The Kingdom Podcast

We've launched a new show! Clean Integration.(The best of The Kingdom has been remastered for Clean Integration Season 1!)This season, we're focused on exploring the nexus of computing and clean energy.John Belizaire, CEO of Soluna Computing, had some great conversations with top experts about the grid transition, policy implications, new computing technologies, the utility's perspective on crypto mining, and more.In the meantime, here are some of our favorite moments from Season 1.00:27 The Future of Renewable Energy with the Soluna Team, Dip Patel CTO of Soluna00:58 The Future of Renewable Energy with Sanjeev Kumar01:13 What It Will Take To Be 100% Renewable with Rob Gramlich, Phillip Ng, VP of Corporate Development at Soluna01:36 Renewable Energy in Bitcoin Mining with Jesse PeltanNow that The Kingdom Podcast has come to an end, be sure to subscribe to Clean Integration wherever you stream podcasts.Connect with us on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter @SolunaHoldingsSubscribe to our newsletter to be the first to know when our next episode drops.To learn more about Soluna, please visit soluancomputing.com

In this episode, we are talking to Andy Andy Edstrom, CFA, CFP is a financial advisor and also Head of Institutional at Swan Bitcoin. He may be best known in Bitcoin for authoring the book Why Buy Bitcoin, opining that MicroStrategy might borrow in order to buy Bitcoin, and for shaming wealth managers for not owning Bitcoin for their clients. We talk about the rising interest in Bitcoin from well-known institutions, the case for Bitcoin as a form of money, and the increase of direct investment in crypto assets. Why is Bitcoin a better alternative to gold?What regulatory trends should we be aware of? What is Bitcoin's relationship to renewable energy?All of this and more on this episode!If you enjoyed this conversation and want to read more on this subject, check out Bitcoin Is A Better Battery on our blog!: https://medium.com/clean-integration/bitcoin-is-a-better-battery-762743832a09?source=friends_link&sk=cbeab4f2e43ed34ab09e6e88a8c1e690Let's continue the conversation on Twitter! Connect with us– The Kingdom Podcast (https://twitter.com/TheKingdomPod)– Soluna (https://twitter.com/SolunaPower)– John Belizaire (https://twitter.com/jbelizaireCEO) – Andy Edstrom (https://twitter.com/edstromandrew) To purchase Andy's book, Why Buy Bitcoin, click here (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Buy-Bitcoin-Investing-Tomorrow/dp/1733219609/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=why+buy+bitcoin&qid=1610051424&sr=8-1) Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us 5 stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. To join our community, visit us at soluna.io and join our newsletter, or talk to us on LinkedIn.: https://www.linkedin.com/company/solunablockchain

In this episode, we're looking ahead at the role of government and technological innovation in the future of renewable energy. John, CEO of Soluna talks to Jonathan (Jonny) Sultoon, the Head of Markets & Transitions, Energy Transition Practice at Wood Mackenzie. Jonathan has over 18 years' experience leading analysis for global energy markets, including power, coal, gas, LNG, and renewables. He joined Wood Mackenzie in 2006 and leads a team of analysts designing research for the energy transition. The team extends across all segments, all markets, and all fuels and technologies.In this conversation, we discuss the renewable energy landscape after the Coronavirus pandemic. We question the impact proposed regulations (or lack thereof) will have on Climate Change. We ask about the prospects of green hydrogen, and finally, we prod at the idea that fossil fuel is dead in the light of renewable energy innovation.If you enjoyed this conversation and want to read more on this subject, check out Zero-Carbon Cloud: Solving Renewable Energy's Biggest Challenge on our blog!: https://medium.com/clean-integration/zero-carbon-cloud-solving-renewable-energys-biggest-challenge-5d1033e2174c?source=friends_link&sk=39b5345edc22d5ef93a6a02c8e7905a3Let's continue the conversation on Twitter! Connect with us– The Kingdom Podcast (https://twitter.com/TheKingdomPod)– Soluna (https://twitter.com/SolunaPower)– John Belizaire (https://twitter.com/jbelizaireCEO)Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us 5 stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe.To join our community, visit us at soluna.io and join our newsletter, or talk to us on LinkedIn.: https://www.linkedin.com/company/solunablockchain

