Mining vs. Buying Bitcoin Strategically

Tether has quietly become the largest bitcoin miners in the world, and Elektron manages 50 EH/s of the stablecoin issuer’s fleet.

Get your tickets to OPNEXT 2026 before prices increase! Join us on April 16 in NYC for technical discussions, investor talks, and intimate conversation with the brightest minds in Bitcoin.

Welcome back to The Blockspace Podcast! Today, Rapha Zagury, CEO of Elektron, joins us to talk about the company’s management of Tether's massive 50 EH/s bitcoin mining portfolio. Rapha breaks down Elektron and Tether’s partnership, the incipient market bifurcation between AI/HPC and Bitcoin mining, and why he believes progress is directly correlated with energy use. We dive into the legal origins of Elektron, the company’s global footprint across 32 sites, and the future of mining as Tether and Elektron double down on hashrate while the rest of the industry eyes AI.

Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com

Notes:

* Tether runs 50 EH/s with Elektron

* Greenfield sites trading at $1/MW amid AI boom

* Elektron manages ~200,000 ASICs globally

* Operations span 32 sites across 5 countries

* AI and BTC Mining bifurcation expected in 6 to 12 months

Timestamps:

00:00 Start

05:31 BTC market crash

07:59 Who is Rapha?

11:16 What is Elektron?

14:46 Swan & Tether legal struggle

18:00 Asset light build out plan

23:20 Business setup

25:05 Why mine?

33:18 Hashrate geographic distribution

38:54 Bad places to mine BTC?

40:50 AI & HPC

48:56 3.8% staff costs

52:11 Hashrate growth

57:28 There's ALWAYS stranded energy

59:44 Elektron IPO?

👉CleanSpark

CleanSpark (Nasdaq: CLSK) is a market-leading data center developer with a proven track record of success. We own a portfolio of power, land, and data centers across the United States powered by globally competitive energy prices. Sitting at the intersection of Bitcoin, energy, operational excellence and capital stewardship, we optimize our infrastructure to deliver superior returns to our shareholders. Monetizing low-cost, high reliability energy by producing a global emerging critical resource – compute – positions us to prosper in an ever-changing world.

👉Luxor, Blockspace's preferred mining pool

Bitcoin mining revenue changes every day. Difficulty adjusts. Fees move. Prices shift. And that makes it hard to plan. Luxor Pool’s Fixed Payouts let miners lock in revenue at a guaranteed daily rate for up to 18 months. According to Hashrate Index, miners who used rolling fixed payout strategies since the last halving have outperformed FPPS mining by up to 15 percent. Fixed Payouts give you predictable daily revenue, so you can plan, budget, and grow with confidence. With Luxor, uncertainty is optional. Learn more at luxor.tech/mining