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Ted Cruz on Bitcoin, CBDCs and Flared Gas
In a Mining Disrupt Miami 2024 fireside chat, Senator Ted Cruz talked about his own miners, a CBDC ban, flared gas and why he wants Washington to move slowly.
Senator Ted Cruz says he owns three Bitcoin miners in Texas, and that he checks what they earn every day.
He said so on stage at Mining Disrupt Miami, June 24 to 26, 2024, in a fireside chat with Fred Thiel, Chief Executive Officer of MARA Holdings.
Cruz told the room that about a decade earlier, a friend urged him to buy Bitcoin. He passed because he did not understand it. In his words, "I think I can say that was a catastrophic financial decision."
Since then, he said, he has invited Bitcoin experts to dinner to learn how it works. He told Thiel he likes Bitcoin because it breaks up the government monopoly on money, and because the supply is capped, so no politician can decide to print more.
The longest part of the talk was about a central bank digital currency. Cruz said a CBDC will not pass Congress, and that he has introduced a bill to ban the Federal Reserve from ever creating one. His worry, he said, is that the Fed could act on its own. He also told the audience not to assume Bitcoin is safe: "There is I think one force strong enough to devastate Bitcoin and that is the federal government."
Then the talk turned to energy. Cruz described the flares over West Texas, where natural gas comes up with oil and is burned when there is no pipeline. Mining at the wellhead, he said, turns that gas into revenue. He said he has been drafting legislation to encourage it. He also said mining can make a remote wind or solar project pay before transmission lines are built, and he called Bitcoin a kind of battery.
Thiel added that MARA had started a pilot in Utah to mine with methane from landfills.
On regulation, Cruz said his principal position is to move slowly, because few people in Washington understand the technology. He said he does not want the government picking winners and losers, and he opposes an energy tax aimed at miners.
Thiel noted reports of about 55 million American voters who have owned crypto. Cruz's advice to them was to get engaged: vote, volunteer and speak out. He added that his campaign website takes Bitcoin donations.
When Cruz and Thiel spoke, Bitcoin traded at $61,272. Today it is $81,466.
The full story is on Mining Disrupt at miningdisrupt dot com, and many more like it play around the clock on Bitcoin Radio.