What will the future of crypto mining look like?In this episode, we're thinking ahead about the relationship between mining and energy, and where renewables will play a role. John, CEO of Soluna, and Phillip, VP of Corporate Development, talk to Jesse Peltan, co-founder and CTO of HODL Ranch – a developer of large scale Bitcoin mining projects in Texas. Jesse dropped out of college to become a co-founder and is on a mission to bring hashrate to the US.Jesse shares his first-hand experience in the industry since 2017, where value creation in institutional scale mining has shifted. These shifts have inevitably had an impact on power generation, cost, and distribution. You can expect to learn more about the changing mining industry, especially in the competitive deregulated power market in Texas. Additionally, we discuss the future of renewable energy in bitcoin mining–where it works and where it doesn't–and the importance of decentralized finance throughout the world. If you enjoyed this conversation and want to read more on this subject, check out The Golden Triangle: Understanding the Long-Term Profitability and Competitive Dynamics of Mining on our blog!: https://medium.com/clean-integration/the-golden-triangle-understanding-the-long-term-profitability-and-competitive-dynamics-of-mining-687e9109358a Let's continue the conversation on Twitter! Connect with us– The Kingdom Podcast (https://twitter.com/TheKingdomPod)– Soluna (https://twitter.com/SolunaPower)– John Belizaire (https://twitter.com/jbelizaireCEO) Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us 5 stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. To join our community, visit us at soluna.io and join our newsletter, or talk to us on LinkedIn.: https://www.linkedin.com/company/solunablockchain

What solutions do batteries offer to a renewable-powered energy grid?In this episode, Jeff Bishop, CEO, and co-founder of KeyCapture Energy, a utility-scale battery provider, talked to John Belizaire, CEO, and Suzy Peng, Summer Associate at Soluna. Together, they took a deep dive into the world of batteries.Jeff's extensive experience in the battery and energy industries guide our conversation in this episode as we unpack the ins and outs of grid-scale storage. We learn a lot about the business of batteries and battery technology, as well as address the benefits of batteries– such as the solutions they offer to challenges with intermittent power generation. If you enjoyed this conversation and want to read more on this subject, check out Disconnected: Our Electric Grid's Struggle with Renewable Energy on our blog!: http://bit.ly/cleanintegration-disconnected Let's continue the conversation on Twitter! Connect with us– The Kingdom Podcast (https://twitter.com/TheKingdomPod)– Soluna (https://twitter.com/SolunaPower)– John Belizaire (https://twitter.com/jbelizaireCEO) Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us 5 stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. To join our community, visit us at soluna.io and join our newsletter, or talk to us on LinkedIn.: https://www.linkedin.com/company/solunablockchain

In this episode, the team at Soluna is hosting William Eckhardt Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago and Senior Computer Scientist at Argonne National Labs, Andrew Chien. Our work at Soluna builds upon his research that shows adding dispatchable load not only reduces stranded power, but it also improves both grid cost and stability. Ultimately, this allows for higher penetration of renewable energy within an existing system. His work started with one crucial question: “How do we minimize the negative impacts of computing, even though it's doing good or serving a useful purpose?” We learn more about his introduction to computer science, the course of his research in machine learning, cloud computing, and clean energy. We then talk about the practical and theoretical applications of zero-carbon cloud computing now and in the future. If you enjoyed this conversation and want to read more on this subject, check out “Zero-Carbon Cloud: Solving Renewable Energy's Biggest Problem” on our blog: https://medium.com/clean-integration/zero-carbon-cloud-solving-renewable-energys-biggest-challenge-5d1033e2174c?source=friends_link&sk=39b5345edc22d5ef93a6a02c8e7905a3 Let's continue the conversation on Twitter! Connect with us @TheKingdomPod, @SolunaPower, and @jbelizaireCEOLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us 5 stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. To join our community, visit us at soluna.io and join our newsletter, or talk to us on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/solunablockchain

In this episode, we're asking: “What will it take to reach 100% renewable energy?” John, CEO of Soluna, and Phillip, head of Corporate Development, talk to Rob Gramlich, CEO of Grid Strategies– a company with a mission to heighten the efficiency of the development and operation of energy grids. This chat is rich with information thanks to Rob's extensive experience in the energy sector. You can expect to learn more about the changing structure of energy grids in terms of development and operation and its direct impact on the development of renewables from Rob's first-hand experience in the industry. Additionally, they discuss the growth (or lack thereof) of energy investment in different parts of the world and what this means for reaching total renewable energy. If you enjoyed this conversation and want to read more on this subject, check out Disconnected: Our Electric Grid's Struggle with Renewable Energy on our blog! Let's continue the conversation on Twitter! Connect with us @TheKingdomPod, @SolunaPower, and @jbelizaireCEOLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us 5 stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. To join our community, visit us at soluna.io and join our newsletter, or talk to us on LinkedIn.

