On y'all. Welcome back to Blockspace Live, presented by CleanSpark.
For our lead story today, CleanSpark lands a tenant for its Sandersville, Georgia facility, which also includes an exclusive clause to tap its Texas portfolio.
Not a signed deal yet, but a pathway to monetizing those sites in Texas. That's our lead story.
And then we have, for our interview today, Becca Amali of Becker- Becca, ah, of AnchorWatch on to talk about a little bit of Clarity Act, but also their new multi-institutional custody insurance product that they just rolled out.
For our final two stories, we will cover New York's data center moratorium, uh, that was an executive order by Governor Kathy Hochul, and we will also touch on Keel getting approval to buy acreage in Sherbrooke, Quebec, for a data center project it is planning in the country.
That's right. Blockspace goes live every weekday at 1:00 PM Eastern, with the exception of tomorrow. Stay tuned. And we feature h- quick hits on AI, data centers, emerging tech, and markets.
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Blockspace Live is brought to you by CleanSpark, NASDAQ listed ticker CLSK. Colin, we have a little bit of a blip in the schedule tomorrow because we have a VIP guest. Yes.
Tomorrow we will be going live not at 1:00 PM ET, but at 2:30 PM ET, 'cause we have a interview with TerraWulf's Nazair Khan at 3:00 PM ET. So to accommodate that, we're moving the stream back just an hour and a half.
So keep your eye out, 2:30 tomorrow for our live stream, not at 1:00 PM ET. All right. And with that, Charlie, let's hop into the news. Deal flow is coming back in. We love to see it.
And specifically, this comes from CleanSpark for its Sandersville site. Leading with a CleanSpark story.
CleanSpark up 10% this morning, while the rest of the Bitcoin miners going AI factory is kind of mixed on the day. It's kind of interesting, uh, spread today across the mining tickers. Yeah.
The market's still a little bit rocky. CleanSpark rallying on this news that they have signed a 20-year infrastructure lease for their Sandersville, Georgia site. This was signed, this was announced today.
The deal includes 175 megawatts of critical IT load, and is expected to produce 6.6 billion in contracted revenue over the course of that 20-year deal, with delivery set to start in the fourth quarter of next year.
Now, the n- the lease is triple net, which means the tenant will pay for property taxes, insurance, and maintenance as well, and it also includes annual rent escalators.
There are also options to extend the deal by five years. Um, there are two of these, and so total revenue could hit 11.6 billion should both of those extension options be realized.
Huge deal for CleanSpark, their first AI/HPC grade tenant for the Sandersville site. And what's interesting about this too, Charlie, is there is also a clause in here that this could extend to their sites in Texas.
So per the agreement, the same tenant has executed a letter of intent and exclusivity agreement covering CleanSpark's entire portfolio in Texas, which is up to 885 megawatts across two sites: the Sealy campus, which is an initial 300-megawatt rollout, and the Brazoria campus, which is an initial 300 megawatt with a room to expand to 600 megawatts if needed.
So big news for CleanSpark. First big tenant at any of its sites, formerly a Sandersville a, uh, Bitcoin mining site now being retrofitted for AI and HPC. Charlie, what's your take? Yeah.
So, um, this news just hit the time this morning. I haven't had a chance to, like, dive into to run the numbers really quick.
But as I was kind of, like, clotting out what the, uh, industry, like, lease standards are, um, like, this deal looks really good, great revenue, but where does it stack up across all the other leases like, you know, TerraWulf, Cipher, Applied Digital?
And the answer is, I think it kind of stacks up in the middle when you consider the, like, full blended cost, like, revenue per, uh, uh, revenue per kilowatt per month.
Um, 'cause at a blended rate, depending on the escalators that they have here attac- the escalators they've had, uh, uh, in the lease, it puts them, like, at around a high $150 per megawatt, which, um, if we were to compare, like, Wulf's deal with Anthropic [chuckles] is, like, top of the, you know, chart at, like, 197, or maybe, like, Applied Digital and Cipher's deals with Amazon at Polaris...
