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Taras Kulyk is the Senior Vice President of Blockchain Business Development at Core Scientific. Kulyk’s career has progressed through increasingly important roles in the digital assets, investment banking and technology industries. He has built and led teams engaged in the management and development of digital asset mining infrastructures around the world. Additionally, he fostered and managed relationships with major global technology leaders, including Samsung and Ennoconn. Prior to his work in the digital assets industry, Taras was an investment banker covering the media and technology sectors with TD Securities.
What first attracted you to blockchain and digital assets?
I was initially drawn to blockchain and digital assets, by the premise that the underlying technology was built on the potential to disrupt finance and the exchange of value, just as the internet disrupted commerce and pretty much our entire lifestyle. Being part of this kind of technological change early on was not only exciting, it was also an educational experience in “creative destruction”.
Can you talk about how you went from investment banking to bitcoin mining?
Having spent nearly 3.5 years in investment banking, covering traditional mining (gold, PGM, iron ore, copper, etc.) and TMT, with BMO Capital Markets and TD Securities respectively, I have decided that instead of staying and find an increasingly important role in the banking sector, to try my hand in industry; in particular blockchain.
I found a role in business development in Toronto by working with Decentral, the creator of the Jaxx hot wallet. We were in the midst of the 2017 ICO craze and were fortunate enough to work and meet many of the important teams in the digital asset ecosystem. Many people don’t realize it, but Ethereum was founded and created in Toronto, Canada.
From Decentral, I was recruited to join a private family office to grow their global mining fleet as they sought exposure to the digital asset space via infrastructure and bitcoin mining. The rest is, as they say, history …
Where are Core Scientific’s digital mines geographically located?
Core Scientific currently has digital mining / hosting facilities located in five data centers: two in North Carolina, two in Georgia and one in Kentucky.
What digital assets are currently being mined?
Core Scientific clients can currently mine BTC, BCH, ETH, ETC, SiaCoin, Zcash and many other alternative currencies. Our customers mainly use SHA256 ASICs, but we have a very large and growing fleet of GPUs and also newer non-SHA256 ASICs.
There is often a lack of regulatory clarity on digital mining, what kind of regulation is needed to further encourage institutional investors to participate?
Over the past few quarters, we’ve seen policy makers clarify more regulations around cryptocurrencies. Notably, in July, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) announced in an interpretative letter that federally regulated banks and savings associations can now provide services to crypto startups in addition to key custody management. cryptocurrencies associated with cryptocurrency on behalf of customers.
While this is a step in the right direction, there are many other things the government should do to support the digital mining industry. Specifically, reducing or eliminating tariffs on hardware for digital asset mining, easing the tax burden to encourage foreign direct investment in U.S.-based digital asset mining operators, and creating incentives to encourage the digital mining industry to focus on using renewable energy sources for its own power needs.
With the growing interest from institutional investors, it is increasingly becoming a national imperative that digital assets be taken seriously by regulators. At Core Scientific, we are thrilled with the growing traditional adoption and regulatory sentiment towards digital assets; and we can’t wait to see the US continue to adapt their cryptocurrency policies to allow our country to continue its role as a true trailblazer in the global digital mining industry.
Are there supply chain problems with suppliers like Bitmain?
We have a very strong working partnership with Bitmain Technologies. Bitmain has been extremely professional and the machines we have ordered from them on behalf of our customers continue to be delivered quickly and efficiently, without too many shipping delays.
We have worked closely with Bitmain for the past three years, launching the first Ant Training Academy outside of China and facilitating a record purchase of 17,595 S19 Antminers earlier this year. More recently, Core Scientific was also named Bitmain’s only cooperative repair center in North America. Core Scientific has excellent working relationships with our suppliers and does not care about their ability to serve us and our customers.
How can investors best hedge the risks associated with digital mining?
Investors should really spend a lot of time on due diligence on the traders they are looking to invest large sums of capital with. If the team performing the operations cannot be found online … think again. Core Scientific has gone through several years of E&Y review and is focused on providing that level of credibility this industry needs to mature.
Could you discuss who are the current leaders in the digital mining space?
While China has been the undisputed leader in bitcoin mining, a bitcoin mining map produced by the University of Cambridge recently indicated that the global diversification of mining hashrate is on the rise with regions such as North America, Eastern Europe. and the Middle East vying to become a world leader. North America, in particular, has emerged as a global mining hub, thanks to the ideal geopolitical climate, energy infrastructure, and increased institutional interest from actors such as Digital Currency Group (DCG), which recently announced an investment of $ 100M to expand into the bitcoin mining industry in North America.
Core Scientific also offers additional blockchain type services, could you discuss what they are?
While I am unable to discuss the specific services we offer at this time, I can say that we will be announcing several exciting new offers in the near future.
Core Scientific offers data science solutions for companies that need to use deep learning. Could you discuss how Core Scientific can assist companies in this area?
High-performance computing and artificial intelligence are converging to create solutions that span a wide range of industries, from performing seismic analyzes in the oil and gas field to calculating complex risks in financial markets.
At Core Scientific, we have partnered with NVIDIA, the inventor of the GPU, as well as NetApp, a leader in cloud data services, to provide free access to artificial intelligence and data engineering infrastructure for new coronavirus research. accelerated by the GPU. More recently, we acquired resources and technologies from Atrio, a cloud services company for AI and high-performance computing that has enabled us to help researchers accelerate AI-based genomics research to fight the pandemic.
Is there anything else you would like to share on Core Scientific?
Our goal is to continue accelerating the digital asset mining space in North America as we have many exciting announcements scheduled for Q4 that we can’t wait to share.
Thanks for the great interview, readers wishing to learn more should visit Core Scientific.
