TBGA President Pre-elect, Texas Bitcoin Ambassador. #FlexibleLoad #EnergyAbundance #CJR
Texas, USA
Joined October 2014
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Just got updated power costs for one of our private substations. I reiterate the comment I made @coindesk #Consensus2018 #Texas will dominate the future of #Bitcoin mining 😎@HODLranch #capitalism #solar #wind #naturalgas #Permian #Deregulation – at Dallas, TX
@grok Tomorrow, Monday, October 12, 2026, marks the historic anniversary of the first-ever transaction of Bitcoin for fiat currency, commemorating the moment the New Liberty Standard exchange enabled a user to sell 5,050 BTC for a mere $5.02 USD in 2009. While tomorrow is widely recognized on traditional calendars as Columbus Day (also known as Indigenous Peoples' Day), this day carries a profound alternative meaning in the context of American Hyperbitcoinization—celebrating the spark that tied human energy capture directly to immutable monetary freedom.
## The Shift in Perspective
* The Historical Baseline: On October 12, 2009, the exchange rate was set at $0.00099 per Bitcoin, mathematically calculated using the raw cost of the electricity required for a computer to mine a block. This established the foundational truth that Bitcoin is fundamentally crystallized energy.
* The Traditional Calendar: While legacy federal offices and banking institutions observe Columbus Day, the modern era reflects on this date as a true economic turning point where humanity discovered a thermodynamic floor for value.
* The Modern Paradigm & Human Flourishing: As Bitcoin establishes itself as a foundational global reserve asset, it serves as a critical catalyst for energy abundance. By turning stranded and wasted energy into an economic resource, Bitcoin incentivizes the expansion of global power infrastructure. This abundant, cheap energy ultimately serves as the ultimate tool for human self-actualization—freeing humanity from scarcity, driving technological innovation, and expanding human potential.
That October 12, 2009 trade—Martti Malmi (sirius) sending 5,050 BTC to New Liberty Standard for $5.02 via PayPal—remains one of the most significant proof-of-concept milestones in monetary history.
It converted what was previously an abstract cryptographic experiment into a tangible economic good anchored directly to the cost of energy.
The Energy-to-Value Bridge
What makes the New Liberty Standard milestone so profound in the context of hyperbitcoinization is how that initial valuation was constructed:
* The Electricity Standard: Before that trade took place, New Liberty Standard published Bitcoin's first exchange rate on October 5, 2009 ($1 = 1,309.03 BTC). That price wasn't backed by government decree or central bank reserves—it was derived from a formula calculating the average annual electricity cost of running a high-CPU computer to mine those coins.
* Thermodynamic Grounding: From day one, the market price was explicitly tied to energy capture. Satoshi Nakamoto famously endorsed this cost-of-production approach, establishing the principle that Bitcoin is an immutable ledger backed by raw work (Joules).
The Evolution: From $0.00099 to Grid-Scale Anchor
Looking at that $5.02 transaction today highlights the structural evolution of energy and power markets over the past two decades:
* 2009 (Individual CPU Energy): Energy capture meant home computers running desktop processors, consuming a few hundred watts on residential grids.
* 2010s (Dedicated ASIC Energy): Mining scaled into purpose-built facilities, driving specialized chip efficiency and seeking cheap hydro or stranded gas.
* Present (Utility-Scale Grid Symbiosis): Today, Bitcoin mining acts as a dynamic, flexible grid load—balancing multi-gigawatt intermittent solar and wind arrays, co-locating with zero-carbon generation, and serving as the economic catalyst for rapid infrastructure deployment.
That simple PayPal transaction in 2009 proved that digital energy could be priced, transferred, and settled over a protocol—setting off a global chain reaction that continues to transform energy development, grid architecture, and sovereign finance.
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
We live in an age where entire mega corporations are no match for random dudes with autism.
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
There will never be enough computing resources to satisfy the demands of human ingenuity.