Or sorry, SecoraWeave at Polaris and Cipher with Amazon at Black Pearl at, like, 148, 149 per kilowatt, um, per day. So, um, looks like a pretty solid deal, and it's-- and maybe that's not the story.
Maybe the, maybe the l- the, the LOI for the deal in Texas is the real story here. Yeah, and that's what, uh, KBW's analyst, Steven Glogola, says in this research note that we have from him here-
He says, uh, that per our estimates, quoting directly from the research piece, "Sandersville lease was already priced into the stock ahead of the announcement.
In our view, the most positive aspects of today's announcement was the related LOI and exclusivity arrangement with the same investment-grade tenant covering CleanSpark's Celian resort campuses in Texas."
So I think, yeah, per s- Steven's point here, the market was expecting the Sandersville tenant or l- or a deal for some time, and getting the,
you know, [laughs] the, getting all of their Texas capacity vouched for, not no deal materialized yet, but having that LOI is definitely huge.
Yeah, and- One more note here before we move- It's, it's 885 megawatts under exclusivity if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, that's what I understand from the, from the lease, or from the, um, deal, and, and from KBW's coverage.
So if they can ink that, then that's huge because they're still building these, you know, these are largely greenfielded.
Uh, th- CleanSpark announced these sites over the last year in terms of getting the PPA- or getting the power deals in place and also securing the land.
But one more quick note before we move on, Charlie, about the cost for this. Believe CleanSpark is estimating cost at $10 to $12 million per megawatt.
So at 175, that's roughly $1.75 to $2.1 billion worth of infrastructure spent on their side.
So I think the question right now, um, remains w- what is the cleanest financing option for CleanSpark to pull this off now that they have this deal in their pocket? Yep. Uh, so great deal.
We, we knew CleanSpark was pursuing these types of deals, and they had a lot of, like, power pipeline. So obvi- the, the investors like what they see.
The, the people like the stock, uh, which you can't really say the same because, like, you have, again, today I believe if I'm looking at the right numbers, uh, Wolf is down, CleanSpark's up on the day.
Hut's slightly up. It's kinda like all across the board.
So, um, yeah, instead of, like, an, the entire sector ripping or crashing in, in a single day, we finally have some interesting deviation across the powered land, and miners turned AI factories deal.
All right, Colin, we have in the wings, we've got Becca from Anchor Watch coming up here. We're gonna talk a little bit a- about some Bitcoin stories, and perhaps even the Clarity Act.
Before we bring Becca on, we have a word from our sponsor, CleanSpark. [gentle music] We are CleanSpark, America's Bitcoin miner. A publicly traded company with the largest operating hashrate.
Powered entirely by self-operated infrastructure across four states. This is our proof of work, and we are setting the standard for what's next.
Learn more about the intersection of energy and Bitcoin at cleanspark.com.
[upbeat music] If Bitcoin's actually the best money and it's the thing that people should accumulate as the best risk-adjusted asset, I lose zero sleep about whether or not that's gonna happen.
I, I just ask the question of when. It's literally matrix math that they're running on large pieces of data. 'Cause the Bitcoin miners can absorb that energy.
And, and, and in many ways, this feels like a second bite at the apple to build a new internet. All right. Let's get Becca on up here.
Becca, welcome back to the show. Hello. Hi. Hey. Good to see you guys. Good to see you too. Colin, you're muted. Becca, you had a big announcement today. Um, I saw your co-founder Rob drop this tweet.
Boom. Multi-institutional custody from Anchor Watch today. Yeah. Fun time.
I think, uh, you know, we could let you, you know, do the song and dance pitch, but I think it's actually more fun just to talk about some of the deeper stuff of what goes beyond multi-institutional custody.
First of all- Sure... what is multi-institutional custody? [laughs] Well, so it's- And how is it different than, like, uh, I would say a standard, like, multisig, you know, different parties? Sure. Sure.
Well, it, it, the, the easy thing about explaining multi-institutional is it actually is a standard multisig, right? It's just where you have distributed the keys across multiple institutions.
