New Chief And New Questions

A police chief leaves town, council members learn about it on social media, and suddenly Columbus has a new permanent leader at the Columbus Police Department. We talk through what Chief Daughtry's fast exit to Yazoo City signals, why the details around communication and timing matter, and how past controversies can linger long after the headlines fade. For Garland Ward, the questions start immediately: can he lift morale, improve recruitment and retention, and lead with the kind of visible accountability that rebuilds public trust?

Then we jump from city hall to server fans. Todd Liebel, vice president of LM Funding America, joins us to explain what Bitcoin mining actually looks like on the ground in Columbus, Mississippi. He breaks down the container-based mining setup, why it uses forced air instead of water-heavy cooling, and the biggest misconception we hear: crypto mining is not the same as a traditional data center with always-on client demands.

Transcript

Surprise News From City Hall

SPEAKER_01 0:01

I don't know what he has come up with today to talk about. I'm not asking you to hide anything. You know, you know, put it out there. Let the people see it.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

I've never not worked in a hospital working environment.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

You can't argue with anybody when they're putting facts in your face. Zach, that's a hard question. I have no answer for it. From the opinion page of the commercial dispatch. This is Between the Headlines.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

This week on Between the Headlines, Daughtery is out. We bid him fairly well as he heads to Yazoo City. And in with the new ish, we have Mr. Garland Ward, who is appointed as the chief, not interim, but the chief. But first. Retirement looks different for everyone, so your plan should be built around you. For over 40 years, Financial Concepts has helped people create retirement strategies that fit their lives. Our team in Columbus takes the time to understand your goals and build a plan that works for you. Wherever you are in your journey, we're ready to help. We plan retirement. Financial Concepts is a registered investment advisor. This episode of Between the Headlines is brought to you by Bank First, a bank headquartered right here in Columbus, Mississippi. That means your banking decisions aren't made hundreds of miles away by someone who doesn't know you. They're made here locally by bankers who know your name and care about the community. At Bank First, we're more than bankers. We're your neighbors. Whether we're cheering in the stands, catching up at a local pancake breakfast, or celebrating milestones across our community, we're part of the moments that matter most. Stop by your local Bank First branch or visit BankFirstFS.com to learn more. Bank First is a member FDIC and Equal Housing lender, Bank NMLS 454063. Good morning, Mr. Zach. Good to see you again today. Good to be uh in Catfish Alley studio here in historic downtown

Daltrey Leaves For Yazoo City

SPEAKER_04 2:00

Columbus, where we um have some surprising news, and that is Columbus. Um police department has a new not interim but actual chief chief, and that is Mr. Garland Ward, who uh uh was the assistant chief. Where do we even begin with this? I I guess the place to start, Zach, would be uh let's start with the outgoing of Chief Dalton.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

It's been kind of a wild week for CPD. You know, they they opened the week with one chief, and by the end by uh Wednesday lunchtime they had another one. So uh uh but it's been wild for a while. Well, yeah, we'll talk about that a little bit. But um uh Daltrey evidently has been keeping his name out there uh ever since he got passed over it uh for the Jackson Chief job.

SPEAKER_04 2:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

And um Monday we find out that he's been hired uh in Yazoo City for uh took a $14,000 a year pay cut to do it, uh, which sounds a little like getting out of Dodge to me. And um the uh council members find out about it on social media. Uh no word from the mayor, he he has not he has not publicly uh talked about this, what he knew and when he knew it, as it were. At any rate, no word from uh Mayor Jones on what he knew and when he knew it. Uh but the counsel were pretty well up and down the line, or like we found it out from Facebook that he was gone. And um that's pretty fitting and telling for his tenure here, I would say. Um there are a lot of people who were quite positive on Dolltree here. There, you know, there were some problems. One of the things that he was tasked with doing was presenting to the council by August 1st a 90-day plan for how he was going to get that department morale up, how he was going to uh what was his plan for equipping it, officer training, uh, retention, recruitment. There are ten officers short over there all of the time, including right now. And um he doesn't have to do that report anymore, I don't suppose.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

Yeah, now I read about that and it struck me as kind of like when a Baptist church does a vote of confidence on a preacher man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

I mean that you know, you you get one of those and it's like, yeah, do I but I mean all of a sudden they're uh th they've uh felt led to they've accepted the good lord. The they're going in view of a call to a a country church on a gravel road. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Start over.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

Well, um I I don't think this comes as a surprise to any of us. I mean, uh we knew he had applied to Jackson. Okay. That did not work. We we uh assume that that maybe his heart was elsewhere. I mean, that that's kind of uh and and nobody look, I I don't come into the studio with an agenda. I don't come into the studio um uh hellbent or uh predetermined to um just go on any kind of indetta personal or otherwise uh toward elected officials, police chiefs, sheriff, anybody, but but I I've just gotta be real here. Um the unfortunate thing about this for Chief Daughter, who I respect, who I think is a well-spoken man, I agree with that entirely. And and uh I think who means well. Um but when I look back on the tenure of Chief Daughtery, I'm gonna be thinking about that crash. The crash. And I'm gonna be thinking about the cover up. And unfortunately, it would have taken him a couple years uh even doing the right thing over and over and over for the public to ever get over that because you know how folks are. You you do uh seven positive things to make up for one negative thing. Yeah, it's hard.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

That's true. And and and in a job like a police chief's job, yeah, that's it's probably 14 good things uh for every one bad thing. And that and that is unfortunate. Uh but the couple of observations. I I I liked Chief Dalton. Got along with him fine. Uh when you could get in touch with him, he talked. Um you know, that wasn't always the most reliable thing.