We talk to Sanjeev Kumar, a strategic advisor to Soluna and Bill Hayes, former Head of Legal and External Affairs at Kosmos Energy to learn more about the oil, especially as the industry faces disruption during the Coronavirus pandemic.Tune in for an interesting educational lesson on the history of oil, its rise as an energy source, and its influence on the global economy. Then, we unpack the complexity of the oil industry from Texas to Africa in the last few decades and the technological innovations that have saved the industry through its historical challenges.We question the future of oil and the recent impact of renewables on the industry, gaining invaluable insight from Sanjeev and Bill learnings from their extensive experience in the energy industry. Could these recent challenges be the catalyst for a Renewable Future?For the article Phil Ng mentioned during the episode, read The Shale Apocolypse, and What It Can Teach Bitcoin Miners on our blog!Connect with us on Twitter!@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower@jbelizaireCEOLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us 5 stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe.To join our community, visit us at soluna.io and join our newsletter.Check out our blog, Clean Integration on Medium, for more or connect with us on LinkedIn.

John Belizaire, CEO, sits with Ashley Capuzzi to discuss John's experience with diversity as a leader in the fields of technology and renewable energy.In this episode, you'll also hear John talk about his background in tech, his drive for entrepreneurship, and for learning about people, and how he found himself in the renewable energy space.As one of Soluna's core values, diversity is not only important to our team but truly makes up our company's DNA.As we continue with season 2 of our podcast, which will focus on renewable energy, we're excited to share with you some wonderful conversations with people from all different walks of life, experiences, and expertise.Connect with us on Twitter!@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower@jbelizaireCEOFor more on what was discussed in this episode, read Diversity in Blockchain on our blog!Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us 5 stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe.To join our community, visit us at soluna.io and join our newsletter.Check out our blog, Clean Integration on Medium, for more or connect with us on LinkedIn.

Sanjeev Kumar is a veteran in the energy industry. For most of his career, he has led and grown companies at the forefront of energy and innovation. As a strategic advisor to Soluna, he joins us in conversation to discuss a bit of energy industry history, the future of renewable energy, climate change, among other things. Here's what you can expect to learn: What shifts have we seen in energy sources?How have energy investments and incentives changed?What are some barriers to renewable energy adoption?Connect with us on Twitter!@TheKingdomPod @SolunaPower @jbelizaireCEOFor more on what you heard today, read “Disconnected: Our Electric Grid's Struggle with Renewable Energy” on our blog!Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us 5 stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. To join our community, visit us at soluna.io and join our newsletter. Check out our blog, Clean Integration on Medium, for more or connect with us on LinkedIn. Our show was mixed and mastered by Charles Malave. Our theme music is Geometric by At Last (@maxxatlast).

The Soluna team is back at it for Season 2 of The Kingdom! This season we will be focusing on all things related to renewable energy innovation, including conversations with experts in the field. To kick off the season, John Belizaire, CEO, is in conversation with Dip Patel, CTO; Phillip Ng, VP of Corporate Development; and Larbi Louyidi, Managing Director at A.M. Wind. Together, they address the need for renewable energy development, investment, and data center innovation, among many other things. Here's some of what you can expect to hear: “There is an appeal that the cost of renewable energy makes it compelling to add to the overall energy market. It's getting to a point where it could become cheaper than coal.” –John Belizaire, CEO, on renewable energy investment“There are about a billion people without access to reliable electricity. That's 1 of 7 humans on Earth and about half of them live on the African continent.” –Phillip Ng, VP of Corporate Development Sources referenced in this episode: 2018 IPPC Report, Lazard 2019 Cost Report, WE Forum Investment ReportFor more on what we covered in this episode, check out How to Drive More Renewable Energy Development in Africa (and Beyond) on our blog!Connect with us on Twitter!@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @jbelizaireCEOLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us 5 stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration on Medium, for more or connect with us on LinkedIn. To join our community, visit us at soluna.io and join our newsletter. Our show was mixed and mastered by Charles Malave. Our theme music is Geometric by At Last (@maxxatlast).