So this product, a multi-institutional custodial product, is for people or for companies that don't wanna hold keys. Um, and, you know, in, in my own tweets I said, "Like it or not, some people don't want to."
I know in, in Bitcoin, uh, you know, kind of the ethos is, uh, holding your own keys and self-custody, and, uh, obviously we've built our, our flagship product, which was in, designed to help people do that more safely, right?
The ability to hold keys. Multi-institutional is for those that still just don't want that responsibility.
So it could be either individuals who, they're just like, "I don't want my family to have to worry about it, to be confused. I don't want, like, I just don't wanna think about it. I don't wanna find storage places.
I don't wanna deal with a bank vault," or whatever, whatever it may be. Um, and so the keys are distributed to three institutions.
This is important because we all know that, uh, problems have happened at custodians, at exchanges when you leave your coins there, and problems happen, right? Um, things are mismanaged.
Uh, funds are left in, um, exchange accounts and, and maybe are traded, like, uh, if it's not in, you know, segregated custody. Uh, and so this product keeps your coins segregated. This is truly a custody product.
We're not, um, moving coins. They can't move without your authorization. But it's one where you authorize a transaction.
So whether you're an individual or you're a company, a company executive, you put in a transaction request like starting any other Bitcoin transaction. You say where you wanna send it.
Uh, but instead of signing it yourself- Uh, and having to be responsible for, uh, a physical hardware key, you just verify your identity. Uh, so you verify your identity. Uh, we do that cryptographically using a YubiKey.
Uh, that means that we don't have to worry about social engineering and phishing. We still know that that transaction came from you, the owner. You got it? Yeah, I got my YubiKey here. Right there. Nice.
So we, we know that the transaction request comes from the right person. Um, but the Bitcoin keys themselves are gonna be signed by the multiple institutions.
The multiple institutions, you know, we're, we're also an insurer. The multiple institutions is super important statistically. The risk of an internal crime is one of the things that, you know, you fear, right?
When you leave your coins at a custodian or exchange, you worry about the company, or somebody who works at the company more res- realistically, doing bad things. The chances of that when two companies both have to...
would have to collude together, it drops hugely. Like, that risk, uh, the historical risk of that happen- happening, it goes way down.
Maybe internally it happens because you're working with your buddy, the two of you decide you can pull something off. Like, say you, you work together. But doing that across companies is much harder.
So, uh, we believe, uh, that this is a great way to get secure, institutional-grade, professional custodial help, uh, but without having to just put your coins at a sole custodian where you're at a higher risk for, for bad things happening.
So we launched that, so now people can just choose. Uh, if you wanna hold keys, you can do so. If you don't wanna hold keys, uh, you don't have to. Either way, you can choose if you add insurance to it.
Either way, uh, we are competitive on price. We provide absolutely the best service. Um, so yeah, that, that's our big news as of this week. We're excited.
So I'm curious, Becca, what goes into the selection of these specific custodians? Why these over others? What was the vetting process and the criteria for the partners on this? Yep.
Uh, it's always a combination of security and operations. Um, and so we selected BitGo and, and CoinCorner, uh, as our two partners.
So BitGo, uh, is a, is a leading key agent provider in the multi-institutional space.
Um, the difference with our multi-institutional versus others is a lot of companies that offer some version of multi-institutional, there's not a lot of them, but there are a few of them out there, uh, they are on someone else's stack.
So they're actually, like, relying on BitGo's stack. Whereas AnchorWatch, we build our own stacks. So our multi-institutional custody is still built on Trident.
Uh, and so we have, uh, the understanding and the peace- our peace of mind, uh, that we, uh, really, really know the security, and it's what's been audited by Lloyds and, and everybody else.
So BitGo, uh, on the other hand, um, great provider in the space, a very reliable service and key signings. Um, they have established procedures, security-based procedures in terms of their video verification.
Onboarding is smooth and easy. Um, so they're a really good friction, low-friction partner that's gonna provide good service for our customers. And then CoinCorner is a, a strategic partner of ours.
