Matt Odell joins the show to discuss OpenSats’ 17th grant round, and Ben Carman also joins to explain why the Austin Bitdevs meetup is saying sayonara for now. Get your tickets to OPNEXT 2026 before prices increase! Join us on April 16 in NYC for technical discussions, investor talks, and intimate conversation with the brightest minds in Bitcoin. Welcome back to The Blockspace Podcast! Today, Matt Odell, Co-founder of OpenSats, joins us to talk about their 17th wave of grants and the importance of funding open-source Bitcoin privacy projects, and Spiral bitcoin developer Ben Carman hops on to explain why the longest running Bitdevs meetup is taking a break. We also dive into the $270M Drift Protocol exploit and the sophisticated social engineering tactics used by North Korean hackers. Plus, we cover Charles Schwab launching Bitcoin trading, the first investment bank rating for Keel Infrastructure (formerly Bitfarms), and how a solo miner secured a $250,000 block reward. Subscribe to the newsletter! https://newsletter.blockspacemedia.com Notes: - Drift Protocol lost $270M in a painstaking hack. - OpenSats has distributed over $33M in grants from ~10,000 donors - OpenSats grants ~$1M in Bitcoin every month. - Solo miner earned $250,000 for a single block. - Charles Schwab to offer spot BTC and ETH trading in H1 2026 Timestamps: 00:00 Start 02:32 Strait of Hormuz: A Citrini Field Trip 06:33 Drift Protocol (SOL) Hack 15:15 Matt Odell: OpenSats 7th wave of grants 32:45 Ben Carman: Austin BitDevs go bye bye 48:09 Bitfarms becomes Keel 54:38 Charles Schwab opens BTC trading 59:11 Solo miner wins block 👉CleanSpark CleanSpark (Nasdaq: CLSK) is a market-leading data center developer with a proven track record of success. We own a portfolio of power, land, and data centers across the United States powered by globally competitive energy prices. Sitting at the intersection of Bitcoin, energy, operational excellence and capital stewardship, we optimize our infrastructure to deliver superior returns to our shareholders. Monetizing low-cost, high reliability energy by producing a global emerging critical resource – compute – positions us to prosper in an ever-changing world. 👉Luxor, Blockspace's preferred mining pool Bitcoin mining revenue changes every day. Difficulty adjusts. Fees move. Prices shift. And that makes it hard to plan. Luxor Pool’s Fixed Payouts let miners lock in revenue at a guaranteed daily rate for up to 18 months. According to Hashrate Index, miners who used rolling fixed payout strategies since the last halving have outperformed FPPS mining by up to 15 percent. Fixed Payouts give you predictable daily revenue, so you can plan, budget, and grow with confidence. With Luxor, uncertainty is optional. Learn more at luxor.tech/mining