The women of Soluna- Ashley, former VP of Marketing, and Cybele, Content Strategist- discuss their roles in the space of renewable energy, blockchain, tech, and startup-land. Each with their different backgrounds and experiences, they find common space in what it's like to be a woman in tech and their inspiration for breaking through barriers.At Soluna, our team upholds the values of diversity and transparency. In this episode, you'll hear how it's played a role in the way Ashley and Cybele navigate their love for storytelling and marketing.Connect with us on Twitter!@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower

As part of our book club at Soluna, our team read Superpower: One Man's Quest to Transform American Energy by Russell Gold. We had the pleasure of talking to that man, Michael Skelly. Michael pioneered the move to wind energy in 2000, when renewable energy provided only 10 percent of the power in the US, according to the Energy Department.In this episode, CEO John Belizaire guides a conversation with Skelly to learn more about his experience establishing the second largest wind power company in the US and the five phases of a development project. John also asks about Michael's emphasis on leadership, culture, and values at Clean Line, to which he says:“You have to constantly be learning, a culture of learning. In order to do that, you have to make sure people feel free to ask dumb questions.” And -- stay tuned until the end for some awesome book recommendations! Connect with us @TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @jbelizaireCEOLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration on Medium, for more or visit us at soluna.io

It's been said that the amount of Google searches done in one month can power 400,00 homes. What does this mean for the future of data and energy?Kevin Kent, CEO & Founder of Critical Facilities Efficiency Solutions, sits with CTO Dip Patel to explore data centers, their energy consumption and their efficiency potential. Together, they take a deep dive into copious amounts of data the world has produced, and continues to produce, and how it can be used to fund green energy.“We don't want to get rid of data centers or scale them back. We want our internet. We want our connectivity. We don't want to harm the planet. And that is possible.” - Kevin Kent What should we, both as data consumers and data generators, know about the future of data centers? How can data centers be more energy efficient? The first step is understanding where you are. Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. http://pod.link/thekingdomCheck out our blog, Clean IntegrationFor more information on Soluna, visit our website

It's been a year since we've sat down to talk about our core values. We addressed Soluna's mission to be transparent, to support local economies, and to produce 100% clean, renewable energy in our 2nd episode: What Do We Value?. In that episode, our CEO John Belizaire explained: “Core values are immutable things…. when you first shape them, they are foundational elements and over time they might change, some are aspirational, that sort of thing- but in my view we had to first define how are we going to be different than every other company that's in the blockchain ecosystem today.” In this “rearview mirror” episode, VP of Corporate Development, Phillip Ng, interviews John to revisit the values that have centered our growth at Soluna. Together, they discuss how we've remained true to our values, how they've been challenged, and how they continue to differentiate us from others. “This market can have dark corners,” as John says, so it's important that we don't lose sight of who we are at our core, both as a company, and those we work with. What should other CEO's know about setting core values?How do core values magnetize a team as a company scales? Learn this and more in this episode of The Kingdom. Connect with us@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66 For more information on Soluna, visit our website. Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe.

The nomadic nature of bitcoin miners leads to fluctuating research on mining's energy usage. A recent report by CoinShares, Europe's largest digital asset manager, found that 74-78% of mining is actually powered by renewable energy. Why is this research important? As Christopher Bendiksen, the Head of Research at CoinShares, points out: educational research for prospective investors (their focus) is necessary as investment interest in cryptocurrency and mining infrastructure grows. In this episode, John Belizaire, CEO, is joined by Christopher Bendiksen to explore what it takes to conduct the research necessary to track bitcoin mining's energy usage, the dangers of comparing Proof-of-Work with Proof-of-Stake, and what this research highlights about Soluna's wind farm project. Connect with us + our guests@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66@C_Bediksen@CoinSharesCoLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

Sometimes, transitioning out of more traditional business sectors into a startup can feel like a second life. Paths to entrepreneurship vary for each person, but they all share one thing: the entrepreneurial mindset. In this week's episode of The Kingdom, CTO Dip Patel sits down with Carly Chase, the Managing Director of MIT's NYC Startup Studio and co-founder of Crabwalk. They about their experiences at MIT together, taking a chance on a startup, and the skills they've acquired through entrepreneurship.They answer:What are key skills of operating in a startup?What is crab-walking? How is it beneficial for your career path?What are the common misconceptions about entrepreneurship?Connect with us + our guests@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @DipulP@CarlyChaseLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