We already, uh, do business with them in a couple of ways. They act as the recovery partner, uh, for emergencies only in the case of our flagship.
Uh, so if you have keys and you use our product and, uh, your keys are lost, or you have a kidnap and ransom situation and we need to kind of come in and save the day, we would do that with CoinCorner.
Uh, and also, uh, they're looking to make a, a big announcement serving their own customers over, uh, in the UK, uh, in the coming, coming few days here.
Um, and then the last thing we thought about is CoinCorner is, uh, out of the Isle of Man, so multi-jurisdictional. Um, you know, they're... Like, we just feel like that's, uh, good hygiene, uh, overall. Um, but yeah.
And you can go watch some, uh, crazy, uh, motorcycle races whenever you- [laughs] Exactly. Exactly...
Folks can recommend these. I mean- So, yeah, I mean, I think so, especially when combined with qualified custody.
So that is not part of our announcement this week, but we've been open that we're in the process to become a qualified custodian, and I think, uh, we will be approved. We expect to be. We hope to be, um, very, very soon.
Um, would've been great if we could've, uh, you know, welcomed both client types at the same time. All that to say to your question, RIAs, uh, and advisors kind of of all regulated types do need...
do feel they need to use a qualified custodian. I say feel the need because there's questions on if Bitcoin as a commodity actually...
But all the same, like, companies are saying that, "Look, as a CYA, our lawyers are telling us to be safe, just choose a qualified custodian."
So now, uh, you know, what's unique about AnchorWatch is, you know, we have both, right?
So we are both going to be, uh, a QC and supporting more advanced custody models that distributed custody, and don't force a company to choose between distributed safer custody and the checkbox of saying, "I'm a QC."
Now we'll have both and we can, we can solve that problem. So I think, um, both are very important.
Um, in terms of multi-institutional custody, I will say I think it is a really important addition for companies of all types. So not just advisors and, and that. It's more
there are, especially with Clarity Act, you mentioned in, in the buildup, with that coming, maybe there are more players entering, right?
Like banks and other players that are like, "Okay, I think we know the rules now," uh, if it passes, right? Um, "I think I know the rules now. We're gonna, we're gonna get involved.
We want to offer Bitcoin services to our customers. Um, we are not ready to hold keys. We don't wanna dedicate physical, um, space. We don't wanna train employees, bank employees on key management right now.
We just, we just wanna get into this business." Um, multi-institutional custody with qualified partners can be a great way to do that.
Um, so I think, I think it is an important option to meet people and institutions where they are, um, and kind of remove some of the judgments about custody models.
Our, our point of view is, uh, that we wanna make Bitcoin easier and safer to own, right? We understand that people and companies have different needs. Uh, we just wanna make it safe.
We wanna encourage investments into the asset. We believe in the asset. We wanna make it easy, safe. So we make various custody models, uh, to meet people where they are.
We make insurance products, uh, to cover the actual risks out there. Um, and we will continue to do so.
So ideally, what we will hopefully do is also go to the other end of the spectrum, and someday we will convince Lloyds to do pure self-custody and be able to insure that too, right?
So we, we just want people to be able to own Bitcoin safely and securely.
Um, and we will continue to develop all the different custody models to meet the market where it, where it needs to be to feel comfortable making that investment. You brought up Clarity. Yeah.
Let's do a couple, let's do a couple rips on Clarity. Yeah. Like Lindsey Graham died, rest in peace. [laughs] Uh, you've got Mitch McConnell in the hospital. Um- Yeah... these are key figures in- Yeah...
in, in this story of this I call, you know- Yeah... foundational- Yeah... seminal legislation that may or may not get passed. Yeah. Becca, I don't expect you to be an expert- [laughs]...
on what's going on in Washington, but what is your sense of where Clarity is? Is it alive? Is it dead? Is it like Mitch McConnell where we don't know which one? [laughs] It might be that. Um, look, I think...
Well, first of all, like, it's certainly not my area of expertise, but, like, you know, we try to stay on top of the headlines anyway and, and just know what the, the industry is going to be dealing with.
