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Up y'all. Welcome back to Blockspace Live presented by CleanSpark coming at y'all fresh on this Wednesday.

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A new starting time for today's show specifically to accommodate our guest interview with TeraWulf co-founder Nazair Khan.

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We'll be touching on a lot of topics, the New York data center moratorium, their sale of their Abernathy JV in Texas, and also updates on their Anthropic site in Hawesville, Kentucky. But for news,

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Charlie, SpaceX is coming down from the stars so to speak. It has fallen below its IPO price. I believe it's just at the IPO price at the time of recording, but it dipped to about $133 per share over the last day.

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So we'll be unpacking what investors in the market is currently saying about SpaceX since it has fallen down from its flying high position post IPO.

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After that, we'll be covering Nebius rolling out a new offering for data center partners where they will provide their Nebius software stack, sales pipeline, and supply chain to partners who decide to run this stack in their wholly owned data centers, a departure from their neo cloud model.

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But one in which might give them some more market share as capital constraints start to squeeze around the data center industry.

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And we will finish up with a newsflash segment with some headlines covering Equinix, TeraWulf's buy rating, and also Canaan receiving a 180-day additional, uh, extension for their NASDAQ delisting.

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So Blockspace goes live weekdays at 1:00 PM Eastern with the exception of today 'cause we have a special guest. And we feature quick hits on data centers, AI, emerging tech, and markets.

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If you like what you hear, you'll love the newsletter at newsletter.blockspacemedia.com and you can read all of our content. If you didn't know, it's not just the live stream.

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We publish a lot of content and you can find it on Yahoo Finance. All that content and all Blockspace resources are on our website blockspace.media. That's not blockspace.com, that's blockspace.media.

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And this live stream turns into a podcast shortly after we wrap up anywhere podcasts are found. This show is brought to you by CleanSpark, NASDAQ listed ticker CLSK. More on CleanSpark later on in the show. So Colin,

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Elon is teetering with his flagship stock, his flagship IPO, SpaceX. I'm gonna pull up the chart here and it, uh, uh, a picture tells, you know, has 5,000, 10,000 words.

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The stock is down even flat bang even with its IPO listing price of 135. Now remember when they went public, it actually hit the markets at around 150 something.

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IPO investors got in at this price here, 135. That is when they pass the hat around and they're about to go, that you can buy shares before it hits the market. However, this morning right at open,

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uh, SpaceX was down from about 137 down to 132, which would put it below its IPO price. So for a brief moment there, there was absolutely nobody in profit.

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So right now we only have those who bought at the IPO price of 135 who are flat right now. So, um, I actually, uh, this, this still means that SpaceX is one of the largest companies in the world.

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It's, uh, let me see, it's down to $1.789 trillion in market cap. And what we have on the horizon is something we've been talking about on the show for a while, which is the share unlocks. I'm gonna toss it to you,

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uh, to comment a bit more before we go into the actual share unlock structure.

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Yeah, I guess my first take is Elon Musk is no longer a trillionaire, so everyone can put down the pitchforks, and we can put down the knives and the forks for eating the rich on this one.

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No, jokes aside, this seemed inevitable [audio glitching] how rich the stock was when it was, when it was, uh, IPO'd, and if you look at some of the--

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If you look at, well, there's no, uh, e-earnings ratio because they actually had negative earnings in their most recent qu- uh, most recent update.

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But if you look at the price to sales ratio and a number of other financial metrics, it just has a sky-high valuation even now one would argue.

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And I do think to your point, Charlie, the fear of dilution and further share unlocks is really what seems to be driving this, along with debt and cash burn concerns. Right now, SpaceX only has about 4% float.

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S- It's squarely between 4 and 5%, and a number of shares from insiders will start unlocking in August following their Q2 financials.

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So to me this reads a little bit like the market trying to get ahead of that, and there are also again some concerns on just how much they're gonna have to spend on CapEx to realize all of these, you know, pie in the sky tech futuristic,

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uh, aspirations that they have in terms of putting orbital data centers in space, all of those things so. Yeah.

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Um, you know, if you're just paying attention to their social media and like their public announcements about what they do, they did put out a really cool like actual more, a specific model of their AI satellite that, that they have planned to put into orbit in the constellation, which is really cool.

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And they made some cool videos. But the reality on the ground is [laughs]You like how I made that connection?

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The reality on the ground is, is that the stock is, uh, facing, uh, considerable unlock headwinds, and I'm gonna pull up the numbers here. So, um, this is the chart.

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We've y- we've shown this chart a few times here already. This is on tokenomics.ai, and this shows, um, the current circulating shares of SpaceX shares. Currently 4.2 shares of all outstanding shares are in circulation.

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This changes on August 17th and 18th when a total of 11, and then shortly thereafter 13.6% of all shares will be unlocked, and those are mo- mainly institutional and employee shares.

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And then we have kind of a waterfall for the over the course of the fall until November and then December when the, uh, a significant amount of institutional and then again more institutional and employee shares unlock, bringing the total float in late November to 33% of shares circulating, and then 58% of shares circulating.

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A year after the IPO, which would be which earlier this June, so June 2027, Elon's shares get unlocked. Uh- The final boss unlock... the final boss, 42% of the company. Very impressive.

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But so, um, we've identified this in that we see this in crypto tokens a lot. The VCs get a bunch, and they have to hold them locked for a long time,

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and then the actual circulating shares, uh, in the market is comparably low to the entire actual supply. So you see this phenomenon here, um, in this stock.

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There's another kind of interesting detail, Colin, that I think we've not talked about, um, which is, uh, there is a condition. There's a...

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The SpaceX's st- staggered share unlock actually included a performance-based bonus.

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So, um, and it was of an extra 10% of eligible locked shares could have unlocked early only if the stock closed at or above $175 for at least five of the 10 consecutive trading days leading into the Q2 earnings release date.

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Now, I think the Q2 earnings are for early August. My, my screen says August 6th, so it's basically, you know, right in the smack dab of most companies' Q2 earnings. So if, if the stock goes up again,

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um, in fact, there's almost like, you know, savvy investors who are watching the unlock as the kind of instrument to be cautious of.

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They would not want the stock to go to 175 and hang there for five of the 10 consecutive days leading up to the Q2 earnings. So where does that leave us?

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I'm gonna put my little investor hat on and say, I really want to own SpaceX. I really, really want to own SpaceX five years from now. Do I want to own it while 96...

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95.8% of all the shares of SpaceX have not hit the market yet while the company is valued at, um, you know, near three figures times earnings? Do I want that? I don't think so.

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Um, so this, it, it really does not pass the gut check as far as, uh, what I would consider to be a good value buy.

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Um- Yeah, and I think that's the cleanest way to put it, and it's what the market's wrestling with right now.