“You're seeing a quilt of different [energy] solutions... In many ways, Africa is leading in this thinking…” - Andrew Smith-Maxwell, Managing Director of FieldstoneAs an independent investment bank, Fieldstone focuses on renewable energy in Africa and other parts of the world. In this episode, VP of Corporate Development, Phillip Ng, and Andrew Smith-Maxwell, the Managing Director of Fieldstone, connect from across the pond to discuss the phases of power development in Africa, and answer: What are driving investments in Africa?How is the demand for power changing as electrification comes to Africa?How is doing business in Africa different from other places in the world?Connect with us @TheKingdomPod and @SolunaPower Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

The blockchain community, as CEO John Belizaire remarks, is diverse in the sense that people come from different backgrounds and apply this technology to a wide variety of use cases. Still, there is something missing. Ashley Capuzzi, VP of Marketing at Soluna, says “there's so much diversity, but no women!” Today women make up less than 20% of US jobs in technology. But, as Karen Ottoni, the Director of Ecosystem at Hyperledger, puts it, women are more aware now that there's an issue in their lack of representation, they want to do something different, and they're starting the conversation. Why aren't there more women in blockchain? What about blockchain, or technology in general, facilitates a lack of inclusivity? How are the women in blockchain ensuring that they're being heard? In this episode, John, Ashley, and Karen discuss the barriers to entry for women in technology, how Karen became involved with Hyderledger, and the importance of companies being sustainable.Connect with us + our guests@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

Bitcoin's volatility has birthed many skeptics. In this episode, the team gives their opinion about "Crypto Winter" and how it affects the market. Is bitcoin dead? According to Phillip Ng, VP of Corporate Development,“VC investments have not diminished, companies continue to move ahead... It's my understanding that coin based valuation has remained pretty heady, exchanges are still getting funded, new projects are still launching…” How will this affect Soluna? CTO Dip Patel reminds us that “technology is serving a need,” and “...What [Soluna] is going to be is integrators of a lot of different components and inventors of how to integrate them, versus the inventors of the components themselves…” What players in the crypto ecosystems continue to grow despite instability?Well, as we know, only the strong survive.Connect with us + our guests@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66@DipulPLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

It's been said, “If it's free, you're the product.” Centralized internet platforms store data that users, the producers of said data, do not own. As Xan Ditkoff, Production Partner of Blockstack, puts it, “In the past, ownership and assets in the digital form have really taken two forms. They're either real world assets that have traditional mechanisms for property rights… those mechanisms [are] digital and the asset is not really digitally native. The other form being actual digital assets-- data users are generating being the easiest example.” Blockstack is a new internet for decentralized apps where users own their data. In this episode, CEO John Belizaire sits with Xan to learn about another blockchain use case: user autonomy. They discuss Blockstack's feature in the book Life after Google by George Gilder, the real-world values of one's digital footprint, Xan's path to the tech world and how Blockstack is utilizing the blockchain to decentralize identities. “When I look at bitcoin, the fundamental investment is pretty straight-forward and simple, but also profound, and that is for the first time in human history we can now establish digital trust on a peer-to-peer level, globally.” -Xan DitkoffConnect with us + our guests@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66@XanDitkoff@BlockStackLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

Node Blockchain, a multidisciplinary crypto-asset company, took an alternative approach to bitcoin mining in their research paper The Positive Externalities of Bitcoin Mining. The paper takes a deep dive on Proof-of-Work mining and its benefits to the crypto economy.Saad Imran and Bobby Ahluwalia, the co-founders of Node Blockchain, state the goal of their research was to challenge mainstream media, which often vilified bitcoin mining's energy consumption, by highlighting mining's positive impacts instead.In this episode, CEO John Belizaire sits with Saad and Bobby to talk about what it is like to bring an investors perspective to cryptocurrency research in order to attract investors and grow the ecosystem.Stick around until the end to catch a Lighting Round with Saad and Bobby!Read Comparing Consensus: PoW or PoS? for more on the Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake mechanisms of blockchain.Connect with us + our guests@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