You know, this one in particular I, I feel like is more about crypto, uh, than Bitcoin itself, right?
Like it's separating, as I understand it, it's, it's more creating clarity and rules surrounding tokens, um, and the rest of crypto. So the question is, do these new entrants who want to serve Bitcoin, um,
does a better understanding of the industry at, uh, at large, uh, kind of encourage them to do that?
So in terms of is it alive or dead, like, a qu- a quick review, uh, over the last couple of days, like, it's definitely political right now.
It doesn't, it, the objections don't seem to be about the intricacies of crypto legislation. It seems to be about Trump, and, uh, political and, and his participation in, in the crypto markets.
Um, you know, which, uh, I didn't love how that played out, um, last year, right? And so as it turns out, either does the Senate [laughs] it seems. They also don't love the way that played out last year.
Um, and so I think right now that seems to be at least the, the conflict, the political conflict. Mm.
It's more about like, should Trump be able to benefit from all these, uh, you know, this billion plus that he earned last year doing crypto shenanigans?
Um, or should there be this ethics aspect of the Clarity Act, which would then more or less, I, I believe, like, remove that from his [laughs] from his assets, uh, in some variety.
So I think, uh, my understanding is that is actually, like, the current, um- Fight. And the issue is that there's only so much time to actually do the vote.
Um, so if they're gonna keep fighting about this, uh, you know, the House had progressed to a certain point. So overall for, for Bitcoin itself, I'm not...
I would be much more engaged and focused if I was a multi-coin company foc- and a multi-coin person focused on, on the industry at large. I do think it, it would be important.
Um, but I'm hoping, uh, for the Bitcoin only parts of, of the network, uh, will, will keep, keep trucking no matter what happens, so. O- On, on the note of the, of time running out, Becca- Yeah...
do you get the sense that Clarity has missed its window? You know, you just mentioned the political tensions and, yeah, the sitting president profiting, what was it, roughly, like 1.3 billion from crypto ventures.
Yeah, something like that. Typically a meme coin and a DeFi platform that looks like it was born out of the 2017 ICO boom. I mean, those aren't, those don't look good. That's the, that's the one side of this. For sure.
But then there's the other side of this where you've got worry- you've got, uh, worries about the K-shaped economy, you've got the war in Iran, and you've got midterms coming up. Yeah.
So I just kind of see all of these things and think d- do they even care about this? No. I mean, who, who... Does anyone really even care about this anymore? No. [laughs] No. I mean, like it, the... It will still...
I mean, I guess the good thing is the fact that it's still in the news and still being debated, even if it, the debate is about Trump's personal involvement, um, it is still being debated. Um, and so hopefully it does...
I, I hope it does go to a vote. Um, and I don't, I don't know if...
I don't know if there's, like, a hard deadline on that or if it's more, like, when the session gets out, uh, and, like, maybe the specific people who had worked on it will be out of, out of office at that point or have to get in, uh, into a whole new session of Congress, and, uh, maybe it doesn't make it back into the agenda in the same way.
So that's where I'm definitely not, [laughs] not the Washington expert. Um, but yeah, that's, uh, yeah. It'll be interesting. Uh, you're on mute, I believe.
Look, as we all know, the real sign of a bear market is, uh, not when the price is going down and people are, uh, crying and gnashing of teeth, but rather when it goes silent- [laughs] Yeah...
and nobody talks about us anymore. Yeah, yeah. So at least we're still getting some Clarity news in the, in the headlines. And man, isn't it silent out there but- Oh my gosh.
We're an A, we're an AI show now, Becca, so- [laughs] Yeah. I bet. And, and on that note- I bet... we've gotta go to some AI stories. [laughs] Becca, thank you so much for coming on the pod. Yeah. For sure.
Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Becca. See ya. See ya. All right, we're gonna keep rolling on.
Looks like New York just dra- is, is moving towards a moratorium on data centers, which we'll talk about, and then we'll talk about keel, so you keel heads, keel mastheads, captains out there can stick around to the end.