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SpaceX was interesting enough after its IPO to trade it because there was clearly a lot of demand, and it ended up skyrocketing above $200 following its public offering. But that momentum has completely

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evaporated in, in, in the current, m- you know, uh, in the, in the current market and, and, and with where investors' heads are at with regards to how much the stock is valued at.

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And, you know, da- the data is on their side with this. So some bears have pointed to the fact that SpaceX will need something like roughly $84 billion a year in fresh capital for CapEx and other operating costs,

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which seems pretty insane.

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But considering how much money they've been raising, like with that $25 billion bond they issued, which also is from, well, the most recent update that we've had on it, it was underwater as of like July 2nd.

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Um, most of those bonds took a haircut. Now there's some kind of...

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There are questions as to whether or not that is specifically speaking to SpaceX's credit or if it's speaking to what the bond market in general is doing with how Treasuries have been ripping and investors are asking for increasingly larger inter- uh, percentage inter- uh, a larger increase to interest rates in order to stay at pace with inflation.

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But there are also just, there's the, uh, element that IPOs just revert to a more sane mean after they are launched.

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You know, a, a Truist wealth study of 30 major tech IPOs over 15 years found that they average a 55% peak decline in their first year, and six of the 10 biggest 2026 IPOs are trading below their first-day close.

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So w- we've seen this with Coinbase. We saw this with Facebook. A, a number of IPOs, they always end up having these spectacular debuts. Core Weave is the same way.

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And then they end up reversing because there's too much enthusiasm. It's too frothy.

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So I think time is definitely not on SpaceX's side with regards to the immediate future for its prospects for the stock price being lifted.

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And I think a lot of people like you, Charlie, are looking at this, including myself, saying, "This is definitely a stock that I would love to own in the future, but I'm not gonna buy it at 100X s- revenue." I don't...

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It's not quite at the 100X right now, I don't think, but when it peaked, it was like at 111 or 112X revenue.

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That's, that's crazy You know, that, and that, that's not even considering earnings, 'cause like I said, we couldn't get an earnings ratio for them because their earnings were negative in their most recent SEC filing.

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So I believe that was for Q1. Yeah. And I, I don't know if 2025 was any better for the full year. But all that being said, a lot of headwinds, and SpaceX is really selling a vision of the future, and that's great.

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That's part of the reason why the stock is so high. But the actual benefits or gains from that future are probably further off than not.

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You know, a lot of Elon's timelines are pretty aggressive in terms of when he thinks that he can get technology up and running. And for most investors, it's not a question of if, it's when.

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And the more far-flung aspirations for orbital data centers, et cetera, will likely take s- more time than even the biggest of bulls with SpaceX would be willing to admit. So.

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Yeah, I mean, you say that, but-- and but now Tesla is almost like the Kleenex of electric car, and Elon is mass-producing them, uh, at a scale that a lot of people claimed, a lot of very legitimate, a considerable amount of, like, analysts and engineering and, and investors said was not, not possible.

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And they're here, they're doing it. So, um, you know, measure that against his other really grandiose claims. Uh, I will say when it comes to, like, engineering things, Elon is able to build,

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you know, futuristic hardware and solve engineering problems that people thought, uh, were distant future. But at what cost? Yeah. And how- And those, those products speak for themselves.

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I think it's just a question of timeline, right? Like, is that v- vision of the future worth a nearly, y- as you said, three-figure multiple on the revenues right now? Pro- probably not, you know.

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I, I think that, you know, if you're looking at stocks being you're basically buying future cash flow, y- that's not gonna come for a while still, you know.

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I mean, who knows how quick, but I, I wouldn't be surprised if these, these orbital data centers and some of the more fancy tech that is being marketed for SpaceX doesn't take longer than not.

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But like you said, Elon's companies execute, so it, it seems like for most of this, a matter of time.

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And as we've covered before, AI will plug the gap for revenue in the time being, 'cause xAI really is emerging as one of the premier compute providers if, if Grok isn't the best model, although that's also seeming to change with some of the, um, you know, with some of the new models.

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The new Grok model, it's pretty- Yeah... it's pretty sharp. It's not frontier, but it's getting there. I mean, Grok 5, uh, GPT-6, and Fable 2 could be right around the corner.

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It's a very good time to be a consumer, as long as you're not the one holding SpaceX stock from the peak. I think we should probably get onto the next one.

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We're gonna go back to the clouds, the Neo clouds, specifically Nebius, after a word from our sponsor, CleanSpark. [gentle music] We are CleanSpark,

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I, I just ask the question of when. [upbeat music] It's literally a matrix map that you're running on large pieces of data. The Bitcoin miners can absorb that energy.

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And, and, and in many ways, this feels like a second bite at the apple to build a new internet. [upbeat music] All right, Charlie, let's see what Nebius is up to.

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Interesting press release that hit today, covered it here on Blockspace. The headline reads, "Nebius Opens AI Cloud Stack to Partner-Owned Data Centers."

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Reading directly from the article, "Nebius announced Wednesday that infrastructure partners can deploy its full-stack AI cloud platform inside their own data centers, expanding the capacity available to Nebius customers.

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Nebius described this structure as asset light. Partners finance and own the facilities and hardware, allowing Nebius to add compute capacity without funding the full infrastructure costs.

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Nebius said it has signed initial agreements under this model. It did not identify the partners or disclose their locations, planned capacity, financial terms, or expected revenue."

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That last part I think will be really important for contextualizing just exactly what the deal structure looks like for this.

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But the TLDR building on what I just read, essentially Nebius is expanding their AI platform, their software platform, and their entire suite to have optionality on compute that they don't actually own.

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So Nebius currently runs Neo clouds, of which 75% are fully owned data centers.

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They own all the brick and mortar and run the data centers themselves, and then 25% roughly are co-located at other data centers, other powered shells, which is a departure from CoreWeave, which I think most people position as Nebius' clearest competitor, where CoreWeave is basically all co-located.

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They've decided to go asset light in the sense that they only wanna own the GPUs and the software stack, and they don't wanna have to deal with the data centers themselves.

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Nebius is doing them one better here and saying, "We don't even need to own the GPUs. We have the software stack.

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If you have GPUs and you're having trouble selling that capacity, we will come in, and we will help you with that by giving you access to our platform."

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And this does a few things for them that are, uh, that, that, that make this, I think, a big selling point to some folks, and I'll get some investor reactions up here in a second.

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But Nebius, it has the design for the hardware architecture, and they also have access to supply chain, OEMs, and NVIDIA relationships.

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Software, they have the software services stack and sales pipelines to actually get this compute to an end customer.

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And then all of the other heavy lifting, because Nebius has already done most of this in terms of building out its suite, the other heavy lifting in terms of financing these data centers, getting them on-- off the ground, worrying about the PPAs and electrical infrastructure, all of that is pushed onto the partners in this case.