SPEAKER_04 6:34

Well, he didn't but he didn't bitch about your effed up headlines, did he?

SPEAKER_03 6:38

Well, he actually did not, ever. Not to me anyway. But uh putting all of that aside, uh the line on Daltrey was that he never bought into he never bought into Columbus. He never he never really bought into being here. He his house is in another town. He wasn't here during the weekends. He just didn't so there was always a uh to the extent uh that he did a good job with CPD, and there uh there are ways that he absolutely did, uh the knock on him, uh or the number one knock on him was always, and it was fairly so that he wasn't bought into the community. You know where Garland Ward lives? Downtown.

SPEAKER_04 7:24

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

And he and he's here on the weekends, and there's just a lot of w with Ward in particular, um bought into the community, loves the community, uh

The Crash And The Trust Gap

SPEAKER_03 7:40

the the officers like him, they respect him, they uh listen to him. But there's something that um uh Councilman Jefferson said it was um it was on the record, but it got it it didn't make it into the story for you know got left on the cutting room floor, but it was a good point. Daltrey may not have been as popular with the officers. He he he may have rubbed some folks the wrong way within the department. There may have been some authoritarian things there that that didn't exactly jive. Uh and Ward was the guy as the assistant chief who kind of put the smoothed all of that over. Healing balm. Um and it's one thing to be that guy, and it's another thing to be the guy. And so, you know, to to Councilman Jefferson's point, when he was talking to me, he says, you know, I uh I think he can do it, I have confidence that he can do it, but when you're the one making the hard decisions, you don't get to put that, you don't get to lay that out on somebody else, uh, it does get a little different. And he's right about that. And so it's it's gonna be, I think, probably one of the more challenging things that Ward is gonna have to deal with straight away is that transition between being that guy and being the guy.

SPEAKER_04 9:05

Well, listen, before we do a deep dive into Mr. Garland Ward, I I just want to close out this thought on on Chief Daughtery. That is, um, as you mentioned, the council basically found out on Facebook or whatever that he was gone. And then there's this other little tidbit that that he was out um on medical leave.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Yeah. And he was recovering from surgery and took another job in another town.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

And didn't give notice to anyone.

SPEAKER_04 9:38

It's not my place to to question that, but it uh obviously the public is gonna be suspicious about that. There there are gonna be people that think that he was just out there interviewing. Whatever, I'm not here to say. But I wouldn't it have been better uh for him to just say, you know, um it hadn't worked out, um, I'm gonna put in a 30, 60 day notice, or or do you think that it was just so toxic that that wasn't even an option?

SPEAKER_03 10:08

Hard to say. He's been uh counsel's been looking at him for a while um with uh increasing intensity. It's hard to believe that fairly or unfairly. I mean, yeah, I'm sure some of it was fair and some of it he had a point, but they have been looking at him with increasing intensity, and I feel like the way he left I it's hard to it's uh I can't I can't really say this with any certainty, but it is hard to imagine, especially with the way he left, that um that wasn't some sort of response to the scrutiny that he was getting from his uh from his supervisors.

SPEAKER_04 10:50

Well, I wish him well, both on a a personal and on a professional level. I've you know I I don't know a lot about Yazoo City. I looked at it on a map. It's kind of a small town and it is in the middle of absolute nowhere.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Closer to Jackson, though.

SPEAKER_04 11:05

Yeah, closer to Jackson. He may fit in well there.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

I think closer to the house that he uh uh that he still has.

SPEAKER_04 11:13

So Yazoo City. It it may be like they say on forensic files, it was a tight-knit community.

SPEAKER_03 11:20

So a lot of crime, from what I understand. And uh also from what I understand, I've uh uh had a conversation with uh um their uh newspaper editor and publisher uh down there who covered the uh Daltries hiring, the meeting where you're hiring. Yeah. Um He'll be their 11th chief in twelve years.

SPEAKER_04 11:46

That ain't good. That's um that sounds like chaos. Uh well. Interesting. Interesting stuff. Well well, on to Mr. Garland Ward. Um I want to

Garland Ward Becomes Chief

SPEAKER_04 12:00

I I mean, all this unfolded so quickly. Uh I noticed a post on Facebook by the uh the packet that I mean just threw flowers at his feet and said that the that the city council needs to immediately uh hire him unanimously without ado. Um there was a little ado, but it looks like they did hire him unanimously at a work session. At a work session.

