Whether we have a little of it or a lot, money is something those of us living in 21st-century Texas are well accustomed to spending. As coin, currency, check, credit card, or, increasingly, the bits and bytes of digital transactions, we can quite literally count on it.
From 1909 to 1934, Spur National Bank of Spur, Texas, distributed $539,230 worth of U.S. currency printed with its own name on the front. These notes (as were all paper notes distributed by U.S. national banks during that period) were printed at the federal Bureau of Printing and Engraving in Washington, D.C. They weredelivered to Spur’s vault in sheets, cut apart as needed, and individually signed in ink by the bank’s officers before being placed into circulation. They were backed by the bank’s credit and the guarantee of the U.S. Treasury. (See The Texas Spur for June 14, 2022, for more of this story.)
Today in Dickens County, money is being generated in the form of Bitcoin, under a very different system than what we’re used to calling “full faith and credit” of governmentbacked legal tender.
What is “crypto,” and where did it come from? The very term, with its roots in the Greek word for “hidden” or “secret,” took on a completely new meaning in the 21st century.
Even the coined word “cryptocurrency” is shrouded in secrecy, though: it arrived on the scene in 2008 via a faceless creator and didn’t make it into the Merriam-Webster dictionary until 2018.
Here’s how a Time/Next-Advisor article from April 2022, citing an industry expert, summed up the invention of cryptocurrency.
“The concept of Bitcoin was published in a white paper written by an anonymous figure under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. No one knows the author’s true identity — or if it’s even a single person, rather than a group of people. The paper outlined how Bitcoin would work, and the currency officially launched on Jan. 3, 2009.”
A new currency. Money has long been considered valuable because it’s made of something scarce, like the gold in coins. When issued by a government—“fiat currency”—it also carries value in trade. We can buy gas and groceries with it, and collect our paychecks in it.
Satoshi proposed instead to create a system of money that would be backed by encrypted, verifiable digital transactions—a crowdsourced blockchain—rather than any nation’s government. The key to this propopsed cryptocurrency was its strictly limited supply of 21 million Bitcoin, making cryptocurrency a truly scarce commodity—in a virtual world.
Not all of those Bitcoin have yet been claimed, or “mined,” as the industry terms it. (Argo Blockchain CEO Peter Wall commented to the New York Times recently that “he wishes that miners were called something that sounded less extractive, like “validators.”)
Early adopters bought in with comparatively small investments. Many soon sold out; those who didn’t still hold the majority of crypto.
Investors and miners, from enthusiasts with a desktop computer to multinational corporations with warehouses full of high-powered machines dedicated to processing transactions, have also experienced the market volatility that has come with the territory.
Crypto comes to Texas. Solving a hash puzzle (“cryptographic hash function,” if you want to do a deep dive into the computer technology) to claim a Bitcoin or other crypto coin, is an energy-hungry process for large miners.
And relatively cheap—and increasingly renewable—electrical power is being produced in West Texas, right here in our back yards.
Argo Blockchain, which describes itself as “a worldleading cryptocurrency miner,” spotted Dickens County as prime territory for tapping into renewable energy next door to the Invenergy wind farm in the community of McAdoo.
Though Argo’s arrival in October 2021 came as a surprise to many locals, the firm quickly created a substantial presence. Through its fast-paced buildout of a 125,000-square foot, 200-megawatt mining plant and rapid hiring and staffing—as well as its pledge to underwrite a high-profile community service project in Spur—the company made an indelible impression.
Money, they signaled, was to be made in Dickens County. Lots of it.
Argo on the go. At a gala grand opening event May 3 to which government officials and the general public were invited, Argo showcased progress at its Helios plant in Dickens County. Visitors were permitted to tour outside and inside the facility and observe the computers immersed in its proprietary liquid-cooling system.
Banks of dedicated mining machines were still being connected and tested out that morning.
But at dramatic moment toward the end of a high-energy multmedia presentation, Wall and other Argo executives mounted the dais to flip on a large power switch.
Mining, said Wall, was under way before their eyes.
For the first time since Spur Security Bank’s federal reserve notes were discontinued in 1934, residents might observe, money was being minted in their home county.
Crypto’s future. Recent weeks have been a roller coaster for the cryptocurrency industry worldwide, with the momentum largely downward. Some currencies have failed outright, and investors and the media are watching closely.
Insiders remind them that the enterprise has had wide swings from the start, and that finance is only one of the possible applications of blockchain technology. Artificial intelligence applications and gaming are a couple others where the power of computing can be brought to bear.
Growing local industry. Miners have been quick to remind Texans that their business is responsive to demands on the power grid during this summer’s intense heat wave, but that voluntary slowdowns in their activity are temporary.
Allied enterprises, such as wind and solar energy plants, “green” data centers, and highcapacity battery storage, have continued to converge on Dickens County and its neighboring counties.
Argo reported in its most recent operational update, released in early July, that in June it mined “179 Bitcoin or Bitcoin Equivalents (together, BTC) compared to 124 BTC in May 2022. The increase in BTC mined is primarily due to an increase in total hashrate capacity and greater uptime at the Helios facility compared to the previous month.”
Based on daily foreign exchange rates and cryptocurrency prices during the month, the company reported, its mining revenue amounted to $4.35 million.
Dollars for Dickens. While most local enterprises still haven’t tooled up to incorporate crypto into everyday transactions, Coinbase ATM machines are available at Allsup’s and Dollar General in Spur, where customers can exchange their dollars into crypto, or invest in it.
The local chamber of commerce suggested in its planning earlier this year that Spur and Dickens County businesses begin offering payment options in crypto. In The Texas Spur’s own experience, this hasn’t been a simple process; Coinbase wallets have multiple layers of identity verification that haven’t easily synced with our mix of LLC corporate ownership and privately owned cell phones, for one thing.
Jeromy Rutledge of Spur Hardware said although the store isn’t yet accepting crypto, there are definite plans in the works.
(What’s your experience locally? We’d like to know—email us at spur@thetexasspur.com or message us on Facebook.)
The future of finance. Spur Security Bank, according to CEO Kevin Bass, has not yet entered the crypto space and plans to take its cue from banking regulators.
“The independent community bank is probably not wanting to be a leader as far as accepting crypto until we get a nod of agreement” from regulatory bodies such as the Federal Reserve and the Texas Department of Banking, Bass said in a recent interview with The Texas Spur. “When it does happen, a lot of banks will [make crypto services] available at same time.”
Bass said he was not opposed to cryptocurrency in general, and anticipates that a hybrid currency may eventually evolve.
“We are certainly supportive,” he said. “Whether it’s Bitcoin or Dogecoin or any other common crypto, or a basket of differernt cryptos or a hybrid between fiat and crypto, it’s going to look very different than it looks today.”
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