But before we go to New York, a word from our sponsor, Luxor. [static sound] This episode of Blockspace Live is brought to you by Luxor's Commander, Bitcoin miner management software for enterprise operations.
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So if you'd like to learn more, go to luxor.tech/commander to get started. All right, Charlie, the data center fight is coming to a head in the Empire State. That's right.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed an executive order for a data center moratorium
for one year, as this headline reads, although my understanding from breaking down the news was that it could last longer than that based on a working group's ability to- Yeah, it, like, it look, it could last, like, two years, I think.
Yeah. It's, it's, the, the timeline is kind of up in the air, specifically because they're, they're, they need to run studies.
They, they have to wrap this whole thing in red tape to figure out what the proper, what the proper course is. So going beyond the headline, what exactly is happening here?
This is coming off the desk of New York Governor Kathy Hochul, executive order number 62, which pauses s- specific data center permits while agencies develop standards for large computing facilities.
So specifically, this pauses the Department of Environmental Conservation's discretionary permits for data centers at or above 50 megawatts that have not received a completeness determination before today.
That's the specific cutoff. There is all of this rigmarole with getting one of these approved, um, in not just in New York, but in any locality.
And the specifics here is if you do not have a, uh, completeness determination from the Department of Environmental Conservation before today, then your moratorium is now in effect.
The pause runs until the Department of Public Service completes a generic environmental impact statement, a GEIS, covering electricity demand, water use, air quality, noise, and impacts on disadvantaged communities, with public comments and hearings built into the process.
Now, as I understand it, that could take longer than a year.
Basically, this moratorium is in effect until that study can come, until that study is released and the Department of Public Services basically Gives their recommendations for how regulation should be approached with regards to this issue.
So a few key items here. The Department of Public Service has 60 days to form a data center interconnection working group focused on, quote, "beneficiary pays cost allocation" and making a developer fund grid upgrade.
Uh, and like for example, making developers, uh, fund grid upgrades for their project requirements, which is something that we've seen actually from a lot of jurisdictions.
In fact, this is the route that ERCOT's going, so I'd imagine that's probably going to be a stipulation that developers are gonna have to pay more for grid infrastructure for these builds.
Um, the state may create a grid acceleration fund financed partly by data center developers.
[lip smack] Uh, Empire State Development has 60 days to publish a community investment framework for local benefit negotiations.
The Department of Environmental Conservation must assess within 12 months whether current water withdrawal rules adequate- adequately capture data center demand.
And to get an idea for what's at stake here, nearly 12 gigawatts of data center load was on the New York grid's interconnection queue as of May 2026, with more than eight gigawatts entering in 2025 alone, hence the review.
Charlie, I've got a few other notes here, but wanna toss it to you for a second take. Yeah, I mean, I think, and you're probably gonna talk about this here in a second, this is a terrible story.
Um, among other things, TerraWolf down 7% today because their two, like, flagship sites, the Lake Mariner and then like their like in pipeline like Lake Hawkeye site, both in New York, it's unclear to what extent they may be affected by this moratorium.
The moratorium is for sites over 50 megawatts, and again, it's like to me, I, I maybe you've been able to look even closer, but it, uh [clears throat] it, uh, you know, these...
It's unclear future expansions, uh, for these sites, I think so. Um- Yeah, I think the- Hopefully. Yeah... the expansions are potentially in question, but- Yeah...
I don't think that it will-- it won't cause any problems for Lake Mariner. And for the other one, I believe it's Lake Cayuga.
Um, I don't know, uh, you said Hawkeye, but I'm pretty sure it's- Yeah, I might've said, yeah, Cayuga.
I may have- Lake Cayuga, I'm, uh, un- kind of an uncertain future there because they were just getting permitting figured out for that site, which had a bunch of local pushback as it is.
Um, so I think with regards to TerraWolf, at least obviously what they have going on for Mariner right now is unaffected, but potential expansions could be, um, definitely won't, they won't get any headway until this moratorium is sorted, right?