In this episode, Ari Jules, Cornell professor, co-director of IC-3 and Soluna advisor, sits with CEO John Belizaire in the MIT Delta Incubator at the NYC Cornell Tech campus. Ari applies his various experiences in industry and academia to discuss some promising applications of blockchain and some not-so-promising ones. Together, they answer: What are The 6 Grand Challenges of Blockchain?What obstacles must Blockchain overcome to go mainstream?How does blockchain support a relationship between academia and computer science?Connect with us + our guests@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66@AriJuelsLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

Bitcoin mining is said to consume 71 terawatt hours of energy every year. According to a recent study by Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, or CBECI, “The average yearly energy consumption of the Bitcoin network exceeds that of the entire nation of Switzerland.” Currently, the increasing rate of energy consumption is unsustainable and, as Dip puts it, “the bigger it gets, the more it consumes.” Solving this problem is Soluna's mission.“The energy consumption problem is not because of transactions on the network. It's created because of the mining problem and the incentives that miners have,” states Phillip, “And the value of the currency,” says John. So,Why is blockchain so energy intensive?What are the various approaches to blockchain?How do we know which solutions are worth investing in?CEO John Belizaire, CTO Dip Patel, and VP of Corporate Development, Phillip Ng answer these questions and more in this episode of The Kingdom podcast!Check out Disconnected: Our Electric Grid's Struggle with Renewable Energy on our blog for more on solving the blockchain energy problem. Connect with us:@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66@DipulPLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

Ashish Gadnis, CEO and Co-founder of BanQu, visited the Congo in 2014 and was confronted with extreme poverty. It was there, as he worked with women farmers to help build supply chains for their crops, that he realized something was missing: transaction identity. “Everybody thinks blockchain is the solution to identity… that's true if you are in the developed world. If you are in the developing world identity is not the problem, … women farmers, they have identity cards. What's missing is the transaction identity… a collection of life events or transactions that happened…” We're revealing blockchain use cases that are making a real impact on the world. In this episode, we take a closer look at BanQu, a blockchain-as-a-service company that is solving the world's toughest global problem, extreme poverty, and asking: Tune in as John Belizire, CEO, and Ashish Gadnis talk about all things Blockchain, BanQu's unique application to better the world, and their goal “to lift 100M people out of poverty.”Connect with us + our guests@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66@AGandisLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

The world of cryptocurrency is layered and complex. With the help of Murat Akdeniz, founder of Mirian, CEO John Belizaire and Phillip Ng, VP of Corporate Development, get down to the nitty-gritty of ICOs and Security Tokens. Murat takes us through the defining features of an ICO, STO, and along the way we even learn about some shitcoins. The conversation went a little something like this:JB: So, an ICO is a fundraising tool for a new network, it seems?MA: Not always, … it can be, what we call, utility tokens, or what they call payment coins. So there are different types of coins… So it may be for fundraising, it may not be for fundraising, it may be to gain access to a network, to make a specific sort of payment…-What's an ICO? -How is an ICO different than an STO? -What's the purpose of either?We answer these questions and more on this episode of The Kingdom podcast. Connect with us@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @DipulPLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more or visit us at soluna.io

Though there are multiple mechanisms by which bitcoin is mined, Timo Hanke puts it simply: “Let's say you were the bitcoin creator and you were to distribute this new currency to the world. You have to find a way to to decide on who to give it to. The way bitcoin did this was to say that ‘well, we're giving out a computational puzzle, which is compute intensive. Whoever solves this puzzle, gets a little bit of new bitcoins… and we let the world compete for those.”Cryptocurrency technologies are developing quickly. Keeping up with the latest mining methods, including mining hardware, is essential to understanding the impact bitcoin and its miners will have on energy consumption. CTO Dip Patel is joined by Timo, a member of Soluna's advisory board and Chief Research Officer at DFINITY, to educate crypto enthusiasts on fundamentals of mining hardware and the implications of chip design on our business.What are the different types of chips for mining bitcoin? How do these chips operate? Tune in to find out. Connect with us + our guest @TimotHank@Dfinity@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @DipulPLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate us *5* stars, leave a quick review, and subscribe. Didn't take notes? Don't worry. Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium for more.