SPEAKER_03 12:27

So Daltries out on Monday. Um Wednesday, they come in. Jones has said, I'm gonna recommend that he's the interim during the search, and then, you know, 30 minutes later, no, there's no search. There's just here's our chief. And he was so surprised. I I uh went to talk to him right after the hire. I said, How you doing? Are you surprised by this? And he he uh started to try to talk to me in the recording. He said, I am actually really surprised by this. Can you call me later? And then I called him later. We had a great conversation about it after he got his thoughts together. So it wasn't a contrived deal. Like or if it was a contrived deal, but uh Chief Ward wasn't in on it. So he was very sincerely and genuinely surprised by it.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

So uh Well, what what do we know about him? I mean, other than he's been the assistant? I mean other than he's obviously popular.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

Uh 26-year career in law enforcement, uh different places. Uh started in uh JPD in Jackson, um worked for the A.G.'s office as an investigator, done some work for DOD, I think Vicksburg, uh Vicksburg Police Department. Uh he was at McComb. There was some there were some weird things in Macomb before he came here, but um now you know there's a lot there's a lot more than one way to look at.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

Did did he know Daughtery when he's was in Macomb or was that a different time?

SPEAKER_03 13:59

Um I think he's known Daughtry for quite some time. I mean they're friends, and uh he, you know, Dawtry has uh served as something as a mentor for Ward. I think he'll tell you that. Um but they're very different personalities. Um and and by that I mean, you know, Daltre outfront guy, he's gonna he's gonna have those press conferences, he's gonna have his notes prepared, he's gonna uh you know, just very um scripted. Well, he's gonna be scripted, he's going to be he's gonna have his talking points, he's going to um he he he he very worked very hard to cultivate an image for himself in that department. For my money, Chief Ward is a lot more blue-collar, a lot more, you know, interested in the the nuts and bolts and the blocking and tackling. I think that that's just the kind of police work that he has done.

SPEAKER_04 14:59

You think within reason he'll uh tell it like it is and just let us know what we need to know as opposed to polishing everything.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

I believe so, and and and that's a a commitment that he's made. And and I I'll take him at his word. The the interesting thing to see is going to be how he deals with the um, you know, you've got the you've got the meat and potatoes of of law enforcement that I think that he has proven everywhere he has been, including Macomb. Uh that he is training there. That he is good at, that he does well, that he likes. And then there's the I've I've heard I've I've I've heard a uh newspaper publisher one time call these the vegetables of administration. Like how do you handle your vegetables?

SPEAKER_04 15:48

Yeah, the politics of it.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

Yeah. You've got the politics of it, you've got that relationship with the council, you've got your relationship with your officers, you've got your bad apples, you've got your uh disgruntled malcontents, you've got your um situations where things go wrong and you have to publicly you look like you have to publicly acknowledge it. Publicly is the key word. I do you do you do you let your do you let the officer that has a DUI on his record walk out of the hospital without a drug test? Or do you say, no, you're going back in there and taking that drug test? Those are the types of things and then telling people what happened.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

I think that the the big positive in this, Mr. Garland Ward, I think, has learned from Chief Doctory's mistakes. I think that there's a lot of that. Yep. And in fact, he said as much in in his interview to you. He said um he said that he wanted to see accountability increase and he wanted to see deepened public trust. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

And leadership that is visible.

SPEAKER_04 16:53

Visible. That is so huge. If he follows through with that, I think he's well poised for ex for success here. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Well, if he gets shoestringed at all, it's going to be on that in that vegetable department. And it and it and I've done and I have full confidence that he'll be fine on that front, but that's the part about him that we don't know. We know we know about the meat, we know about the potatoes, we know about the the blocking and tackling, the nuts and bolts of the law enforcement, we know he can get along with officers, but what about the administrative and political vegetables? Time will tell how he does with those. Right. You know. And can he then turn around and face the public and say, This is why we did what we did?

SPEAKER_04 17:39

We we had the blue flu thing, we had the anonymous letter thing, and and so now um those who have complained in whatever manner, whichever time, um maybe have gotten their way here. So let's see. So if things like blue flu and anonymous letters come up again, that might tell us something. Right. If those things don't happen again, that also will tell us something.

SPEAKER_03 18:08

Or even if it does, because uh d being a police officer is hard, being a police chief, I imagine, is incredibly hard. Um, you're you're going to have things like that pop up. How do you handle those internally? How do you deal with those externally? And can you be um you know, he's an affable guy, he has committed to being an accountable guy. So what does that look like when you go from being um that guy to being the guy? And and that's what we need to know.

SPEAKER_04 18:44

Yeah. And we'll see. I have um recently added him as a friend on Facebook. We'll see if he accepts that request. He's he's got a really cool set of bands right across his eyes. He's got that that nice look about him, really cool. Looks like he's a trustworthy guy. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

I like him. He's a nice guy.

SPEAKER_04 19:03

But we'll see. Wish him luck.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

That's not something. Hopefully, we can get him on the show.

SPEAKER_04 19:08

Yeah, yeah, the invitation's always there. We'll see how that transpires. Um, next on the show, we'll be inviting a guest on the phone line.

Inside Columbus Bitcoin Mining Site

SPEAKER_04 19:18

It's a crypto guy. Let's see how that goes. Bring him on. At this time, we are pleased to have on the Josh Gillis phone line Mr. Todd Liebel, who is vice president of LM Funding America. He is a crypto guy and he is a local crypto guy. Thank you so much for being with us here today. I have to ask the most important question first, all right, since we are really early here in Catfish Alley Studio. Have you been awake all night?

