The Mining Disrupt news update for Monday, September 4, 2023 covered two stories: Cambridge's revision of its Bitcoin electricity index, and the question the host said was on seemingly everyone's mind that week, namely when spot Bitcoin ETFs would arrive. The episode runs just under seven minutes. It opens with the show's usual disclaimer that everything said is for entertainment and education, and a reminder to do your own research before investing in anything.
The numbers that week
As on every episode, the host started on timechaincalendar.com. The exchange rate read $25,981 for a single bitcoin, or 3,847 sats for one dollar. Fees were, as he put it, a little wonky: both fee tiers on the site showed nine sats per vbyte, yet transactions paying less than seven were being purged. His advice was practical. Bump the fee to 10 or 12 sats per vbyte and the transaction makes the next block. The hashrate figure for the previous 14 days stood at 389.5, still just under 400.
He also pointed viewers to tickets for Mining Disrupt 2024, then set for Miami, Florida, June 24 to 27, before moving to the news.
Cambridge revises its power estimate
The first story opened with the familiar comparisons: Bitcoin's power use set against tumble dryers, toasters and whole nation states. The item, from Decrypt, reported that Cambridge had updated its Bitcoin electricity consumption index and that its earlier estimates had been greatly overestimated. The largest gap was in 2021, when the previous model put Bitcoin's electricity consumption at 104 terawatt-hours, 15 terawatt-hours above the revised estimate of 89.0.
The host's takeaway was that the network's energy profile is not fixed. Figures that may have been accurate a year, two years or three years earlier are not necessarily accurate now, because the fleet of machines changes, and the power consumption changes with it.
you can't continually assume that the computers the machines the devices that were used in previous years are still being used
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 2:29
A CNBC clip on approval
The ETF segment began with a clip from CNBC. The guest, who is not named in the episode, was asked whether they would have approved a spot product if they were in the chair. The guest declined to answer that directly and instead restated what they had been saying as the market developed: that Bitcoin is not a security, and that retail investors, institutional investors and some of the most trusted fiduciary providers all wanted the product.
it is clear that Bitcoin is something that retail investors want access to
CNBC guest · 2:58
The guest added that the split between a futures product and a cash product could not go on forever, and that this was the path the market was on.
The peanut analogy
The host then recast the ETF race as an analogy. Picture a nut processing plant that sells Brazil nuts, cashews, pecans and walnuts but has no real presence in peanuts. For the sake of the analogy, peanuts are Bitcoin. The first step for a big producer that wants into peanuts is to spread awareness: tell the world it is coming, perhaps with new packaging, and that it will bring peanuts to a wide audience.
the best way to make a lot of money is to get as many people interested in peanuts as possible
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 3:53
In his telling, if the producer went to the food governing board too early and got approval at once, it would ask the board to wait, because only one percent of the population is even aware of peanuts. The puzzled board would ask whether the producer wanted to sell peanuts at all. It does, the producer answers, but it needs more people interested before it can sell them and make a lot of money.
The second step is the press. Here the host made his sharpest claim, about BlackRock and the media:
BlackRock basically controls most of the major media outlets at this point
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 4:32
The episode offers no evidence for that claim; it is the host's view. In the analogy, word spreads that the biggest producer in the game is getting into peanuts, people start looking into them and buying where they can, slowly accumulating. Only then does the producer return to the board and ask for approval. Once the stamp arrives, peanuts are everywhere and everybody is interested in them.
JPMorgan and the Grayscale ruling
The analogy led into a news item from watcher.guru. JPMorgan Chase said the SEC would likely have to approve multiple spot Bitcoin ETFs, leaving the regulator with no major choice after years of rejections. The piece argued that the SEC was running out of reasons to deny spot products while futures products operated without issues, and that Grayscale's court win the week before had turned up the heat, even though the SEC had yet to shift from its hesitant stance.
No brokerage account required
One clause in that article drew the host's objection: its suggestion that spot ETFs would let investors reach Bitcoin directly through a brokerage account.
you don't need a brokerage account to gain direct exposure to bitcoin
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 5:59
Anyone can buy Bitcoin now, he said, through hundreds of routes, with or without KYC, from a miner or from a friend. And there is one way to know for certain that you hold it.
the way that you know for a fact unquestionably that you have that Bitcoin is you take it into self-custody
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 6:17
For a newcomer, the distinction is between owning a claim on Bitcoin held by a custodian, which is what an ETF share or a brokerage position gives you, and holding the coins yourself with your own keys. The first is convenient; the second removes the third party.
Three rules and a bet on scarcity
He closed with what he called the three rules of Bitcoin, from a video he credited to the creator British HODL (the captions read it as "British huddle"): buy Bitcoin, keep quiet about it, and get fabulously wealthy. He suggested watching the whole video and gave his own summary of it.
BlackRock understands Bitcoin they unquestionably know what it is and they want a piece of that absolute scarcity
Mining Disrupt News Surge host · 6:45
Four months later, on January 10, 2024, the SEC approved the first spot Bitcoin ETFs, BlackRock's among them. The episode was published on September 5, 2023, when Bitcoin traded at $25,766. As of October 25, 2026, it trades at $79,649.
The conversation continues at Mining Disrupt 2027, March 22 to 24 in Irving, Texas.