I have not always been much of a Cruz fan, and I swear it's not JUST the Bitcoin stuff that has won me over. But he is on the leading edge of politicians to be able to see why Bitcoin is not just WoW money that uses more electricity than Christmas Trrees or whatever...
In fact I am getting prouder of my state in general as being on the leading edge of this in the US (not discounting good old WY and AZ)
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/03/winter-storm-descends-on-texas-bitcoin-miners-shut-off-to-protect-ercot.htmlhttps://financialpost.com/fp-finance/cryptocurrency/texas-governor-abbott-turns-to-bitcoin-miners-to-bolster-the-grid-and-his-re-electionSo, we are in the middle of another North Texas Ice storm. (Hope everything is good at the farm Bob... you're getting a decent stress test for your plumbing!
) And the people here have been experiencing PTSD from last year's "icepocalypse" as we called it. I have kept this old part of my ~100 year old house as a good luck totem.
When it happened last year there was SO MUCH structural damage ALL OVER Texas that I am sure some plumbers are STILL WORKING a year later from damage that happened during that storm. Our structures are not really built for the combination of 12f/-12c weather and power outages that basically cause the whole damn state to freeze at once. We are built, rather for 9 month summers that go to >100f/40c (I am translating from the sensible fahrenheit to the non weather sensible celcius for you Europeans and lovely brave Canadians (HONK), although I agree the US are cavemen as far as the metric system goes F is just better for weather, while C is great for science or cooking.. anyway never mind that).
The grid failures were actually caused by a greed explosion during the cold snap last year, but the whole state has been trembling over the last couple weeks preparing for THIS storm. And the news has been very fear based over the last week until the last couple days where both local and national media has switched over to the "bitcoin miners are saving the grid" narrative.
It is a sight to be seen. On top of that we have several gubernatorial candidates (including the incumbent) making Bitcoin a plank in their campaigns. Including a couple challengers saying one of the first things they will do is make Bitcoin legal tender.
Still the most mind boggling thing is the amount of "normie" media talking about Bitcoin saving the grid this time... AND the clarity and extent to which they are GETTING IT. The articles are not as stupid as Bitcoin articles usually are.
Unfortunately I cannot see this lasting forever... The powers that be in government and the media will not take well to this amazingly sensible narrative and will shift back to their "boiling oceans"/"more than Norway" bullshit pretty soon, I am sure.
But Cruz, and several other TX politicians are GETTING IT. They see why Bitcoin is important. Even some of the nuanced stuff like how it will help the energy sector. With TX being the energy capital of the USA it makes perfect sense that we will also become one of the mining meccas. We have such expansive space for large solar/wind farms that can be justified by a base demand of Bitcoin mining. This is going to be explosive growth here.
As a synergistic corollary the amount of Bitcoin Illuminati that have descended on Austin (for some reason??? but it has been a Bitcoin locus since ~ 2011) is also helping push this as the government also realizes that Texas is becoming one of the states that is attracting the industry in multiple ways.
Mind boggling for me to be watching this happen, frankly.
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