SPEAKER_02 19:51

I I have not been awake all night. No, not been awake all night. I'm uh, let's see, only for a couple hours so far.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Okay, those computers, though, have have been awake all night. They do not stop running.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Yes. No, it's it's my uh fiance loves when I wake up and I've immediately gotta jump on my phone to go see, okay, are they all running? Does everything look good? Is anything on fire yet? So yes, they never stop.

SPEAKER_03 20:18

Well, uh tell us a little bit about uh tell us a little bit about the facility uh in Columbus, uh what it does, how it works, just just a little bit of the uh the high-level stuff there.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Absolutely. Um, so the facility is based. We have, and actually you guys nailed it on your June 4th podcast. We have a couple of these modified containers, right? And um they are they basically like shipping containers, they're just fitted out with a lot of electrical switch gear, rafts, exhaust fans, filter walls. But essentially we have these miners, and they almost kind of look like a shoebox. Each one's about 18 inches long, you know, one foot tall, uh, one foot wide, and they just got fans on both sides of them. And we just line them up on these rafts on this wall, and then we bring in cold air right from one side, do not filter wall, just regular air that's out of nine in Mississippi. Yes, it is, especially around that that noon time, so it's uh getting tough. Um, so but we just pull that in, call it the cold aisle. Maybe it should be called the uh the lukewarm aisle, and then we exhaust all that heat right up the top with big exhaust fans. We at our site, we don't use any water, uh, we don't use any HVAC or anything like that. It really is just forced air running through this container and uh exhausting out the top. And then you do that. Uh obviously, we have uh internet going to all these containers. That's how these these Bitcoin miners are able to use their uh compute power and send it out to the Bitcoin blockchain. And uh if we Do a good job and we're lucky, we are rewarded with Bitcoin. But so that's kind of the uh kind of how the site works. We have a couple of these, it really only takes up about half an acre. It uses around 7.5 megawatts of power. And um, it's honestly, it's it's a pretty simple setup. This is not some Facebook data center or anything like that. If you saw it, I'm I'm worried you might be disappointed. People may have driven by it and never had any idea what was in there, but it really is just moving a lot of air and lining up all these computers. They produce heat. We get rid of it, and then the cycle just keeps continuing.

Shutting Down To Help The Grid

SPEAKER_03 22:38

Well, now, uh, one of the things that y'all have uh done is you guys are are working with uh Columbus Light and Water to uh uh try to be good stewards of the of the power grid. Kind of explain how that works and how that functions in y'all's operation.

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Definitely. I think this is one of the most uh misunderstood parts of how this works. Uh, first off, when we come into town, we do not go, hi, you know, CLNW, I want this amount of power and you're gonna give it to me. I that is the opposite of how it works. We've looked at hundreds of sites, right? And we try to find places where they have excess power on the grid. There's a couple of reasons they might have that, right? It might be that they built out these peaker power plants. So on the hottest days of the year, at five o'clock, when everyone comes home and you know, they turn on their air conditioner, they turn on the oven to start dinner, they've got the dryer going. They, you know, these power plants have to be built out for this, which means sometimes there's a lot of excess power on the grid, you know, when that is not occurring. So we look for these places and CLMW, right, and specifically Columbus, was a perfect fit for what we wanted. And they told us, hey, we can give you 11 megawatts of power at this location. Now they do load studies for this, you have to pay for them out of pocket. The utility you know doesn't just give them to you. They take months to do those. They talk to the Tennessee Valley Authority. There's a lot of different checks and balances here to make sure that the grid can handle this. There's not going to be any issues, that it doesn't just go raising prices. Like I know that's a concern for everyone, and I completely understand it.

SPEAKER_04 24:20

We're worried about the brownouts more than the price. Well, we're worried about both, but I mean, shoot, I went blackouts in the coldest part of the winter or the hottest part of the summer, that doesn't bode well here locally.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

I completely get it. And look, I don't want to be flying into uh you know Golden Triangle regional and have people outside with pitchforks trying to get me either. So I I can't. I know, and I I could appreciate it too. I would be out there with them if that's what we were doing, but it's really not the case. So how you know, as we work with Bitcoin miners, we want cheap power, like that's the ticket. And the good news is that kind of aligns us with everybody else because everybody else wants cheap, reliable power.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

Well, you use a lot of it. We we do. We use I'm telling you, I looked at the numbers, you use more than the city of Caledonia. You do. I that's why I can believe it.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

