The Blockspace Pod: Hut 8 Eyes 500MW Site, MSCI Keeps MSTR, Florida Revisits a BTC Reserve

For today’s roundup, Hut 8 waits on approval for a 500 MW site in Illinois, MSCI keeps MSTR in indices, and Florida tries again for a strategic bitcoin reserve. Subscribe to the Blockspace newsletter! Welcome back to The Blockspace Podcast! Today, Colin and Charlie give a temperature check on bitcoin mining stats, highlighting stats that show non-monetary transactions currently account for nearly 50% of all Bitcoin transactions. We also dig into Hut 8’s plans for a 500 MW data center in Illinois, the latest hiring spree at Cipher Mining, Riot’s updated compensation plan as they expand into AI, and MSCI’s decision to keep Strategy (MSTR) in its indices. Finally, for this week’s cry corner, Florida’s renewed attempt at a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: * Runes: 6.1M txs, 42% of volume last month * Hash price: $39/PH/day, fees near zero * Hut 8: 500MW, $4-5B site in Logan County, IL, pending zoning approval * Difficulty: 4 negative adjustments out of last 5 * Riot: Jason Chung in as CFO *Florida makes a second attempt at a strategic bitcoin reserve Timestamps 00:00 Start 02:37 Difficulty Report by Luxor 06:06 Hut 8 new data center 11:15 MSCI decision 13:26 Cipher adds Drew Armstrong, Lee Bratcher 18:07 Riot compensation changes, new CFO 22:33 Cry corner: Are SBRs back? 👉CleanSpark, America's Bitcoin Miner! CleanSpark (Nasdaq: CLSK) is a market-leading data center developer with a proven track record of success. We own a portfolio of power, land, and data centers across the United States powered by globally competitive energy prices. Sitting at the intersection of Bitcoin, energy, operational excellence and capital stewardship, we optimize our infrastructure to deliver superior returns to our shareholders. Monetizing low-cost, high reliability energy by producing a global emerging critical resource – compute – positions us to prosper in an ever-changing world. 👉 FBOX, Cooling for Bitcoin Mining and the AI Data Center Transformation FBOX is the global leader in cooling system manufacturing, with the #1 shipment volume of bitcoin mining containers worldwide. Not only powering for the strongest hashrate, their technology also helps mining infrastructure transform into AI data centers. Backed by the largest production scale on earth, global deployment capability, and a full range of cooling solutions, they are shaping the future of compute. 👉 Luxor, Leaders In Bitcoin Mining and Compute Power! Get game-changing mining results with Luxor Firmware. Boost hashrate, cut energy costs, protect your hardware, and maximize mining profits with LuxOS. Published twice weekly, "The Blockspace Pod" interviews the best builders and operators in the Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining landscape. Subscribe to get notifications when we publish interviews on Tuesday and a news show on Friday!