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And I can't help but read this as something of a capital access workaround in some senses, Charlie, because Nebius is basically saying, "You d- you worry about the capital, you worry about the deployment.

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We'll bring the software and the AI suite."

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So Nebius doesn't actually have to go out and seek new financing, whether it be from debt or equity, to build these data centers, and they still increase their footprint with at least access to Nebius' cloud infrastructure, right?

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I would imagine that they're not going to retain the lion's share of the revenue from these deals, but they are expanding the scope of their, of, of, of, uh, their platform's use.

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This will invite more GPUs to be running on Nebius' cloud infrastructure, and it will continue to push end users of that compute and customers through the Nebius ecosystem, even if they don't own the infrastructure themselves.

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Yeah, yeah. It's almost like, uh, it's almost like Nebius is entering like a franchise model. Like, uh [chuckles] or, or maybe, uh, like, um- The mixed cloud model. Yeah.

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It's, yeah, it's like a franchise cloud model or, um, when Intel did the Intel Inside sticker on the computers, because it's almost like you're buying the quality of the, uh, desi- architecture and hosting itself, and so you can feel more confident.

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So it's like, um, partners of Nebius get the repute, and they get to ride on the operational excellence, uh, coattails, while Nebius can offload, can de-risk some of their like, uh, fundraising and the money side.

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Because the whole NeoCloud sector's pulled back and is, you know, after a mini little DeepSeek moment after Meta announced they're going in- they're entering into the sector like, what do you do?

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Uh, this, this does seem to, to me like provide a little optionality for Nebius. Cool, cool, uh, pivot, cool idea. I think this is, yeah, um. Yeah, the Meta news is, uh, lurking in the background here for sure.

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I think that's important to point out because now a lot of investors are asking, "Well, you're gonna go up against one of the most heavily capitalized and successful companies in the world.

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They're going to basically replicate your model and be able to do it at scale, probably execute much more quickly. They will not have the same barriers to financing as some of the smaller players will."

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So it's kind of created this ripple effect throughout the NeoClouds of how valuable is this business model really,

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and also raising concerns as we've seen credit, uh, start to tighten some, in some, uh, in- instances, and the fact that some of these bonds, like SpaceX, for instance, are actually trading below their initial pricing.

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Real questions are starting to persist about how much more CapEx can be poured into these builds or how much more are investors and banks willing to fund these things.

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So overall, it seems like a lot of-- I mean, the market reacted favorably to this. N- um, Nebius is up a few percentage points today.

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Now the wider market is rallying, so it's kinda hard to separate that from just general noise. But overall, I mean, most investors seem to view it very favorably. Now, kinda take this with a grain of salt.

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Pretty sure this guy is pretty heavily long Nebius. But he says, "This is probably the biggest announcement and most important strategic decision in the company's history." This is an investor, Daniel Koss, on X.

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"It will take time until the market understands how huge this is. Let me try to explain how massive.

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Nebius can now add capacity 10X faster without any dilution or CapEx or risk, with ultra-high margins globally and while simultaneously making their offering better for customers."

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Th- that to me generally seems to be the bull case. The only thing I'll kind of push back on is this idea that, um, uh, the ultra-high margins angle and they, they can add capacity 10X faster.

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They are adding GPUs to the overall fleet that is running under Nebius' ecosystem, but they don't actually own any of that capacity.

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So I think if, you know, for investors interested in Nebius, my first question would be: What are the actual deal terms for this? I imagine they'll be bespoke per each partner. But is there a revenue sharing agreement?

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Is there a licensing agreement to use this infrastructure where they just pay Nebius a s- a, a flat fee every year to have access to it?

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W- what is the actual accrual in terms of Nebius for how they're extracting revenue from this?

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And, and how much of the moat is about actually owning the software stack and the pipeline versus actually owning the computers themselves, which will generate much more revenue if Nebius were just owning the GPUs themselves and selling out that compute.

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Yeah. I mean, and- [crosstalk] have. Yeah.

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And again, against the backdrop of this, um, as I was thinking through this, you could interpret this as Nebius is going comparatively asset light, in that, uh, they're going asset light.

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They're probably avoiding, um, uh, holding too much of the compute on their balance sheet. The depreciation of that compute, again, subject of hot debate.

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So if they can offload that risk onto their counterparties, then that seems like a pretty great differentiated strategy to me. So- On that note, we have our guest, Nazar Khan, in the audience. We'll get to him.

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Before we talk TerraWolf, let's hear a word from our sponsor, Luxur. [static] You are muted. [laughs] Thank you, Charlie.

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Commander Pro is $100 per megawatt or a 25 basis point pull fee adder, roughly half the cost of competition, and you can try it for free for 60 days.

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So if you'd like to learn more, go to luxur.tech/commander to get started. All righty, Charlie. Let's get the one and only Naz, not Lil Nas X, Nazar Khan up here to talk about the latest with TerraWolf.

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A lot to unpack today. Nazar, welcome to the show, my man. Thank you. Thank you. Naz is all you need. No, no extra initials or letters. [laughs] Just Naz. I'm here. Well, Naz, appreciate you joining. Welcome back.

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Lot to unpack today. Uh, y- obviously, there's the Anthropic deal. Uh, we also wanna touch on Abernathy and, and s- uh, Naz- um, TerraWolf's decision to sell their stake in that.

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And of course, we also have to talk about the data center moratorium in New York. So I think that's a good place to start. Um, can you just briefly address how this data center moratorium will impact TerraWolf?

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I understand that in terms of Lake Mariner, Lake Mariner's in the clear. It's been cleared for a while, so it will not impact that site specifically.

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But I'm curious about w- how it might impact the Lake Hawkeye/Lake Cayuga site. Um, CE- your CEO, Paul Prager, tweeted yesterday that, quote, "These decisions will not affect Cayuga/Lake Hawkeye's schedule."

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And I'm curious, is that specifically because, um, y- y'all expect the moratorium to lapse by the time that construction gets underway? How exactly will it cause any problems or not for that site? Sure.

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Fir- first, uh, as you said, um, with all of the contracts we've signed to date, you know, with Core42 and Fluid Stack and Google, all of those, uh, buildings are fully permitted. They're in construction.

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They're in finance. And so there's no impact whatsoever on any of, of that capacity.

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In terms of the expansion of Lake Mariner, which is an incremental 250 megawatts, uh, as well as the Lake Hawkeye site, you know, we've always targeted kind of power delivery in the, you know, '29 timeframe.

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And so given that timeline, you know, a 12-month moratorium or whatever it ends up being, we don't think overall impacts the schedule for the delivery of data center capacity at that site.

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So Paul's tweet yesterday was really in line with just kind of how we've thought about the overall timeline, uh, for those sites as well.