It is incredible. I'll be the first to say we use a lot of power, 1000%, right? No ifs, ands, or buts. But I think how we use it can really be an asset to the grid. So during the summertime, right, which I've actually got written down, it's April through October, right? Our site turns off between 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. every day. Obviously, that's when people need the power. It's hot, right? You need your air conditioner out and all the things we just talked about. We shut down, and I mean completely shut down. The only thing that we have going is a mini split for the guys, our technicians, to be able to use. Okay, when they're inside the trailer, every single thing is off. It takes us about 60 seconds to take all of our power offline. So that's how we kind of give back during the summertime. And then in the wintertime, we switch from November to March, from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m., right? We also completely shut down our site. So we only get about an 83% off time. Okay. But in you know, I don't know, in return, we get relatively cheap power because once again, the power has to be built out for those hottest days, right? For those coldest nights. It's there. So that obviously that electricity becomes very expensive. If someone builds an entire power plant, they call them peaker plants, an entire power plant is built just so I can deliver you power when it is, you know, just hot as can be outside. Well, that power is extremely expensive for the end consumer. So what we can do is we continue sucking down that power when it's just otherwise sitting there, thus helping pay down those power plants, right? Thus helping pay into the tax base, doing all those things. Um, and this isn't some sweetheart deal that we negotiated. And, you know, like you hear about those ones that like Facebook or Google are getting. We pay taxes on our electricity, right? We pay the same rate that you'd pay your house if you pulled this much power. This is not some, I've got a 40-page stock agreement, and I assure you there wasn't a lot of negotiating on it. CLMW and TBA said, here you go. If you want the power, sign this. If you want to talk about anything, feel free to go somewhere else. And I can appreciate that. That you know, they've been great partners, great to work with, but they're like, hey, we are working for the people, we don't work for you. And I completely get it. So I think it kind of works out.

SPEAKER_03 27:31

So when y'all are shut down during those peak hours, I guess, how how do y'all continue to operate?

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Sure. So obviously, um, it's pretty hard to mine Bitcoin if we have no power. So at that point, what we're doing a lot of is like uh preventative maintenance. You know, it's the site. When I explain to new hires or people coming out, that this is not like the movies where you see all these nice glass-filled walls and you're in this climate control building. It's really more working with your hands. Like it's a great time to grease our big exhaust fans, right? It we're spraying down our filters that you know are filtering the air coming into these sites with pressure washers. It's a great time to, you know, be welding back on the door that we accidentally knocked off with a telehandler. It's we've all it's it's a construction site like any other. So it's a it's when we you know basically do all the other things in between. We can still fix a lot of the things on the miners, like the little fans that are on there. We'll swap those out. Um, we work on any of the broken, you know, each miner has like hashboards, basically chips. It's a great time to fix those, great time to fix our power supplies, but really it's a lot of like routine maintenance at that point.

SPEAKER_04 28:45

Todd, a lot of the folks out there uh have a tendency to conflate data centers with crypto centers. I know you have similar hardware, but they're not the same, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:59

No, no, and um, and trust me, I wish my hardware was as nice as these data centers. Um, I'd have a much bigger office right now. But no, it is a data centers need to be on, right? I mean that is they have an end client, they don't get to turn off. So they need that 24-7 power. They will bring in big, you know, gas generators as backup power. They will have these big power supply units for the instantaneous switches. So, you know, they're serving an end client with Bitcoin mining, especially how we do it. We are self-miners. They're our machines, it's our things. We are the end clients. So, I mean, I won't say that I don't care if we turn off, but it's not nearly as big of a deal for me to let it turn off and you know, have the site go down. It's I'm much more focused on keeping that cheaper power than I am having 100% uptime. Um, you know, when a data center goes down, I, you know, the the the traffic lights stop working. The grid has a problem. When I go down, nothing really matters. You know, and it's it's I might I get some phone calls, but that's about it.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

Well, I guess on the uh, and this may not be a number that you want to share, but just approximately, uh you you talked about the trade-off there. Taking Columbus by itself, uh taking that six hours that you're not running, and uh comparing it to the rate that you're getting for the electricity that uh you're using. Uh what's the what's the trade-off there and how do y'all come out? Like, I mean, uh how how much more valuable is the the power deal than getting to run those peak hours?

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Well, one, um it's extremely important because once again, I get to avoid the pitchforks outside the airplane. Right, right. Well, we talked about that, but I mean that's more millions, right? Yeah, yes. Um, it is so my rate, if I was to run 100% of the time, right? One, I'd have to talk to the utility because my it's all running through the utility. I don't get just get to like unilaterally make decisions and change how I operate. I'd need to sign a new contract, but my rate would pretty much double if I ran 100% of the time, versus if I run 83% of the time, right? Um, you know, I'm a 50% of that uh of that amount, which obviously just shows how expensive those peak hours power is. It really makes a huge difference. So for me, it is it's huge because one thing we do, we are all about self-mining, right? We run a lot of older generation hardware, doesn't make nearly as much as the the newest generation, you know, crazy Bitcoin miners, but we can do it because we get that extremely cheap power. So as a result, some of our machines might only be making a couple dollars every day, right? But you know, our biggest input cost by an astronomical amount is the cost of power. So if I can divide that

Noise Fears And Community Pushback

SPEAKER_02 32:00

by half, it's a no-brainer. I'll go with that every single day.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

Okay. Well, what do you think is, or what have you run into in other communities where you've been, uh just generally out in the public, uh, about the um the public's understanding of what it is y'all do and the impact y'all have on the environment and all of the so I guess how do you how what are you c uh what are you encountering there with the uh trepidation and the resistance to these types of centers with the public? And I guess how do you uh how do you educate against that in those moments?

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it's I know that when people hear Bitcoin mine, they immediately go, not in my backyard. And I completely get it, especially the the some of these things are absolutely true. A Bitcoin mine or a data center makes an unbelievable amount of noise. I mean, I you know, I wear earplugs. It's it's the and because the noise is from these exhaust fans running, and then the fans and the miners. It's not some, oh, some crazy things going on there. They're just huge fans and they make a bunch of noise. And people consistently make bad choices on where to locate these facilities. I've seen it time and time again. I've been brought out to go, you know, people are trying to sell me a site, and I'm looking at it sitting next to a school, and I'm like, you guys have lost your mind. I I don't care if the utility can deliver me power you. That's not an option.

