I’m Kent Halliburton, CEO and Co-Founder of Sazmining

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I’m Kent Halliburton, CEO and Co-Founder of Sazmining - AMA!

15.1k sats \ 41 comments \ @kent_halliburton 22 Oct AMA

Once a rooftop solar pioneer, now a rainforest Bitcoiner. I help people mine wild sats instead of buying them — still chasing energy independence, just with better money.

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91 sats \ 4 replies \ @benwehrman 22 Oct

From your experience, what is something most bitcoiners have wrong about bitcoin/mining/energy?

150 sats \ 1 reply \ @kent_halliburton OP 22 Oct

One of my favorite questions. Answer: ROI.

Why?

Bitcoin mining is a novel, 0 to 1 innovation -- the first time in human history we have a decentralized money printer.

It's a simple idea but something most gloss over but: Bitcoin mining is the only way to generate bitcoin

ROI is an evaluation of dollars in on dollars out. Why does it make sense to consider the ROI on Bitcoin mining if it's the only way to generate Bitcoin? It doesn't.

What does make sense, as a bitcoiner, is to evaluate if the sats mined are cheaper than if you purchased them on an exchange, which is a price comparison.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @HardMoney 4h

This answer only makes sense if the asic is free.

To mine you’re investing up front in hopes that you can make enough hash profit (hash price - hash cost) to pay it off and some.

You can measure ROI in sats or dollars. (Simple numbers for example)

0.05 BTC for a miner

Makes 0.03 btc in a year but costs 0.015 in electricity and maintenance so profit is only 0.015. Takes 3.33 years to recoup initial investment assuming hash margins don’t decay and miner has good uptime.

https://www.sazmining.com/bitcoin-mining-calculator

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @beyond_turbulence 13h

From the crow’s nest, what blind spot do most sailors of the Bitcoin sea still carry? Rigs? From the system's high-level architecture, what short circuit do most navigators of the Bitcoin network still overlook? Gate configurations, hashing fanouts, or the latent overhead of the signal propagation that drives them? Mining winds vs the true cost of the current that moves them …

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 5h

I'm not sure if there's a question here or if it's an LLM rhetorical ramble?

75 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 22 Oct

Most miners with access to cheap energy seem to raise money and mine for themselves. What made you decide to sell rigs and maintenance?

100 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 23h

Bitcoin accumulation and profitability.

There are three primary ways to generate income in this type of model. 1) marking up hardware, 2) marking up service (electricity + maintenance), or 3) participating in the mining rewards.

Optimizing for trust in this business model was my core focus, so we tied our fate to 3), which we call our Management Fee, i.e. we're a property manager.

What that means is that Saz only earns revenue if it's generating Bitcoin for its clients. Hardware and service are passed on to clients at cost.

For Saz, that means we generate Bitcoin natively as our revenue source. It also means that we don't bear hardware and service costs to do so. That means we can build a Bitcoin native treasury at lower costs as we scale, since our internal expenses don't scale linearly with the management fees we earn.

Everyone benefits in this way, and trust is established. It's my strongly held belief that this is why we have a 4.7 TrustPilot score.

58 sats \ 1 reply \ @Wumbo 22 Oct

Can you describe the options a miner has when their miner is to old to profitably mine anymore?

Does Sazmining have a sell page for used miners? Can one have it packaged shipped to them? If so what is the ball park price for this?

10 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 22 Oct

You can sell your rig to a 3rd party (possibly us), have it shipped, walk away from it, or pay to have it recycled.

For resells, we have a client-only Telegram bulletin board. For shipping, it depends on where in the world you're shipping to. Most clients opt for reselling.

46 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 22 Oct

What's something you believe about bitcoin mining that other miners don't agree with you on?

150 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 22 Oct

That bitcoin mining is the best way to accumulate sats, full stop.

Most of the hashrate on the network is dedicated to accumulating bitcoin as a means to acquire more fiat currency.

How do I know? Because if the majority of the hashrate on the network were held by bitcoiners, we would not have allowed the mining centralization issues to have occurred in the first place.

25 sats \ 1 reply \ @benwehrman 22 Oct

What are your thoughts on Free Energy, i.e. the conspiracy theory that zero-cost, zero-resource-consumption energy methods exist, and are being hidden from us so energy companies can keep making money?

Explained in more depth: https://www.instagram.com/s/aGlnaGxpZ2h0OjE3OTM2NDQ1NjA1ODU5Njcz?story_media_id=3570041948259822207_478481124&igsh=YW50YnhzOXhvdnU5

200 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 22 Oct

I mean, I'm a bitcoiner, which means I'm all about following the incentives. And any incumbent being disrupted is going to fight the disruption.

So, are the incentives there for the energy center to squash free energy alternatives? -- definitely. Are there free energy alternatives? -- I haven't seen them and don't know.

25 sats \ 9 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 22 Oct

Had a quick look at your site, looks cool! Just missing dark mode! hahaha

Two quick questions:

1 - Why are there only two countries in the simulation form?

2 - Could you give a quick version of what led you to start this company?

Congrats and thanks!

33 sats \ 8 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 22 Oct

Hey!