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You know, taking a step back, I think it's important to just recognize the guidance that we've been given-- giving the market is, is that we're gonna sign up 250 to 500 megawatts of critical IT load per year.

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We did that last year between the Core42, uh, announcements and the Fluid Stack and Google.

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We just signed, as you mentioned earlier, a 401-megawatt deal with Anthropic, which is again squarely in the middle of that range. Uh, we've got our site in Eastern Kentucky, the Muskie site coming up.

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That's 500 megawatts of gross power. That's available in the third quarter of 2028. In '29, we've got Morgantown, which is the site that we have in Maryland. We've got the expansion of Lake Mariner. We've got Cayuga.

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So we have a couple different ways to kind of get to that, you know, 250 to 500 megawatts in '29. And then 2030, we have another 500 at, at Muskie lined up.

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So with what we have in the portfolio today, that guidance that we've been giving you of 250 to 500, we feel extremely confident that we're gonna be able to follow through and deliver upon.

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And that's why Paul, you know, tweeted yesterday and saying, "Hey, yes, there's a moratorium out there. Um, yes, you know, state's gonna take a look at it," which we actually welcome.

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We actually think it's not a bad thing for people to take a step back and say, "Okay, hey, how are we gonna actually meet the needs of this significant demand that is coming from data centers? What's the way to do that?"

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We think we've been a model of how that should be done, whether it's transitioning old brownfield sites or how we've worked with union labor at our sites.

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And so again, something for us that, um, we think will reflect well on the work we've done. And but again, overall, it doesn't really impact the overall timing and delivery of the capacity for, for those sites.

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Appreciate that answer. And I think that this is something, uh, we, we have actually have an investment note that we'll be covering

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towards the end of the show from Rose and Blatt saying that the market really overreacted to the moratorium, considering what TerraWolf already has in place and the timelines that y'all have discussed for the expansion at Mariner and at Lake Hawkeye.

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I, I wanna turn to- But I do think, just before we leave that subject though, so I think the, the, the, the, the part of the overreaction I think is, is generally the market is trying to decipher, um, who is gonna have megawatts and when, right?

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If you were just to add up everyone's stated megawatts, you know, you ask us and you ask 40 other people, you add that all up, that's gonna be a really big number.

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And I would bet a dollar that the actual number of data centers that come up will be some number less than that. And so everyone's trying to figure out how much less, right?

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So I think everyone will agree that it's gonna be less than what everyone's saying. It's how much less. Is it 5%? Is it 50%? Is it 95%?

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And so any kind of news that signals, hey, there could be an impact on that, I think people kind of, you know, sell first and then kind of ask questions later.

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And that's where I think for TerraWolf, you know, what we pride ourselves on is given that we come from a power background, our understanding of when we're-- the megawatts and the pipelines that we're telling you we think are very...

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credible and real. And so whether it's what we've done at Hawesville, right? We acquired a site earlier this year, and within six months we were able to sign up Anthropic for a long-term lease on it.

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Again, that was all happened within six months, right? That's a testament to the credibility and the proximity when we say power is available to what that, what that really means.

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And so I think that's a broader question I think that the market is generally grappling with is, is how to make heads or tails of all of these numbers that add up to, you know, hundreds of gigawatts of total kind of, you know, potential data center supply and where is it really gonna come from.

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And again, from our perspective, that scrutiny is actually good because I do think that, again, that number is gonna be something less than what everyone says.

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And going back to the 250 to 500 megawatts of critical IT load per year that, you know, I'd mentioned earlier, for us, you know, that's really a north star in guiding how we manage and are building the business.

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And if we're able to properly implement and execute upon that, which again, we have a very high degree of confidence that we will be able to, you, you add that up over four years, I mean you're talking about, you know, two gigs of potential capacity.

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And so we've already, we're already, you know, 800 some odd megawatts, you know, towards that two gig number. And so we think, you know, we're well situated to be able to deliver on that, uh, overall target.

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Nas, quick question before I move on to my next, uh, my next few, 'cause I've got a lot. Uh, do you have a hard stop at 3:15, or can we keep you for a little? Yeah, you can... Yeah, yeah. I'm good. I'm good. Okay. Cool.

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Well I- I- I'll keep rolling on this then, 'cause I, I have kind of two more questions with regards to the moratorium.

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The first one I want to address is, uh, Paul Prager said that y'all plan to have onsite generation at Cayuga.

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I'm wondering if there are any worries about some more stringent regulation coming down the pipe, 'cause the s- the h- um, s- the s- New York State legislature's bill for the moratorium had this pretty hard line provision where it said all onsite generation must be renewable.

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Are you expecting that to come out of this executive order in the working group?

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Uh, d- do, do you feel like that is maybe an unrealistic expectation that actually won't make it through in whatever the new regulations for data centers in New York will be following this moratorium period?

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What's y'all's sense of where the ball is rolling there? So I think, you know, one is that, um... I'll, I'll answer it more broadly than kind of get into the specifics.

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You know, generally, right, part of the reason we're in th- this situation is the overall market constructs that existed to be able to decide where new power should be needed, when it should be needed, and how it should come online really haven't worked as intended, right?

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I mean, there was a big wave of deregulation in the power markets in the late '80s and '90s, and part of that was is the market was going to be able to decipher when new power was needed, what type of power it was, and where it was gonna come.

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Fast-forward to today, I think most people would agree that that didn't really work, right?

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So I think data centers in some sense have become, you know, part of the catalyst for looking and saying, "Okay, hey, how should this all work? You know, what is the right market construct? How should this work?

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What are the objectives that the market is solving for?"

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And so within the executive or the, the prior, you know, bill that you'd mentioned, you know, there was this, um, comment that it all should be kind of renewable power and renewable power only.

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I think that is obviously a perspective and a view on, hey, this is how we think we should meet the needs for any incremental power that's coming.

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If you, if you rewind back a couple years, right, the state of New York had a target that by 2050 they would be entirely, uh, reliant upon zero carbon generation as a source of, of power.

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And so when you have nuclear, that's kind of a baseline zero carbon renewable f- uh, resource. When you have wind and solar, you know, these are in- intermittent resources that are non-dispatchable.

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So again, that's one approach on, hey, how are we gonna solve this? Does that necessarily mean it's gonna be the final answer? I don't think so, right?

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I think, you know, there's probably a, a number of iterations that we have to go through to come to what that l- that looks like, and I think Paul's comment really was that the, the need for incremental power to kind of feed data centers is not just for data centers.

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Right? I mean, if you look at the overall electrification of the grid as well, uh, that more and more things are being kind of run on electricity rather than combustible fuel.