SPEAKER_04 33:31

Well, it's definitely a nuanced conversation. Let me tell you this, okay. I am a Republican, all right. Republicans are not particularly known for their um sensitivities toward environmental issues, except when you start talking about a data center or a crypto center, everybody starts losing their minds, right? Well, why is that? What and where does that come from? And and and do you think some of it may be propaganda driven? I think he was already answering that question, David.

SPEAKER_02 34:08

Uh you know, I I I think people, I I it is a very easy thing to point a camera at and go, are you listening to this in my backyard? Do you see this? And it's it's not moving, it is there, and I, you know, I get it. And once again, people do these in bad locations. Nobody wants a natural gas turbine to pop up next to their kids' school. Right. It's but and yet some of these sites are doing that. And I mean, I've seen with my own eyes. It's part of the reason why our site right now, we sandwich next to an airport, okay, and next to a water treatment facility. You just you don't really get any louder location than an airport. Nobody's ever been like, boy, I sure wish I could live and put my house next to this runway. So there's a lot of, you know, location is everything. And I think that really helps kind of mediate some problems. The water, people, these data centers, right, especially older generation ones, do use an unbelievable amount of water. It it happens, it's there. The newer generations of these data centers, and a lot of these Bitcoin mines, right, don't use almost any water after they fill up their systems. They're all using closed loop systems. So they still have these exhaust fans, the noise will still be there, but all they're doing is running air. Essentially, they have a radiator design now where they just are running air, just like in your car, past the coolant, cools it down, goes back into the computers, comes right back out into the radiator, gets cooled down. So they're building these, we'll call it better for you know how much water they're using, right? Kind of that from that pollution perspective. They are making some of these exhaust fans quieter, but at the end of the day, it's they're huge fans and location is everything.

SPEAKER_04 35:53

You tell me if I'm wrong. It sounds like most of the complaints that are out there and most of the complaints that are repeated ad nauseum on the internet and wherever, they are either outdated problems or problems that have a generally easy solution. For example, the noise. Number one, think about location. Number two, maybe add an acre or so outside the facility and plant some dead gum trees. You know, some trees would catch a lot of that noise. I mean, uh things like that. I don't understand why everyone, not everyone, so many people out there are so black and white when it comes to these things.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

I couldn't agree more. We have a six-acre site and we use half an acre on it. And I love I love having every bit of space and it's surrounded by trees. Um, we have what's called Acousto Block. It is, you can look them up online, but it's essentially this paneling that's on our fence, right? That helps uh deaden noise so it doesn't spill into the street and keep moving. There are things you can do to kind of stop this. Now, I think a big part of the problem is people will put up these Bitcoin mines or these data centers. They will do none of that. They will then make everybody in the area hate them. And then they go back and they try to like, oh, I'm gonna plant some trees, I'm gonna add some fence. Okay, well, everybody's already mad. You don't, you can't become nobody gets um mad afterwards. They'll still, you know, they'll they'll hear, and it doesn't matter if it's you know the same decibel level of a vacuum. Once you're mad, you're mad. So I think a lot of it is front running it too. Yeah, you have to think about these things going into it.

SPEAKER_03 37:36

Well, well, and I was gonna ask you that. Uh the communities that y'all have gone into and other people in your space or other operators in your space, uh do the do the people who front-end good stewardship, do they do they usually mitigate the uh uh resistance?

SPEAKER_02 37:56

Or definitely. I I I have 100% seen it. It is, I mean, the communities will will come around them, you know, and be good. But I will say there's always still, I mean, I I always tell the story of this is a couple years ago, I was looking at a big facility in Marble, North Carolina, right? And we were gonna be partners in this facility. Um, and afterwards, I'm sitting at the bar and there's some very nice people there, and I'm talking to them. And uh, you know, I tell them, oh, I'm looking at this facility, and this lady looks me dead in the eyes, and she goes, You know, that facility is making the deer commit suicide and jump in front of our cars. And I I mean, I obviously didn't have a great response. I I looked at her and said, I was yeah, I I had I had no idea. And she's like, Yep, it's it's the noise. It's made them go crazy and they jump in front of our cars. I go, Okay, great. Um, it's been nice talking to you. And I don't know if there's a real, I don't know if there's a scientific way to counteract something like that, you know. So I think some people will always be frustrated or mad about something. Sure. Um, but I do believe, you know, there's a lot of things you can do to help make the community like you. Because once again, I I've been to some of these mines where I'm like, hey, I'd be mad if it just showed up here. Sure. Um, you know.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Well, I mean, it's uh just kind of a way of looking at it, you know, just because something's new doesn't mean it's good, but just because something new doesn't mean it's bad either.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

Sure. I I mean, I I was actually looking this up this morning. Ice cream production, uh-huh, right? What they use in energy. Okay. If you were to take that energy and instead of make ice cream, power homes, you could power 694 million homes every year. But that's what they you know, an ice cream manufacturer like Ben and Jerry or something like that, they use an unbelievable amount of power, right? Okay, but no one sees like Hagen Daz show up in their community. I'm like, I'm getting brown outs now. Anyone that's bitch about ice cream, right? Exactly. Right, exactly. It's it's amazing, it's great, but people aren't like severe weather comes in, we're all going down, you know. But they use it obviously. Think about the amount of power used to operate the refrigeration, the mechanics. You know, they're running huge rate automation in there, and that's not a problem, you know. When a steel mill comes to town, people are thrilled, and they should be. They're gonna use a lot of power though, too.

