# Why This Oil Company Buys Bitcoin Miners for $30 w/ Brad Cuddy Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/hashrateup-a-bitcoin-mining-podcast-6575766/why-this-oil-company-buys-bitcoin-miners-for-30-w-brad-cuddy Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/hashrateup-a-bitcoin-mining-podcast-6575766/why-this-oil-company-buys-bitcoin-miners-for-30-w-brad-cuddy.md Podcast: [HashrateUp - A Bitcoin Mining Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/hashrateup-a-bitcoin-mining-podcast-6575766) Published: 2026-06-12T14:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ben-raich8/episodes/Why-This-Oil-Company-Buys-Bitcoin-Miners-for-30-w-Brad-Cuddy-e3kmihu Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/111cf6d4c/podcast/play/121374718/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-5-12%2F426003032-44100-2-3f40f00d3d4a1.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/hashrateup-a-bitcoin-mining-podcast-6575766/episodes/why-this-oil-company-buys-bitcoin-miners-for-30-w-brad-cuddy Duration seconds: 2596 ## Resource šŸ”— Brad Cuddy: Website: https://chollainc.com/energy X (Twitter): https://x.com/_BradCuddy_ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradleycuddy/ In this episode of HashrateUp, Jesse sits down with Brad Cuddy, Director of Energy Operations at Cholla Inc., to unpack the "ASIC retirement home" strategy: buying S19 J Pros for $30 a unit and making them profitable on ultra-cheap Texas power. Brad explains how Cholla, a three-generation oil & gas exploration company, turned its mining arm into an R&D lab for the wider industry: flexible-load curtailment in ERCOT's energy-only market, early bets on hydro and immersion cooling, and breaking even by mining only when power is cheap. The conversation then widens into the structural shift reshaping mining: pubcos liquidating fleets, megawatts and ASICs being lost to the AI pivot, and what that means for US hashrate. Whether you run flexible load, hunt for low-cost ASICs, or want to understand where Bitcoin mining goes as AI swallows power capacity, this one is packed with ground-level insight from someone operating at the source. TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 Intro & the $30 ASIC tweet 1:30 What Cholla Inc. actually does 5:00 Flexible load: mining only when power is cheap 8:30 Why Bitcoin is the most unique commodity business 12:00 Demand-response software stack (Load, Foreman, Luxor) 15:30 Curtailment strike prices & response times 18:30 Whatsminer vs custom firmware for flexible load 22:00 The $30 S19 J Pro retirement home strategy 26:00 Scrap value as the new price floor 29:00 Pubcos, AI pivot & where lost hashrate goes 33:00 Securing megawatts in B/C-tier jurisdictions 36:00 Oil exploration, Waha pricing & powered-land development 40:00 Rapid fire: best units, hydro vs air, efficiency jumps šŸ›  Sponsored by: Sā€¦ ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/hashrateup-a-bitcoin-mining-podcast-6575766/episodes/why-this-oil-company-buys-bitcoin-miners-for-30-w-brad-cuddy/transcription-requests` ā€” Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/hashrateup-a-bitcoin-mining-podcast-6575766/why-this-oil-company-buys-bitcoin-miners-for-30-w-brad-cuddy.md` ā€” Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.