tech & innovation
ROB CHANG
CEO and Director of Gryphon Digital Mining Carbon-Neutral Bitcoin by Rose Ho
Bitcoin mining is a notoriously highenergy-cost process that has a major environmental toll just by running the required computations on dedicated machines. But at Gryphon Digital Mining, the process has reached carbonneutral levels. In fact, with carbon offsets, they can even claim to be carbon-negative! CEO and director Rob Chang shares in more detail below and discusses how decentralized finance holds even more potential around the world.
How did you get into the field of cryptocurrency? Did you have a related background or experience? I got into the field of cryptocurrency because I decided to leave the investment banking research world in 2018. It just so happened that I had a few contacts who were connected to people at Riot Blockchain, which was the first publicly traded, Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin miner, and they were looking for a CFO. I was in the investment banking research world for 15 some odd years. Most recently at that point, I was at Cantor Fitzgerald as its managing director and head of metals and mining research there. So, I came in from a financial standpoint — understanding capital markets, understanding investor relations — and I slid into a role with the blockchain miner that way, and through my experience there, learned about Bitcoin mining.
What are the challenges you currently face in making digital mining environmentally sound? What innovative approaches are you having to take to address those challenges? I think it's just a smart use of capital and deploying in the right places. The number one impact, as everyone knows, is energy. We made the decision a few years ago — before Elon Musk made it popular, really — in terms of focusing our operations on 100% carbon-free sources. Our locations are using hydro-power primarily, and it's carbon-free. On top of that, to be innovative and to lead the way, we also own carbon offset credits, which we don't really need to use because our operations are carbon-free. However, we have that in our back pocket. So, I guess you could say, we’re a carbon-negative miner from that perspective. We can use
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the EDGE Spring 2023
Photo courtesy of Rob Chang
those carbon credits to offset the carbon emissions from the machine deliveries, for example, or when we travel to go to conferences.
As of November 2022, cryptocurrency and the global economy is at a downturn. When you look into the long term, are you optimistic about the future of digital mining? Absolutely. I'm actually extremely comfortable and it's amusing. I was talking to someone about this the other day — we were at 60-something-thousand, we're now around 20 [thousand] right now, and many people are panicking. But when you look at [Bitcoin] a couple of years ago, when we were at three to seven [thousand], this is great. We're way better than those periods. We have out of control money printing with the US dollar and every other currency. By comparison, there is always going to only be a set amount of Bitcoin. There is a lot of global adoption taking place, and it's still happening. I think there's a lot of opportunity for even just a fraction of [regular] people to start using Bitcoin, and that global adoption is going to be a catalyst for a big lift in the price of Bitcoin. [In third-world countries], being able to have a bank account might be difficult, but pretty much everyone has a cell phone. It's easy. Once you have a cell phone that's effectively a small computer, you can have a trading account for Bitcoin, which means that you have access to a financial system that does not have the difficulties that the normal financial systems do. It's also cheaper and faster to transact that way. I can see a lot more adoption from those areas as opposed to the firstworld countries. //