SPEAKER_03 40:20

It is, you know, well, you know, just for for the record, the uh largest uh power user on the TVA grid is a steel mill in our community.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

There you go. Perfect. And you know, I think that's that's great. Once again, the TVA didn't kind of hold their finger up in the air and be like, you know what, I think they could probably go there. That's okay. Maybe we'll have the power, maybe we won't. We'll kind of see how it goes. I'm sure they do load studies, right? They're checking on that, they're constantly looking at their power pull. You know, these things don't happen by accident. Now, I will say when a 500 megawatt facility comes to town or a one gigawatt facility, there is not power on the grid for that. They do have to, you know, someone needs to go build out substations, run transmission lines. Um, power plants need to be brought on. Like that is a different, that's a different story. And I can see how that raises your rates when a huge hyperscaler like Google comes to town. I think there's a big difference between them and some of these smaller operators like us, or even smaller data centers, where, hey, we're looking to use the existing infrastructure that's there and pull the power that you already have, you've built out. And you know, I've got a five-year contract, right, with TVA. If after five years they decide, oh, hey, no, we've got better things to do with our power, the people are here, they can terminate it. You know, and it's that simple. I sure hope they don't, but you know, it's not like I'm locked in forever and there's, you know, I've got no, like, I'm you know, I'm just locked in this community. If they decided they wanted us gone, they could do it.

SPEAKER_04 41:54

Well, I see those containers behind you in the photo and they look a little bit mobile.

SPEAKER_02 42:00

They they are they do they appear a little bit mobile. I will say, I hope I am not there when we have to pick those things up. Um, I think it's between you've got overhead lines running on one side, you got trees on the other, those are pretty happily settled on the ground right now. We've got thousands of computers in them. I'm I'm not excited to uh stand there at that crane operator if we gotta remove those things.

Bitcoin Mining Explained Simply

SPEAKER_03 42:23

All right. Well, for just uh for terms and definitions purposes before we let you go, we haven't really talked about uh Bitcoin mining and and and what it is. Uh from from what little I uh understand, it's it's essentially you guys are competing for other people's transactions and the transactions fees, and those uh computers are solving puzzles to get those, and it's sort of a race. Is that kind of how it works?

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Or that that's that is uh that is kind of how it works. And actually, David on that June 4th podcast, once again, kind of killed it on how it all works. You you basically, you know, all the Bitcoin is is you can track it all on this public ledger. And I mean, you could literally go on to Google right now, search Bitcoin ledger, and you would see every transaction that's ever been there. Um, what Bitcoin miners are doing is there's a every all the transactions, right, are put, they're all kind of piled together and they're put into what they call a block. And a block is solved every 10 minutes. So what all these Bitcoin miners are doing is we're all trying to solve this block. It's almost got like an algorithm, like a like a secret key to it, if you will. So we're all pushing numbers towards it, trying to solve this block, and then eventually someone does. So in return for that, you not only get the block reward, which right now it's 3.125 Bitcoin, you also then receive, okay, some like any transaction fees that are in there or a part of this. And the whole idea is based on if you it would be very hard to have a bad actor who tries to lie and like. Make a fake transaction, say Bitcoin is at the wrong spot, because you would need an unbelievable amount of computing power to do this. Because your normal person, obviously, if transactions started going haywire on the blockchain, right, Bitcoin would be worth nothing. It'd be like, hey, I mean, you know, all the doubters would be 100% right to think this is a scam. You know, no way. It only works if it is, you know, if if you can accurately correct how everything is flowing and it's all there black and white. So you would have to have over 51% of the network, of the computing power in order to start consistently doing fake transactions. Right. I that would cost you, you know, billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars to pull off. Not to mention you would need some serious power to do it. So basically, Bitcoin is secured, right, by the amount of computers all working to try to keep these transactions moving through.

SPEAKER_03 45:00

And that and that security takes the place of government-backed insurance or whatever the case may be, or regulation.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Yes. Yes, yes. Which, you know, I everybody's got their different opinion. Uh I might I might vote on the uh the Bitcoin and the machines being a security than uh than the government sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 45:21