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And so there's another driver for kind of overall demand, and within that, I think Paul is making the point that, hey, if there is a way that these aggregated demand, um, loads can also speak to some of the power that they're gonna need, that may be a more efficient way, right?

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So if you think about location, right, if you have the load there and the gen there, that may be a more efficient way.

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You don't have to build as much transmission to be able to move the power from one place to the next where it's being used.

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To the extent that it's a high, um, demand site where there's, you know, quite a bit of power being used, it could actually be a resource back to the grid because it now has both generation it can put onto the grid, it has a load that could maybe move around and be able to match some of the changes in the need from the grid.

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And so I think in the long run, we do see that the ability to add incremental power generation

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paired with these loads could be a, a structure that's beneficial to the overall market and could be a part of the solution in addressing, hey, how is this grid supposed to work, and how should we kind of transition from where we are right now, where most people agree is that we're not where we need to be, to get to a place where we do want to be?

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And so I think, again,

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data centers in that sense can be a real catalyst for the investment that's been talked about for the grid, uh, for a number of years here, and kind of be a pathway to find a solution that is at kind of a better place than we are today.

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So to, to bookend this, Nas, I'd like to unfortunately pull up a Truth Social post. I, I don't, I don't go on Truth Social very much. [laughs] But, you know- It can only be one person.

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This is coming from- Yeah, I was gonna say, it's our fearless leader.

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Yeah, this is coming from President Trump, and I'm not gonna read the full diatribe here, but he says, "One of the biggest driving forces in the future for jobs are data centers. They are big, strong, bold."

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And you gotta love that. And money machines for the state in which they are built.

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Governor Katie- Kathy Hochul, for political reasons, has determined that all data centers are being built or to be built in the New York State, has terminated all data centers are being built or to be built in the New York State, which is not actually what's happening.

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But he basically says N- New York should change this policy immediately. Um, they must not be allowed to cause us to lose data centers, AI, and all of the incredible new technology to China or other countries.

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Uh, I'm curious if this data center moratorium does change how TerraWolf looks at New York for expansion opportunities in the future. W- w- will this lead to- Yeah.

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Well, while we're talking about kind of data points, right? I mean, uh, Governor Hochul was also on a podcast, uh, earlier today talking about the moratorium and how... what she thinks about it, right?

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And I think she was pretty clear on that in saying that it wasn't really a ban, but more of a pause, and she wanted to give the various jurisdictions that these data centers are coming into the proper tools to work with those companies to be able to, uh, get those data centers online.

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And so, uh, if we take kind of her words, uh, at, at face value, I think, you know, the way she's thinking about it, right, is, is that this is kind of a, a, an approach to be able to kind of put some methodology and structure to this large scale demand that's coming, and give those jurisdictions that may not have all of the tools, the proper tools to be able to engage and work with these various companies.

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And so, um, that's again, on the face of it, not a, a, a bad place, right? If you think about it, this is massive investments coming into these locales.

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You know, we're spending close to $4 billion at our site in Lake Mariner.

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And so how that works, how that impacts the property tax base, how it works for local employment, how we're working with the unions, I mean, all of those are real and valid questions that we should be dealing with, and we've had a pretty open and transparent policy of engaging with all of the various local stakeholders and telling them what we're up to, how we're going about it.

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And you know, what I like to tell folks is that, you know, we can't... the expectation shouldn't be that you're always gonna agree on 100% of the things. Like, I can't agree with 100% of the things with my wife, right?

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So there's no way that I'm gonna agree with 100% of the things with anybody if I can't do it with my wife. And again, that doesn't mean that that's a bad thing.

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That just means that, you know, there are going to be differences of opinions, and so it's not that we need to agree on 100%, it needs to be that there is a proper level of transparency of what's happening, what we're trying to get done, what the concerns are, and how we deal with it.

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And so I think, again, if the intent of Governor Hochul's, uh, moratorium really is, is to kind of provide that playing field, I think, you know, it could be helpful and it could be particularly helpful for, for folks like us who've already been doing that and have been engaging in that, and we think, you know, we have a solution that various, you know, jurisdictions will like.

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And so we think, you know, if you go up to Lake Mariner and Barker County, that, you know, there'll be a number of folks there that will tell you, um, they've enjoyed kind of the work that we've done and have been grateful for kind of the, what we have brought, uh, to that part of the state.

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So, so again, long way of saying, um, you know, if that's the approach, you know, we think, again, it could be beneficial, and we think in the long run it will further kind of highlight the value of what we do and the sites that we have.

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And you know, we're, again, always more than open to have a discussion with folks and walk them through what it is we're doing and how we're going about it.

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I only, I only got one question I'm gonna interject here as we switch gears. Um, you guys got the Anthropic deal. Uh, that's pretty big. Cloud's my preferred vibe coding platform. That's like my window into it.

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[laughs] How did you win the bid for this? I, I, I... you know, what's, what's the secret here? They're a pretty pr- uh, premier, uh, company to have on the other end of the deal.

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Yeah, especially considering the site, like y'all said, you announced it and within six months you had Anthropic signed, so seems like breakneck pace. Yeah. The whole industry's at breakneck pace, right?

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And so even before we had signed the agreement to purchase that, that site, you know, we were already in discussions with a number of different counterparties, uh, around capacity there.

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Um, I think, you know, what we have found in the Anthropic team is a very entrepreneurial group that's looking to establish, you know, one of the premier companies in the world.

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And so aligning ourselves with a partner and customer like that, um, is extremely compelling and exciting. And if you look at what we've been able to do with them, right?

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I mean, we've been working with the Anthropic team, you know, going back to last summer. Um, you know, the end user for capacity at the site in Lake Mariner is Anthropic as well. You know, we have, uh,

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a, a lease agreement with Fluid Stack who kind of then sub leases that capacity to Anthropic.

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And so we've gotten-- we've had the pleasure and the good fortune of working closely with the Anthropic team for over a year now, and understanding, you know, what their needs are, where they're looking to g- grow, uh, and also just kind of how they work.

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And so fortunately, you know, we think, you know, we found a good partner with them.

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And so when we had the Hawesville site, you know, they were one of the, the, you know, the first, you know, calls that we had made in saying, "Hey, you know, we've got this site coming and this would be a, a good way to expand."

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And what's interesting with the Anthropic team, right, is, is that as they look to kind of build a business, you know, where Anthropic was a year ago is different where they are today, and likely will be very different from where they're gonna be a year from today.

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And so we're working with them on kind of what that trajectory could look like of where they're gonna be, not just where they are. And so again, that was the case when we did something with them a year ago.

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That's the case, you know, kind of within this lease as well.

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And likely, you know, what we do, you know, hopefully what we do with them, you know, over the course of the next year or two will also kind of have that constant kind of forward-looking view of, you know, where, where, where the company's going and what does that need, what needs do they have, and how can we kind of support that?

