article said, may prove an unpleasant necessity to cover expenses. Even so, the price had not reacted: it stayed slightly above $30,000 at publication, and the host noted it was still there as he recorded.
That was the part that stood out to him. With that much Bitcoin moving from miners to exchanges and no major price swing, and with spot Bitcoin ETF applications being filed at the same time, he asked what the coming days, weeks and months would bring as more people adopted a Bitcoin standard.
Riot's MicroBT machines, assembled in Pittsburgh
The second story was Blockworks' report on Riot's deal with MicroBT to build Bitcoin miners in the U.S. rather than China. The host said he had heard Pierre Rochard call it a big deal a few days earlier.
The machines would come from a new facility in Pittsburgh and go to Riot's Corsicana site in Navarro County, Texas, where Riot had broken ground the previous October on a one-gigawatt expansion, slated to be bigger than its 700-megawatt Rockdale facility. The initial order under the long-term purchase agreement was 33,280 machines for roughly $163 million, or $21.50 per terahash, with an option to buy another 66,560 machines at the same price before the end of 2024.
Riot had previously chartered jets and paid expensive shipping costs to get machines delivered from overseas. Riot's chief executive said the arrangement "de-risks the logistics", since trucks could now carry the miners from Pennsylvania to Texas. Delivery was expected to start in December 2023, with deployment in the first quarter of 2024, raising Riot's hashrate to 20.1 exahashes per second. Against the 14-day network average of 361 exahashes per second, the host worked that out to about five and a half percent of the total.
that's about five and a half percent of the total hashrate that is no small player in this space
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 4:28
A mining donga in outback Queensland
The last story took the map from Corsicana to Quilpie Shire in Queensland, Australia, a place the host said he had never heard of before reading about it. Zoomed out on the satellite view, it was barren country with little infrastructure, and Bitcoin mining.
I would say the ngu aspect of Bitcoin is the least interesting thing about it
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 5:28
He said he first came to Bitcoin for "number go up", and that energy produced in places where little else is going on is what interests him now. The story was from ABC News in Australia: Bengal Energy had launched a Bitcoin mining donga project in outback Queensland, described as the first of its kind in the country.
Since early 2023, the Canadian company had run a pilot on the property of the shire's mayor, a sheep grazier whose family were early settlers of Queensland's Channel Country. The donga, a basic demountable shed, held 66 machines and ran on untapped natural gas from local wells that could not be delivered to the national grid. NBN satellites connected it to the internet. The mayor had not been familiar with cryptocurrency before he was approached, but said the project was exciting for a region with a long history of oil and gas. Production had been due to start the year before, but was stalled by wet weather.
A Bengal Energy representative described the setup as simple. Gas comes out of the ground at the wellhead, passes through a choke valve that reduces pressure, then through a long heating coil, and into a gas generator. A three-phase power cable runs to the donga, which holds two racks of computers and a server, and a satellite link connects it to the internet. Teams in Brisbane and Canada monitor it remotely; he called it "set and forget".
The host also took issue with one line in the piece, which said the energy was used to "power Bitcoin". Miners are what power Bitcoin, he said; the wording was odd, though not exactly inaccurate.
Criticism, and a Texas comparison
The ABC piece also carried the energy criticism. It cited a paper in Scientific Reports, published the year before, which put Bitcoin mining's 2020 energy use above that of Austria or Portugal, with emissions as a share of market value comparable to the beef industry. University of Queensland economist John Quiggin said the more expensive Bitcoin is, the more energy it takes to generate it.
For comparison, the article quoted the co-founder and chief executive of Giga Energy, a U.S. company that had run a similar flare-gas model in Texas since 2019. At first, he said, oil producers gave them confused looks and thought it was the most ridiculous idea in the world. By 2023, he said, gas-powered mining was booming, and oil and gas conferences had a Bitcoin mining section.
The article closed with the mayor hoping more companies would use stranded gas wells for new projects. The host agreed, and said he looked forward to seeing more ways people find to harness energy.
Then and now
On July 3, 2023, Bitcoin closed at $30,652; the host's screen showed just over $30,000 during the recording. On October 26, 2026 it was $80,299. The episode is a snapshot of mid-2023: miners selling into a flat market, Riot moving MicroBT assembly to the U.S., and small gas-fired sites at remote wells.