The countries are the locations of the data center.
I'm a late stage co-founder, having joined in 2021, raising capital and pivoting to the existing SaaS for mining offering. Being educated as a computer engineer who went into roof top solar for a decade, it wasn't until I read Jeff Booth's The Price of Tomorrow_ that I realized I belonged in mining. It was frustration with trying to mine from home (Portugal at that time) that made SaaS for mining seem like a no-brainer to me.

0 sats \ 7 replies \ @0xbitcoiner 22 Oct

Ah ok. Energy prices in Portugal are kinda high (≈0.15€ per kWh). I know what I’m talking about! hahaha

22 sats \ 2 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 23h

Yeah, I get it -- living in the Sintra area and trying to mine from home was one of the inspirations for building Saz!

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 23h

In that area, it's not just the electricity that's mad expensive. Good to know Portugal was the inspo, even if it's for some whack reasons! Ahahaha

127 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 23h

Ha! Indeed -- Portugal's more than just an inspiration for Saz, though. Since I married into the culture, I acquired citizenship and have Portuguese children as well :)

33 sats \ 3 replies \ @thenathansimone 22 Oct

Diving down the Bitcoin rabbit hole makes you pay attention to electricity prices more than you ever cared to in your entire life!

My eyes have been opened to the inefficiencies and crazy pricing of different locales.

👀⚡⛏️

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @beyond_turbulence 13h

Arbitrage, flip or service based business ? Amazing skill set ! Once a sailor navigates through the Bitcoin gate, every logical signal starts to matter.

Suddenly, the bitwise tides of 1s and 0s and the hum of distant nodes reveal just how complex the circuitry really is, exposing the uneven resistances and such that shape the flow of digital currency.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @0xbitcoiner 22 Oct

Diving down the Bitcoin rabbit hole makes you pay attention to electricity prices more than you ever cared to in your entire life!

I didn’t need Bitcoin to be paying attention to that!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @thenathansimone 23h

😂😂😂

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 21h

Right now I am still building a homestead place, deep into the mountains, and my plan is to build also a mini hydropower station, using a small river that I have on the premises.

From my calculations I have enough water flow to give me 1000W with 220V 24/7 all year. What miner device would you recommend for that?

100 sats \ 1 reply \ @j7hB75 13h

Highjacking the question since OP might have missed it.

Canaan Avalon Q in Eco mode ~800W @ 53TH/s

121 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 5h

And it's a good answer.

Typical industrial miners aren't less than 3500W each at this point, though they can be underclocked.

500 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 23h

Love taking all these questions - lots of good feedback I can bring to the team as I continue to spread the gospel of mining.

I've got to go now, but my DMs are open on Twitter/Nostr if anyone has any further questions (or if this AMA wasn't in your time zone).

Links are below and also on my Stacker News profile:

Twitter - https://x.com/khalliburton

Nostr - npub16lhv8arw2xhq537haz4hmw2u0k9y5veurshhystf22kz9hv0sxyqlwp536

75 sats \ 1 reply \ @Sandman 22h

Love the journey from solar rooftops to rainforest mining, all for true energy freedom with better money

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 5h

Thank you! It's been my life journey.

75 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b 22 Oct

What's the most surprising thing you learned while working on Sazmining?

75 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 22 Oct

The most surprising thing I've learned is the disparity between the mining community and the bitcoin community.

If you go to a Bitcoin mining event, you'll rarely meet a Bitcoiner. If you go to a Bitcoiner event, you'll rarely meet Bitcoin miners. The separation of these two communities causes 'othering' in both directions, which is unhealthy, given our desire for Bitcoin to serve as our ledger of accounts for the next 1,000 years.

46 sats \ 1 reply \ @benwehrman 22 Oct

I have lots of friends riding the solar/renewables train, who I have a hard time getting into Bitcoin.

Which resources would you recommend I share with them to bring them to the orange light?

75 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 22 Oct

Share my Center of Hash podcast with Parker that I recorded last week: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRd_IxYZiAg&feature=youtu.be&themeRefresh=1.

I share my story about transitioning from solar/renewables, where I worked for a decade, to Bitcoin mining.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @BitcoinIsTheFuture 11h

What’s your biggest challenge?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 5h

Earning client trust. There's no way for me to have possession of property clients own without it being a high-trust relationship. Unfortunately, many traditional hosting players have abused that trust, making many potential clients understandably skeptical.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @Bitcoiner1 21h

If someone buys a ASIC from Saz, how can he be 100% sure that equipment is only mining for him? Or how can he be sure that he's the only owner of that equipment??

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 5h

There's no way to manage our clients' property without establishing a high-trust relationship. Optimizing that trust has been our highest priority.

To answer you question directly:

Our SaaS platform is built from the ground up on rig ownership tied to individual rig serial numbers.
Our user dashboard displays average 24H rig hashrate, which ties to nameplate manufacturer specifications.
We have a Rig Performance guarantee. It's 95% in Ethiopia which means that you'll receive 95% of the nameplate hashrate from the rig you've purchased over the next year, or we'll compensate you in service fees to make up for it.

0 sats \ 3 replies \ @thenathansimone 22 Oct

A rainforest Bitcoiner??? 🌴

Are you the only noderunner out there?

I imagine that it has some difficulties, just via internet access alone!

100 sats \ 2 replies \ @kent_halliburton OP 22 Oct

Welp, I live on the outskirts of a city of a couple of hundred thousand, so it's not totally the middle of nowhere. However, I do rely on Starlink for more consistent internet for work and node running.