So that's, that's something to consider. And ultimately, you know, there's been a lot of chatter on Twitter about this is why geographic, you know, diversification is important.
They just announced that they are going to-- that they're selling their JV and their Texas site, the Abernathy site, back to Fluid Stack, and they are focusing on this Hawesville, Kentucky site for Anthropic.
So that'll be, I think, the bulk of what they're looking at in terms of development over the next few years. And to me, uh, it's just a-- it, it, it is a lesson in being mindful about where you are currently building.
Now, obviously, TerraWolf has had this Lake Mariner site for a while.
They couldn't have known that New York necessarily was gonna put this moratorium forth, but I think that's why, you know, once they saw the ball mo- moving in that direction, they decided to start expanding into, like, Kentucky, for example.
Yeah. I've got, uh, for those who are listening, I've got dimetrics.ai pulled up here. The moratorium chart on this site, New York is all red.
Um, and uh, I mean, there's a number of, um, you know, data centers, uh, but obviously TerraWolf is big, um, then Bit, uh, Bit... I forget. The big Bitcoin miner up there along the coast using hydro.
But anyway, um, yeah, you can see just according to this, New York may, may be the first to fall. Uh- It is. I think this is, this is the first statewide moratorium. Yeah.
So it, it's really big news, and I wanna use the latter half of the segment here to talk about some of the differences between this and the bill that was being pushed through the New York legislature for a moratorium.
Yeah. So as I understand it, that bill has not been, has not been, uh, approved by New York's Congress, and I-- there's probably not a, a need for it now, now that this executive order is put through.
But there are some very interesting differences, specifically the, you know, obviously one is an actual bill, the other is an executive order, which is more easily rescinded or modified.
But the bill for the moratorium had a lower ceiling for what should be put on pause. The bill recommended anything at or above 20 megawatts. This executive order only targets anything at or above 50 megawatts.
Specifically, al- uh, another really important thing is the bill was much more stringent in this regard too, where it would be all Department of Environmental Conservation permits for new large data centers would come under its scope,
uh, versus the executive order, which is more discretionary. It doesn't just outright wholesale ban all of the things that have been permitted.
But as I understand it from the bill going through New York's legislature, is it would've cracked on, cracked down on many more permitted data centers.
So some that had had that-- Some data centers that had already had that completeness review
completed with the Department of Environmental Conservation would also maybe be under the scope of the legislature's version of the moratorium.
So much stricter in scope, more data centers would have fallen under its purview. The other big difference is, is like there are all these mandates in the, in the bill-
There's a renewable energy mandate for on-site generation. Um, that on-site generation has to be renewable to the greatest extent possible. Um, there are energy efficiency standards in the, in the legislature's bill.
There is a carve-out to create a separate utility rate class for data centers. There are also certain labor standards.
I don't know what those are, but certain hiring standards I'd imagine probably fall under some sort of like, you know, DEI scope or something similar.
Um, it would also require public hearings, uh, before any future permit was, was given to a company, and that would be a permanent thing. For...
None of those stan- mandates currently exist in the executive order, and that's what this s- study group is going to figure out.
So those could be coming, and there's a chance that whatever the executive order's, you know, st- uh, feasibility study for these data centers, whatever it comes out with, you could have very similar language to what's in the bill currently for the moratoriums on the state level.
But n- it doesn't have any of them outright.
So I think over the next year, once this study is concluded and recommendations are made, then you'll get a clear understanding of just how strict this order will be in terms of how it accommodates data centers going forward after the morto- moratorium expires.
Okay. I think let's go to Quebec now. Just go north a little bit- Yeah... from New York to- Just a little further north... very different story if you cross over one of those five great five lakes.
Not really sure which one. I think it's Ontario. Whatever. Anyway, we're gonna go to Quebec and talk about Keel right after a word from our sponsor, Ligos.
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All right, Charlie, final story of the day coming at us from Keel, and specifically the Great White North, where Keel has received approval
for a land sale to acquire land in Sherbrooke, Quebec for an eight o- $1.8 billion planned AI data center.