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And so what's interesting, you know, within this deal that we signed with Anthropic is, um, we did not have a direct investment grade counterparty at the time that we signed the lease.

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So we got a number of questions from folks saying, "Hey, it says, you know, a investment-grade counterparty, you know, will come." And so

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one view, right, you know, within Anthropic is, is that, you know, likely at some point here in the near future,

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whether that's measured in months or a year or two, Anthropic may or likely will be investment grade themselves. Right?

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Again, if you just kinda look at their growth in ARR, where they've been over the last, you know, just even over the past year, where they're looking to go, they'll likely go public here, they'll likely go public at a valuation that's over a trillion dollars.

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There's not that many companies in the world that have that kind of a valuation. And so we were willing to kind of work with them on where they're going rather than kind of where they sit exactly today.

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And so it's that kind of entrepreneurial view that we bring to the table, that we think we bring to the table.

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And likewise, you know, we found, you know, um, wholesale, you know, kind of wholeheartedly in the Anthropic team as well.

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So it's been a wonderful relationship and we're, uh, you know, fortunate that they, uh, were, were willing to kind of, you know, work with us on that as well.

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So Naz, on, on that note, and you kinda touched on it here, but if you could just underscore the point. So in the press release where y'all say that, [lip smacks]

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um, the, the lease is backed by investment-grade credit, so can you just... whose, whose credit is that exactly?

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So there's, yeah, so the two paths are that, um, Anthropic themselves, you know, over time becomes investment grade. And again, I would say that will likely happen.

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The timing of that, you know, is, you know, kind of TBD.

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Or, you know, whoever the hardware they're u- they're, they're using, you know, they could kind of step in, and whether they step in for the full 20 years or some period that's shorter than that, depending upon what Anthropic looks like could, could, uh, be another path.

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And so we're actively working with Anthropic on doing that. And as I said, we're looking at where they're going rather than kind of, you know, where they sit today or where they were yesterday.

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And so, so that's the view that we took. Uh, again, early on folks said, "Hey, you know, that's a little bit different than what we've done before."

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And our response was, is what we did a year ago is what we thought the market needed and where the market was going kind of, you know, for the year ahead.

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Um, if you look back, you know, we were the first to do that structure. Subsequent to that we had a number of our peers, you know, follow up on that exact same structure.

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And now, you know, we've kind of taken a look and said, "Hey, w- we don't ne- necessarily need to replicate exactly that. Do we need a highly rated credit counterparty underlying this lease?

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Absolutely, but there's not kind of, you know, one specific way that that, that may come about. That could kind of come about with either of these two paths.

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So o- on that, uh, kind of extending this thread further, Naz, and I know you're not TeraWulf CFO Patrick Flury, so I'm sorry for throwing this one to you, and you can duck it if you want.

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But g- gi- given that there is potentially the option to have investment-grade credit backing this project in, in the near term, is, is that some of the rationale as to why TeraWulf decided to, as Patrick Flury s-

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bridge loans for part of the financing for this? Is that- Oh, you dropped out... can we see that as a stop gap? Oh. You dropped out briefly. Could you restate that? Uh, yeah.

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Um, my, my question is looking at the f- the, uh, potential for future investment-grade credit for this site, is that part of the rationale behind what Patrick Flury said recently on an interview that y'all are looking at le- leveraged loans, uh, in the, in the interim to secure capital for this site?

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Can we view that as kind of a stop gap until you get to something like that? I'm just curious why going for something like a mix of leveraged loans and secured notes rather than just, uh, notes outright.

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So again, um, Patrick is the CFO- Yeah [laughs]... and Patrick is the best CFO kind of in the space, and so I will try to do my part to, uh, address that.

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And again, I will probably not, um, capture everything that, that Patrick would say. But, but a couple things here.

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So, so one is that, um, we are going to go after the capital markets that provide the most efficient source of financing.

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When we did a-- went to the high-yield bond market, uh, last year, we were the first company to kinda go into that market to raise debt f- to, for construction for a data center, right?

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And so Patrick, uh, and, you know, we work, uh, very closely with the team at Morgan Stanley, spent a tremendous amount of time thinking through, "Hey, where is the most efficient market to be able to raise this debt, get us into the market, get great pricing, and allow us to really run hard at building this facility?"

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And so that was not a foregone conclusion when, before we started that process, right?

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The view that Patrick took, uh, it was, you know, a testament, again, to his ability to understand where the capital was coming from, what the capital was looking for, and what we can kind of feed into that.

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So going forward, we're always gonna be thinking about different markets to be able to bring that capital in, and so whether that's leverage loan market, project finance market, high-yield market, it could be, you know, a mix or any of the above depending upon where the market is and what we need.

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And so again, that's a testament to Patrick and his experience and expertise in being able to understand those markets and being able to bring us, you know, bring TeraWulf into the proper market to do that.

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So I think Patrick's comment on that was more around just, "Hey, there are multiple ways that we can raise this capital, and we're always gonna look at all of them and ensure that we're getting kind of the best execution for the company."

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Um, with respect to kind of when we actually go to the market to raise that debt, again, whether it's a leverage loan, whether it's a high yield, whether it's a project finance or anything, any other market that may, may, may be out there, we will at that point in time have a clear view on who the credit counterparties are, what the ratings are, and they will likely be investment grade or better.

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Um, uh, and we will kind of, you know, finance it on the, on the back of that.

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And so there is not an expectation that we're gonna have some sort of interim financing that we know we have in place for, you know, some short period of time that's then taken out at some subsequent time.

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I think when we do go to the market, we'll have a total package- That total package may have some on-ramps and off-ramps for different investment-grade counterparties.

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That could be the case, but we will have kind of a full package with investment-grade counterparties at the time that we go into the markets because ultimately to be able to get the best cost of capital for the construction, we're gonna need kind of that clarity and that certainty.

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And so again, if I misstated anything, Patrick will likely text me here within the next couple minutes, but [laughs] I'll let you know. Well, you can just blame me. To, to- Yeah...

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you know, I, I put you on the hot seat with that one. I think you, you channeled your inner Fleury pretty well with that though.

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Nas, b- uh, to wrap up here, just, uh, one or two more questions, and I wanna turn our attention to the Abernathy JV sale. What, what is the rationale behind this?

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Is this basically saying we need to free up resources for our real winning sites right now? I'm curious as to why TerraWolf decided to step away from that JV in Texas. Sure.

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When we first signed that JV, you know, we have a great relationship with Fluid Stack. They've been great partners. Well, with us, um, we looked at that as a potential channel for further growth, right?

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At the time we signed that deal, um, we had, uh, signed up Fluid Stack as a customer at the Lake Mariner site. Fluid Stack's been doing a number of things.