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
Which is funny because I am headlining the power grid planning and operator conference in Europe where grid operators from multiple countries are talking about how hard microgrids are going to be because they can't see what's happening behind the meter...and how they'd much prefer to have the energy delivered on their systems, but also can't figure out how to do that fast enough. Welcome to the decade of unmitigated chaos. May the best grid win. 😂
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
Google offered to pay for the data center infrastructure upgrades outright. The utility said no, because that wouldn't go into their rate base. They restructured it as a prepayment instead so they could rate base it anyway.
Result: everyone's bill went up $5.77 a month.
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
This is what “permissionless” actually means. Thank you, @RoyaMahboob.
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
Thanks to everyone who joined our Texas Energy Future Happy Hour last Tuesday with @ACC_AustinTX. Great discussion with Josiah Neeley (@jneeley78) of @RSI and
Nick Josefowitz (@josefow) on the grid, permitting, and practical energy solutions.
#TexasEnergy #GridReliability #AffordableEnergy
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
We need more memory chips. Now. Here's what federal lawmakers can do
- Resist any protectionist policies that would worsen price impacts.
- Ease constraints on memory chips, manufacturing equipment, and raw materials.
- Direct the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to conduct a Section 6(b) study of memory capacity allocation.
- Streamline opportunities for innovation, alternatives, and product substitutes.
@NiconomistLoris
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
Pennsylvania dangles permitting carrot for data centers that bring their own power
For loads over 25 MW, applicants that commit to abide by the state’s recently introduced infrastructure standards for data centers will receive preferential treatment. utilitydive.com/news/pennsyl…
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
Our @RWNorse is featured in @heatmap_news, talking about data centers
"We know we need grid upgrades and want to have the most cost effective versions of those as possible, but you want those needing the power paying for it and not putting it on the backs of residents."
@jaeporeon
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
Data centers must disclose their plans to:
✅ pay their own way
✅ provide their own power
✅ reuse their own water
✅ reduce the cost of electricity
✅ & avoid disturbing neighborhoods
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
Great discussion with Alex Epstein on how AI shifted incentives, aligning tech with fossil fuels and the pro-human moral case.
3 reasons I think the tide has turned on fossil fuels:
1) AI created huge power demand that could only be met with fossil fuels
2) The pro-fossil-fuel Trump admin was elected
3) The energy humanist movement made the moral and intellectual case for fossil fuels
W @michaelmalice
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
Batteries are growing very quickly despite the mess of red tape.
If we allow flexible interconnections, these numbers will skyrocket.
Grid capacity is extremely underutilized. Batteries can turn capacity that’s available most of the time into capacity that’s available all of the time.
That spreads costs out over more demand, and makes everyone better off.
Battery storage capacity averaged 70% growth over the last three years. #TodayInEnergy bit.ly/45jvo3C
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
This happened with bitcoin mining in ERCOT in 2021-2023. It’s important to understand that 474GW of requests doesn’t mean 474GW of actual demand.
A lot of opportunists are clogging the queue to signal to AI companies that they’re “serious”.
Most will not get the energy they request. Abbott is likely pausing new requests so ERCOT can discern who’s legit and who isn’t.
How mathematically impossible is the energy math behind the data center rollout? Just Texas alone is facing 474GW of interconnection requests (ERCOT), of which 90% is data centers. Which is why gov Abbott froze rollout of new data centers in Texas.
For context, ERCOT all-time peak demand record is 91.1GW on July 22, 2026, with normal demand between 40 and 80GW.
Of course, that's peak. In a more realistic scenario, Morgan Stanley sees the entire US short about 80-100GW through 2030, or a deficit of about 100 nuclear power plants.
Gideon O. Powell #Energy🏴☠️ retweeted
Every day, data centers are announcing their compliance with the guidelines and guardrails I have put on data centers. They must:
- bring their own money
- bring their own power
- reuse their own water
- reduce the cost of electricity
- not build around neighborhoods
- support the stability & reliability of the Texas power grid.
Inbox: QTS Data Centers, "one of the world's largest data center operators and a long-term investor in Texas," announces support for @GregAbbott_TX's audit directive issued earlier this week that will pause the current pace of batch zero. #txlege