So Sherbrooke councilors conditionally approved a land sale for Keel Infrastructure's proposed $1.8 billion AI data center at a July 13th meeting, according to La Tribune.
The planned building would cover 16,400 square meters, and the sale is a two... is for, uh, the, the sale is total consideration of 2.2 million Canadian dollars. There are a few stipulations for this deal.
There are spec- specifically for the approval before it actually is finally approved.
Among them, Keel has six months to submit a complete construction and operation application, 36 months to begin construction, and 60 months to complete the building.
The transfer also requires approval from Quebec's Ministry of Economy, Innovation, and Energy, which has not disclosed a decision timeline.
Further, the sale can be canceled if councilors reject Keel's final conditions, the one, the three of yous that I just, uh... Or, or the conditions once they've completed those three steps I just mentioned.
Um, so this is still up in the air in terms of being finalized, but it's a really important first step to make sure that they can secure this site.
And specifically, what they're planning to do with this is they want to transfer a 96-megawatt power allocation that they have with Hydro-Québec from their current Bitcoin mining site in Sherbrooke to this new site that is, sits right near, uh, Hydro Sherbrooke's offered, uh...
or Orford Substation.
So they're not requesting any new power, but they are going to be moving their allotment from their current site to this one, and I believe that also has a, a few, uh, that has, um, an approval process, including from Quebec's Ministry of Economy, Innovation, and Energy.
Last thing on this, Charlie, and then I'll toss it to you.
Three of the councilors voted against the, the sale, and the most substantive objection came from one councilor, Fernanda Luz, who cited unresolved issues in the project documents, including exceptional energy consumption, generators described as, quote, "potentially very polluting," end quote, possible noise nuance, nu- nuance, ah, nuisances, and open questions on water use.
So there was some pushback within the council for this, and it's like all of the talking points that we've seen from a lot of people who are opposed to building these things, so... Yeah.
Um, I don't have a whole lot of insight on this, but I was looking through the deal, and I think, um, uh, pretty interesting to note that this power deal dates back to 2018 from when Bitfarms, now rebranded as Keel Infrastructure, signed to, uh, signed this deal with, uh, Hydro Sherbrooke,
uh, for this hydropower, and it kind of became, you know, a notable, iconic Bitfarms site. Now being, uh, now the, the, the power's going to AI. Uh, 2018 was not just one mining era ago.
It was two mining eras ago. It was honestly, um- W- uh, a lot of people forget this, second to China back in 2018, Canada was like- Yeah... in the running for probably the most, um...
It was, I would say, the Western nation, uh, with the most, uh, Bitcoin mining in it. So- Yeah, a lot of the OG public miners were Canadian companies first, like Hive and also Bitfarms.
They were one of the first publicly listed Bitcoin miners. Yeah.
So, um, pretty cool to see that this story, uh, that you can sign power deals, uh, now closer to a decade ago that are now being, uh, now powering your, uh, ex Bitcoin mining to now full AI company transition.
Yeah, and also a huge boon for Keel to have that because they're, the electrical regulators in Canada are not really handing out new PPAs for these things in the same way that you're seeing in, in the US. So
it- it- I, as I've understood from a lot of Canadian miners, many ended up having to leave 'cause it got so difficult to actually secure new blocks of power 'cause they just weren't giving them to Bitcoin miners.
They saw them as- Yeah... paper weights. A megawatt in the hand is worth 10 in the pipeline, as they say. And [laughs] Bit- and Keel Infrastructure has a number of them in hand.
I think this probably wraps it up for today. Reminder, tomorrow we go live slightly later. What time Eastern are we live tomorrow? 2:30 PM ET. 2:30 PM ET tomorrow.
So set your clocks back just once for tomorrow.
Otherwise, Block Space goes live, with the exception of tomorrow, every weekday at 1 PM Eastern featuring quick hits on AI, data centers, mining, emerging markets, and emerging tech.
This show is brought to you by CleanSpark, NASDAQ listed ticker CLSK. I'm Charlie. I'm Colin. And we'll see you tomorrow. [upbeat outro music]