Ever since this post, I've had a lot of folks here curious how things have developed¹. For those joining, I moved my family to South Africa for a few months this past season to volunteer at Bitcoin Ekasi, see if we had what it takes to live overseas, and hopefully teach locals what I've learned about coupling home automation with bitcoin mining. The last of these goals was inspired by the massive amount of private solar power in the region coupled with the bitcoin adoption and need for jobs in the area.

I've written tangentially about how it was becoming apparent that I failed in this last goal, and I hope to flesh that out here, along with what I learned, now that I have at least one month of semi-productive data. I'd like to share some good news first though, as I know at least a couple of you are curious about the first two stated goals. If you'd rather skip to the home solar mining stuff, click here, but be forewarned that I'm primary writing this as an open letter to myself and my family to process this past season.

What's happening in the region is really exciting. People are using bitcoin for everything. There is not a single human need that you can't pay for in bitcoin in that community. I was able to buy food, clothing, and shelter and as well as many superfluous goods and services entirely with bitcoin.

Here's the very first grocery run I ever paid for in bitcoin.

This is nice for me, as someone who doesn't want to hold US war tokens, but you can imagine how amazing it is for someone who's alternative is the South African rand.

I've written a few other posts about how I tried to contribute, but I'll just share my absolute favorite anecdote here. Delfinos is this amazing restaurant on this beautiful beach. They didn't take bitcoin when we were there², but between the view, the food, and the playground/tidepool, it was hard to stay away.

Actual view from Delfinos!

I developed a relationship with a server from Zimbabwe. As one might imagine, it didn't take much to convince him to accept tips in bitcoin. We've been following up and now his sister, after years of trying to find a better alternative to the traditional financial system, is able to quickly, safely, and affordably send money home to the family from Florida. This is why we bitcoin, right!? It was an immense privilege to be a small part of their family's story.

My wife reminds me when I get sad about how little I accomplished that our primary goal was to see if we could live there with kids from a safety and community standpoint. The short answer is yes!

The poverty is horrifying. While I'd never recommend going somewhere just to check out the poverty, I'd also be quick to add that shielding yourself from poverty doesn't do anything to help folks trapped by it. What I learned is that poverty doesn't always equate to violence, although I'm still a little baffled by this. I spent on average five days a week most of my daytime hours in the township. We started out spending our nights in a gated community but moved into the central part of the town as quick as we could. The gated community was a mistake, influenced by fear-mongering from a number of different sources. While I've heard things are worse in other parts of the country, I can genuinely say that the Western Cape feels about as safe as anywhere I've ever lived, and significantly safer than many neighborhoods way more affluent that I've lived in the USA. In Mossel Bay, you really do need to be looking for trouble in order to find it.

most dangerous guy I ran into in all of my African travels, and he was INSIDE the gated community

As far as community, we made lots of different friends from a number of different communities. Despite the radical difference in wealth and lifestyle, people were very accepting. I like to think that's because things are changing due to opportunities that the bitcoin adoption allows, but I don't really know for sure. Either way, the whole region is very warm and there's an old-school love of conversation and debate that was a big breath of fresh air for me. We missed a lot of the cultural elements of home, but there's nothing like being around people who still know how to be personable with strangers.

If we did it again, I'd work harder to get the kids into programs where they'd be around more peers. I'm also concerned how all of this is affecting their long-term friendships.

So, could we live there forever? I'm not sure. Would we go back for a time? In a heartbeat!

I was right about one thing. Solar is everywhere!

People really want to find something to do with that excess power too. I was shocked how easily people were on board. I had written a pamphlet to give to solar installers and the first one I met wanted to get to business before even reading it!

I had reached out to a couple of industrial bitcoin miners before coming and explained the plan. I didn't receive a response from most and got timelines that didn't match my schedule from a couple of others. One actively discouraged the plan, arguing that home solar mining just can't be profitable. Once on the ground, I kind of assumed I'd be able to find at least a few by word of mouth or Craigslist type listings. This was not the case. I met a few other industrial miners, but they also derided the idea of home solar mining.

A point of consternation for me was seeing the way a couple of these industrial miners also actively promoted low-hashrate machines that cost more money than the recycled machines that I wanted to buy. Most of these lower hashrate machines are more efficient, but will still never return a ROI in any amount of time and are actually harvested from the machines that I wanted to use.

Braiins decided to donate an s9 to Bitcoin Ekasi, but it wasn't going to arrive until my final weeks. Closing in on the last month, I found a shit-coiner who had some s19s. They were significantly cheaper than anything I had seen advertised in South Africa, but still way more than what you'd pay for stateside. At this point, I wanted to run anything just to show the concept works, but I knew I'd only have a couple of weeks before I'd be gone. It seemed foolish to invest any more at that point.

I passed the distributor's contact info to two home solar users. While I sadly didn't have time to get to come alongside these guys to help install and set up automations, they were both perfectly happy to solar mine on their own terms. One bought an Avalon Q and just mines unprofitably because he believes in the mission. The other claims he has a massive bank of batteries and can mine off his solar charge all night long. I don't know how that's going for him at this point, but I felt like I did my due diligence explaining what I knew to him.

So I waited for the s9 to come from Europe and put it in somebody's basement. We setup the quickest, dirtiest home automation and only mine when his solar battery is over 95% charged. He agreed to give me access to his Braiins pool account and donates a small portion of the earning to Bitcoin Ekasi. That said, it's an s9...

Anyway, that was one month ago today. Looking at the data from Braiins, it looks like he's mined about 127 sats a day at 3Th/s. So his average hash value has been 42.33, which is similar to what Luxor says to have expected in this time frame. It also means that if he had done the same thing with an s19, we could expect 846 sats a day. The solar installer that I spoke with the most down there thinks that we could have been significantly more liberal than 95% without messing up his power too.

But even at 846 sats a day, I think we'd be in business for anyone with a relative low-time preference perspective. The most skeptical industrial miner I encountered claimed that he could get s19s in South Africa for R7000³, which today is 463,056 sats. That means, at this pretty conservative schedule, the miner would still be paid off and profitable in a year and a half. That's not to mention all of the benefits this adds for securing the bitcoin network, and therefor protecting the user's savings.

So I have one case study. I feel melancholy about the whole thing but hope that something comes of it for someone, even if I don't get to be involved in the next stage. I was excited to hear that Gridless is doing something like this in Zambia. It looks a little more complicated to me, but it also looks more efficient. My inspiration partly came from what they're normal model is. I just wanted to bring it all the way down to the personal level for decentralization purposes. It's very cool hearing Erik Hersman talking about these type of ideas as a "scattered" approach.

It also looks like Braiins is developing bespoke technology to these ends.

I just heard about both of these developments in the past few days. So hopefully this is an idea who's time has come, and I was just in the wrong place for it.

I still get very excited when I think about the potential to effect change in the townships by implementing these concepts domestically. Maybe one day an opportunity to educate and equip young people will manifest in a manner I never imagined.

A few days after we got home, I got the call for my first gig in months. It would be that night at a restaurant I've played a thousand times. Nothing glamorous, just a simple restaurant gig. It would also be on the night of a community tree lighting. Everything felt surreal. I'd never gone so long in my life without playing music. It's been my primary source of income for over 20 years, and one that's typically seen as a privilege to do. It brought me to crazy places all over North American and Europe. I was happy to share stories and make music with old friends... But I feel like there are bigger fish to fry now.