So I think well, I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 45:25

No, please. No, no, please. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

Well, uh the uh the value of Bitcoin has uh dropped pretty precipitously uh

Surviving Price Swings With Cheap Power

SPEAKER_03 45:36

recently. I think it was uh a Bitcoin was somewhere around sixty thousand-ish dollars the last time I I looked, and uh it's been in six figures fairly you know it's in in recent months, years, it's been much higher than that. So I guess how does that how does that play in the long-term strategy of what you guys are doing when the value is not when the value's dropping like it is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Absolutely, you know, and we've been in this game now for a couple of years, so yeah, we know the ebbs and flows of it, and you've got to plan for it because a lot of people don't and they get wiped out. Um it is you know, the the biggest thing is having the cheapest power around, right? Because if you have the cheapest power around, you will be able to continue mining and operating when other people can't. Um, I kind of describe it like like we essentially just make a product, right? I'm not trying to convince anyone to go buy Bitcoin or anything like that. I highly recommend you do your research, but we make a product, it could be anything, an adder on that chair, right? It could be a fence. Even if right demand is dropping, right? If you have the lowest input cost, if you're like, hey, I've got the cheapest chain out there for my chain link fences, I get the cheapest lumber and the cheapest paint for my adder on that chair. You can survive. You just need to be able, you know, when people are slowing down selling your product, they're going to be looking for the cheapest option. The guy who can just maintain and operate, you know, will go the longest. So that's why we self-manage our sites. We don't send it out to anyone else. You know, we hire teams on the ground at our locations. We make sure we own all of our sites to get the cheapest power. We use our own machines. We do not get wooed by the newest and latest and greatest technologies because suddenly you're going into lots of debt and you end up in a bad spot. You know, we just try to very consistently mine whether it's at $130,000 of Bitcoin or $40,000 of Bitcoin. We just, you know, we keep moving forward and just kind of don't uh don't get too excited when it's way up there and don't get too down when Bitcoin is sinking.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Okay. All right. Well, is there anything you else you want to add?

SPEAKER_02 47:51

No, I don't think so. I really appreciate you guys uh having me on. I, you know, it's it's funny. We went to all of our neighbors and let them do tours of the sites. If you guys ever want to come out, you're more than welcome to. But I there's just a lot people don't understand. And I really think when people see it, you know, feel a touch it, get to understand it, it really changes the dynamic of, hey, this is just like any industry. There's no other industry where we start going, well, I think that's a lot of power and that shouldn't be allowed. You know, as long as the miners and the data centers are kind of good neighbors, right? I think it really can all work together to make a stronger grid and be good for the community as a whole.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

Sure. Well, we sure do appreciate you coming on and talking with us.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

Absolutely. Thank you guys very much.

SPEAKER_04 48:36

All right. Our special guest today has been Mr. Todd Liebel, vice president of LM Funding America. Hey, Todd, thanks for coming on today. Listen, last episode I said I'm I just don't know about Bitcoin because unless Taco Bell accepts Bitcoin, I just don't see the value in it. But I tell you what, I won't be going to Taco Bell for a little while anyway.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

So it's a good call. I'm with you.

SPEAKER_04 49:04

We appreciate you coming on today. Thank you

Three Local Headlines To Know

SPEAKER_04 49:08

guys. Three things we need to know.

SPEAKER_03 49:10

All right, three things to know. Number one, aluminum dynamics announced this week a $200 million expansion that will add 100 jobs at Golden Triangle Industrial Park. The facility will recycle aluminum beverage cans to serve as the primary raw material used for the ingots produced at ADI's flat rolled mill. Number two, Mississippi Department of Transportation has planned improvements for the dangerous Mike Para Road, Highway 45 intersection north of Columbus, what they call an R-cut, which is an intersection design that eliminates direct left turns and straight crossings from side streets. It's on MDOT's uh project list for the 2027 through 2030 uh span. Uh from January 20th, or I'm sorry, for January 2020 to February 2026, MDOT reported 29 crashes at the intersection. Since 2009, the dispatch has reported four fatal crashes there.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

That's a bad, bad thing. Um glad something's being done there. On that uh you call it an R cut. That's yes. That's an interesting concept. Did you see the picture of that? I did. Um I've always had a little bit of confusion when you when there's a four-way, and you've just got that little piece of road with without really any paint or anything. It's like, okay, when I get ready to turn left, do I turn left in front of the people turning left like you normally kind of do? Or is that little part treated like a little two-lane highway where you go forward and let them nobody really know. I didn't learn that in driving school. Do you know? I don't. Oh no. Maybe we'll get an M Dot guy in here to tell us the answer to that. Number three, what's up?

SPEAKER_03 50:58

All right. This one we'll be very excited about, David. A Bavarian circus starts Thursday night at Columbus Fairgrounds, and we'll have shows through Sunday. There will be clowns, acrobats, jugglers, elephants, and quote-unquote dinosaurs, which I'm not sure if they mean Susan Wilder's gonna be running around in that suit or what. I really thought a Leroy joke was coming in with that Well, and dear listener, we hope David doesn't run away with the circus, or that if he does, we can recover him before next week's show.

SPEAKER_04 51:27

All righty then.

Tips Line And Sign Off

SPEAKER_04 51:29

Reach out to us tips at cdispatch.com. You can also follow me on Facebook or X at the Chisholm Double Zero and leave a public comment. Keeping it real here in Catfish Alley Studio and Historic Downtown Columbus, your host has been Zach Player, and I am David Chisholm. Y'all stay friendly out there.

SPEAKER_01 51:48

I'm just a simple old country boy, but um, I think that makes sense. I've stepped out and I've said what I had to say.

SPEAKER_04 51:55

You've been listening to Between the Headlines with Zach and David. That's what old people do.

SPEAKER_01 52:02

That is.