Why Morocco, you ask?Morocco has taken a progressive approach to technology and energy, setting remarkable goals for their near future. Dwight L. Bush, the former U.S. Ambassador to Morocco, says “Morocco [has a] commitment to renewables and the vision that His Majesty has for the country, … to not just manage power usage but also to demonstrate that in an emerging country, you can make investments that will have implications for a long time... Morocco has a goal of being 40% into renewables by 2020, 52% by 2030.”In this very special episode of the Kingdom Podcast, CEO John Belizaire sits down with Ambassador Bush, also a strategic advisor to Soluna, for a riveting conversation about his incredible professional journey. They discuss the growing economy in Morocco, and how the country is becoming one of the most progressive, stable, and safe Muslim countries in the world, and finally, why it's the first location for Soluna's wind farm project.Connect with us on Twitter @TheKingdomPod and @SolunaPower Check out our blog, Clean Integration, on Medium or visit us online at soluna.ioLiked what you heard? Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe.

Though it's pioneering role in technology is undeniable, at a glance, blockchain seems mysterious and difficult to understand. Through simple analogies and a step-by-step guide of the blockchain structure, CEO John Belizaire helps us to understand what blockchain is, “Blockchain is the underlying technology to cryptocurrencies. More formally, it's what powers bitcoin… The best way to understand what blockchain is: it's the solution to a set of problems.” What problems does blockchain solve?How does it serve as a model for the future?Why it's a main component of Soluna's wind farm project?We answer these questions and more in this episode of The Kingdom podcast.Takeaways: “We're going to be a blockchain computing company. To be a blockchain computing company, you have to have computing power, and you have to have power. So, we're essentially combining those two needs -the power resource and the computing resource- into one company, in a vertically integrated way” -John Belizaire, CEO Didn't take notes? No problem. Read the Blockchain Primer on our website, a layman's term approach to Blockchain, so it makes more sense.Connect with us on Twitter @TheKingdomPod and @SolunaPower For more on what we covered in this episode, read Blockchains Solve a Very Real Problem on our blog.For more information on Soluna, visit our website. Liked what you heard? Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. Listen | Watch | Read | Subscribe

Transparency. Renewable Power. Supporting Local Economies. Soluna's core values anchor our team to common goals. Our values are the foundation of Soluna's innovative approach to the opaque industries of cryptocurrency and energy. In this episode, CEO John Belizaire, CTO Dip Patel, and Phillip Ng, VP of Corporate Development, work through our core values and discuss why having strong values is so important, especially for a startup.Tune in for more about How other companies define and execute their valuesHow Soluna's values respond to current industriesWhy shared values are an integral part of building the right teamHighlights “Frequently, when you're trying to get a company off the ground, there will be distractions, and there will be obstacles, and both of those, how you deal with them, many people will come at it a different way, and that can get very challenging when you've got a team of 8 or 9 people and you're trying to move the ball forward,…You can go back to your values and that can be an objective function for decision making.” Phillip Ng, VP of Corporate Development“Core values are immutable things, they are the foundational elements...that sort of help your decisions long term. But more importantly, they're not strategy pieces. They don't talk about how you do business.” - John Belizaire, CEO Connect with us@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66@DipulPLiked what you heard? Rate us 5 stars and leave a quick review. Don't forget to subscribe!For more information on Soluna, visit our website. Listen | Watch | Subscribe

Welcome to The Kingdom podcast! Who are we? What are we doing? Why are we doing it?Coming together from diverse backgrounds, John Belizaire, CEO of Soluna, sits down with Michael Toporek and CTO Dip Patel to uncover how their diverse backgrounds brought them to the intersection of blockchain and renewable energy, and the genesis of Soluna's wind farm project. “I received a call one Friday afternoon from Michael... and he says we've been working on this project, blockchain related, and you have to come take a look at this thing. I say, I don't know Michael I've been getting close to some other projects, I have to look at it. He says, I know, I know, but you have to come look at this thing. And just to be totally, brutally honest with you, I want you to look at it because I want you to run it. I don't want you to just give me advice. I'm like, okay that's a pretty major ask. I've known this guy for 20 years, because it's him, I'll take a look…” -CEO John BelizaireSo, what is Soluna? What are we up to? Take a look at what John wrote in Vertical Integration: As our show develops, we'll be unpacking all things related to blockchain, renewable energy, and startup life. Don't miss it-- subscribe! If you liked what you heard, be sure to rate and review. For more on what you heard today, read There's a New Type of Data Center Coming -- and it Could Help Save the World on our blog! Connect with us@TheKingdomPod@SolunaPower @JBelizaire66@DipulPFor more information on Soluna, visit our website. Enjoyed this episode? Be sure to rate us *5stars on the platform which you are listening and leave a review.Listen| Read | Subscribe