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Uh, they've continued to build their platform, and so we looked at it as a potential channel for growth and kind of entering into these JVs, and whether it was with Fluid Stack or potentially with other counterparties, was another way for us to grow the platform.

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Um, as we got into it, you know, there's a lot that goes into putting these projects together. Um, and so for that site in particular, you know, we were at eighty-four megawatts of net critical IT capacity.

280
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And so it's one of those things where whether you're doing eighty-four megawatts or you're doing four hundred and eighty-four megawatts,

281
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the time, you know, that's required around those projects isn't that much different. And so it was really a, uh...

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and a, a look and saying, "Hey, where is our time kind of best spent, and where are our resources kind of best allocated?"

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And so kind of dedicating both the time and the resources to sites that we fully own, that we own 100% of, right? So all the effort that we're putting in, we're getting 100% of that, uh, benefit on the back end.

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And sites where we can kind of continue to grow the, and build a platform. Again, Muskie, you know, we've got a, a gigawatt there. We're, you know, we've expansion at Lake Mariner.

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So sites that we wholly own and sites that we can continue to grow and expand are where we should be spending both our time, which is kind of, you know, some of the most valuable things we have, as well as the capital and the resources that we have.

286
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And so that was really the, the decision there. And so, um, again, Fluid Stack remains a wonderful partner. Uh, we w- work very closely with them up at the Lake Mariner site.

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But the view was is, "Hey, let's kind of exit the JV, let Fluid Stack run with that, and kind of reallocate our resources, you know, to wholly owned sites where we can kinda continue to build and grow."

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All right, Nas, last question. This one actually comes from the audience. And sorry, the investors, the Wolf investors aren't gonna be, uh, aren't, aren't gonna let y'all rest on your laurels after the Anthropic deal.

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They're wondering what's coming next. So this is coming from JZS, JZ Squared: "What are the operational and executional challenges you anticipate as you work to get Muskie fully approved and built, if any?"

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So the, the, uh, execution challenges, right? I mean, in that deal, we are working with Kentucky Power, which is a subsidiary of AEP, which is one of the largest investor-owned utilities in the country.

291
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And they've been a wonderful partner to work with as well.

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And if you think about this, right, this is an approach where the utility is seeing the demand that's coming from data centers and saying, "Hey, we're the utility here. We best understand the transmission system.

293
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We best understand how to bring power generation to bear. Let us do our thing, and let's work with the customer, and clearly outline to the customer what our requirements are." Right?

294
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So as a part of that transaction, um, we're operating under their industrial IGS tariff. Uh, we're required to post kind of credit for both the transmission and energy pieces that we will, uh, take.

295
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And then we get to focus on building the data center, right? Building, identifying the customer and building the data center. The first power that we have available there is the third quarter of twenty twenty-eight,

296
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and so, uh, there are a few things that we need to do on the front end to solidify the timeline for delivery of the data center capacity. Again, AEP has taken the responsibility to deliver the transmission and the power.

297
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And so once we get that locked in, which we hope to do so, you know, in the next, you know, few months, we will then be back at it, right? Talking to customers around taking that capacity down.

298
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And the benefit of that site is, is, you know, there's another five hundred megawatts right behind it coming in twenty thirty as well. And so again, that's a gigawatt.

299
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That's, again, the AEP from a transmission perspective has fully diligenced, approved, signed off on. We've got a signed, you know, kind of transmission agreement with them.

300
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So it's now really on us to kind of get the site ready. Um, what's interesting with that site is it used to be a, um, a mountaintop coal mine. Right? So basically they stripped kind of coal off the top of a mountain.

301
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There's now, coal's no longer there, so there's a big wide open space.

302
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It's likely to be nothing other than an industrial site, and so we're working with the local community there to kind of get things dialed in so we can, um, have those discussions.

303
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So it's really, again, getting the pieces together. Again, we went through a similar exercise in Hawesville, right? We had purchased a site. Was, had a different use case at, at that site.

304
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We needed to work with the local communities in getting them informed about what we were doing, how we were doing it, what that meant for them.

305
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And once we had that all dialed in, then we were able to kind of go out to the market and finalize, um, things with Anthropic with respect to lease. And so we're in the middle of that same process on Muskie as well.

306
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So it's, again, it's a lot of the sim- similar things that we did in Hawesville, uh, for the site that we have in Western Kentucky, um, that we're doing here and in, in Eastern Kentucky.

307
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And so, um, the benefit is, is kind of we've, you know, been through this process, you know, pretty recently. We're working through that.

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As soon as, again, we get some of those things, uh, aligned with the local community again on the timing, what we're doing, how it's all gonna work, you know, we'll again be in front of all of the various, you know, friends and partners we have that are looking for, for capacity.

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And so, uh, hopefully, again, it's kind of, uh, an- another execution similar to what we've done in, in Hawesville, Kentucky already. We'll be keeping our eyes peeled for updates on it as always.

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Plenty going on in y'all's s- corner of the world. Nas, thank you so much for joining. Really appreciate it, man. Thanks for going a little over with us. Pleasure. Thank you. Yeah, best of luck with the rest of the year.

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Wonderful. We'll see you guys soon. Thank you so much for your time. See you around. Love when we get sharp C-suite folks on this show. Uh, great conversation. We'll have it up later.

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If you wanna listen to the full episode, uh, we'll drop the full episode on our RSS feed, uh, standalone this weekend for you to review it. We're gonna keep on rolling with a quick news flash section.

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Yes, new segment added to the show. News flash, after a word from our sponsor, Ligos.

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315
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316
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317
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Sometimes when there's too many news items and they're a little brief, we ha- we, uh, we can't hit them all in their own dedicated section. So we're gonna do a little thing called a news flash.

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We're gonna hit the top stories from the timeline today, a lot of these, uh, brought to you by, uh, us here at Blockspace.

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The first one on the docket is, "Equinix Chief Business Officer John Lynn to depart July 18."

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The story here is, Equinix said Wednesday that C- Chief Business Officer John Lynn will separate from the data center operator effective July 18th. Company made the filing Tuesday with the SEC.

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Filing lists July 8th as the earliest reported event date. Equinix will distribute, uh, Lynn's responsibilities, along with its senior leadership team, under a transition plan.

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They anticipate revealing a new chief product officer soon, but did not identify. Filing did not name a replacement for Lynn.

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Lynn has been with Accine- Equinix since 2009 as director of innovation, and was promoted to executive vice president and general manager of data center services in January 2022, after he served as president of the Americas.

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Equinix previously credited Lynn with helping develop Equinix Cloud Exchange, later renamed Equinix Fabric, and he helped lead the $3.6 billion acquisition of 29 Verizon data centers in 2017.

326
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I'm tossing it to you, Colin, for the second story. [lip smacks] Yeah, quick note on this. Yeah. Equinix is the largest data center real estate investment trust. They pivoted to that model in 2015.

