TUESDAY, MAR03
1. Surplus solar to BTC, 2. Slovenia safe haven, 3. NFC tap to pay, 4. AI for Bitcoin Core code review?
Supported by Proto and Bitkey - a part of the Bitcoin ecosystem at Block, Inc.
1. burns
A fire in Wenatchee, Washington late February was linked to a bitcoin mining operation, prompting a local investigation into facility safety measures, though the Wenatchee fire department has not disclosed damage extent or injuries. According to the report, authorities are conducting a thorough investigation into the fire's cause and the mining operation's compliance with local safety regulations, with outcomes potentially influencing future operational standards for bitcoin mining in Washington state. The incident raises questions about fire hazard protocols at mining facilities as digital asset markets experience volatility, with recent reports showing significant liquidations by major mining companies. The fire comes as mining operations face an increase local regulatory scrutiny over energy consumption, safety practices, and infrastructure requirements, though specific details about the involved mining operation and exact fire cause remain undisclosed. Authorities have not confirmed whether the facility employed standard safety measures typical of data center operations including fire suppression systems, electrical load management, and thermal monitoring equipment commonly deployed at professional mining sites to prevent equipment overheating and electrical failures.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY SHARE TO X2. solid
Finnish startup Donut Lab is attempting to back up what many battery experts consider implausible claims about its all-solid-state battery technology, releasing third-party test results in a staged video series, after widespread skepticism followed a January announcement. According to Casey Crownhart in MIT Technology Review, the company's initial claims included 400 watt-hours per kilogram energy density, five-minute charging, 100,000-cycle lifespan, and costs below current lithium-ion cells. The first independent test, published last week, showed a single cell charging from 0% to 80% in roughly four and a half minutes, though with notable heat buildup. Shirley Meng, a professor of molecular engineering at the University of Chicago, remains unconvinced: "They had zero demo, so I don't believe it. Call me conservative, but I would rather be careful than be sorry later." The story matters for energy storage broadly, as CATL and Changan are targeting solid-state production by 2027, making any genuine breakthrough in the space a potential accelerant for grid-scale and EV adoption alike.
-EDITOR·OP_DAILY SHARE TO X3. expansion
Elektron, the Bitcoin mining company spun up in 2025, now operates roughly 50 exahashes and 200,000 ASICs across 32 sites in five countries on behalf of Tether, making the stablecoin issuer one of the largest private miners in the world. Speaking on the Blockspace podcast, CEO Rapha Zagury detailed an expansion into northeastern Brazil, where overbuilt wind and solar capacity forces generators to curtail output at the turbine level, creating near-zero-cost power for older-generation machines. Zagury sees the AI data center boom as ultimately favorable for Bitcoin miners willing to wait: "We're 6 months to a year away to actually getting to the point where there is a repricing and...a bifurcation of the market." He noted greenfield sites near urban centers now trade at $1 million per megawatt, a price Elektron refuses to match. With SG&A running at 3.8% of revenue and no short-term IPO plans, Electron is positioning as a lean, contrarian operator betting that hash rate growth will stall while competitors chase AI workloads and shed mining fleets at a discount.
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Afribit Kibera, a Bitcoin circular economy project operating within Nairobi's largest informal settlement, is driving measurable behavioral change among residents living on roughly a dollar a day, by pairing lightning-based payments with waste management work, merchant onboarding, and structured financial literacy. Speaking on the New Renaissance Capital podcast, co-founder Ronnie Mdawida described how incentivized education sessions and peer-to-peer trading through community WhatsApp groups have led participants to save in bitcoin rather than immediately convert to fiat, a shift Mdawida called "a behavior change that we had not envisioned it was going to happen as early as we thought." The project now supports garbage collectors, motorbike riders repaying microloans in bitcoin, upcycling groups run by women, and merchants accepting lightning payments for communal services. Afribit is also piloting Fedi's SatNet, a Starlink-backed internet service paid in sats, designed to eventually generate revenue for the community itself. The project offers a working template for grassroots circular economies where bitcoin functions less as speculation and more as shared financial infrastructure.
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