For many hours, spot prices soared so high that Riot could sell power to Ercot for 50 or more times the low fixed price it was paying for juice to spawn Bitcoin. At the same time, electrical usage hit all-time highs as Texans cranked up their AC units. In July, a heatwave scorched the Lone Star state, forming a “dome” that stilled the air over the windmill farms that furnish a huge share of the state’s energy. Under a regime called “price response” administered by ERCOT, the agency that manages the flow of electricity for Texas, Riot and fellow miners can choose to shut down and rechannel their freed-up megawatts to the grid at “spot” or market prices. Here’s how the process worked for Riot in July. Among the rich benefits: selling that liberated electricity back to the network at such super-high prices that the during the hours of closure, miners can make multiples the money from hawking megawatts that they’d get minting coins. But not so: Riot benefited from what’s effectively a second, backup business that doubled its sales over what it posted making its own Bitcoin––the same outcome as if Bitcoin were still selling for $40,000! That lucrative sideline consists of curtailing output and getting paid for releasing the “standby” power to stabilize the famously-stressed Texas grid. You’d think that fall would have hammered Riot’s revenues. The flagship token’s price had dropped from over $40,000 in April to hover in the low $20,000s during most of July. But it didn’t look that way from Riot’s banner performance.
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