327
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They've got 270 data centers across 36 countries. So that's why we've got this story up there, if you've never heard of- Yeah, but they're like a conventional...

328
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But, and this is the thing is, you know, we cover almost, like, the emerging new neo type of data centers. Yeah. These are the boomer data centers. They're, they're the established data center.

329
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They're just, it's not as fancy. It's not bells and whistles, but they are the biggest. Yeah. And John Lynn was critical to a number of successes, um, according to his track record there.

330
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Equinix previously credited him with developing the Equinix Cloud Exchange. Um, he also helped lead a $3.6 billion acquisition of 29 Verizon data centers in 2017. So seems like an important departure. Stock's down.

331
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I don't think it's on the news. I think it's just following what tech stocks have been doing on the, over the last few days. But we'll leave that where it is, and I will move on to a quick note from Rosenblatt.

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They're reiterating a buy rating on TeraWulf with a $30 price target. Uh, this is the note that I referenced in that interview with Nas just a few minutes ago.

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Quoting here from Blockspace, "TeraWulf shares fell about 7% Tuesday to $19.41 as investors reacted to New York's moratorium on state permits for new large data centers.

334
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Rosenblatt Securities analyst Chris Brendler said Wednesday that the market response was overdone and reiterated a buy rating with a $30 target."

335
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Quote, fortunately, this is from Brendler, "We view this development as more headline risk than structural as the enforcement mechanism simply doesn't reach the company's existing New York platform."

336
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And that's largely true, as we talked about with Nas on our segment. That being said, the expansion in Lake Mariner and Lake Cayuga, that site, are up in the air until this is resolved.

337
01:00:11.988 --> 01:00:18.748
Now, the timeline for Lake Cayuga and for the Lake Mariner expansion will probably fall outside of the moratorium.

338
01:00:19.528 --> 01:00:31.668
As, as Nas said, their, their timeline for building these out is o- is out into 2029, I believe he said during the interview. So a bit of overreaction from the market here.

339
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And also, I think this goes to show, maybe not with sophisticated investors, but with how people were presenting this. I've seen Bitcoin mining investors and AI investors call this a ban, and it's not a ban.

340
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It's a pause on building them. I mean, the president himself called it a termination for all data centers in the state, which just isn't true. So

341
01:00:52.068 --> 01:00:59.608
jitters and spooks aside, TeraWulf clearly still has a path, according to Rosenblatt, for that $30 price target.

342
01:01:00.038 --> 01:01:10.532
And I would also just add, if you look at what's going on in Kentucky with Hawesville and their aspirations for Muskie- That to me seems to be where the bulk of development will be over the coming years.

343
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And clearly the Anthropic deal at Hawsville is, you know, we'll probably look back as a bedrock deal for the company. Yep, you hear that, Colin?

344
01:01:21.532 --> 01:01:37.932
And I just said that the president tweeted something false, rather he truth social media. I was about to say he truth something false. He truth, truth, oh, he truth the lie. Okay. Um, last story for the day. Here we go.

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Canaan, OG Bitcoin miner and Bitcoin miner manufacturer staves off Nasdaq delisting by getting a 180-day Nasdaq extension to regain the $1 bid price. Here's the story. On Wednesday,

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Nasdaq granted the Bitcoin mining equipment maker another 180 days to regain compliance with the exchange's minimum bid requirement, puts the new deadline at January 11th, 2027.

347
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If the ADS closing bid price reaches at least $1 for 10 consecutive business days before the new deadline, Nasdaq will provide written confirmation if that requirement's met and Canaan will be able to remain listed.

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Canaan says in its Form 6K filing the company intends to continue monitoring the closing bid price of its ADSs between now and January 11th and will evaluate all available options during the second compliance period to rectify the deficiency and regain compliance.

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So the target is $1 to stay in the game, to stay listed on Nasdaq. Canaan goes back 13 years, founded in 2013, develops ASIC computing chips. The first ASIC miner.

350
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I mean, they've developed the first commercially viable ASIC. Yeah. And they've remain- they've managed to remain, uh, you know, somewhat relevant. They s- you can still buy Canaan.

351
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They've come out with a new model every few years, and they're, they've got a bit of a, you know, some loyalists.

352
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And, uh, I think everybody who's done a tour in Bitcoin mining has, like, run a Canaan or two or a few hundred over the years. It's kind of a, yeah, it's like you, you would be captured. It's a rite of passage.

353
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Although I've heard from some Bitcoin miners over the last few years that their new Avalons are actually very competitive, which is great, but also very unfortunate considering that competitiveness is coming at a time when Bitcoin miners no longer wanna buy your ASICs.

354
01:03:42.632 --> 01:03:54.992
They wanna buy GPUs instead. And I think that's- Yeah. I mean, do, do you have the, do you have the fastest horse in the, in the, uh, in, in, in a race when everybody's care- cares about, you know, race cars?

355
01:03:55.152 --> 01:04:00.152
I don't know. Yeah. When everyone's driving Formula One cars now. Yeah. And I think that's the backdrop for this.

356
01:04:00.232 --> 01:04:10.232
If you look at the Bitcoin mining manufacturers, I would have to imagine a lot of them are in crisis mode right now. Your largest customers, the public miners, are gone.

357
01:04:10.312 --> 01:04:23.692
Uh, hash price is so anemic right now that deal flow for new machines has to be in the gutter. And a lot of miners are looking at the secondary market and saying, "I can buy a gen old machine for pennies

358
01:04:24.592 --> 01:04:35.012
on the dollar, and I'm just gonna run that because I don't really see any benefit in paying a premium for something new when I can't even ROI it in a reasonable timeframe." And I think that

359
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if you looked into Bitmain or MicroBT and Canaan as well, their sales have gotta be suffering right now, unless they're building out new pipelines in jurisdictions with cheap enough power.

360
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But then there's also a question of will they be able to retain foundry allocation? We've been covering AI inference chips, ASIC chips here on the show a few times. Nothing material is probably pressing them yet.

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But if AI ASICs end up really taking off, and you have some of the most heavily capitalized companies in the world vying for that wafer space, you do have to ask yourself, what does that leave for the Bitcoin mining manufacturers?

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Especially when you consider that their revenues are probably suffering right now, and their ability to up the ante each year for additional wafer allocation probably in question right now, so. That wraps up for the day.

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You just listened to Blockspace Live, which goes live every weekday at 1:00 PM Eastern, featuring quick hits on AI, data centers, emerging markets, and emerging tech.

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This show is brought to you by CleanSpark, Nasdaq-listed ticker CLSK. Shout out CleanSpark and all of our sponsors. I'm Charlie. I'm Colin. And we'll see you tomorrow.

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