Peer-to-Peer is a series of Q&A style interviews with members of the Chia community. This interview is with Justin Kramer, CEO of Badgerland Home Crypto Mining and Badger Miners, an established mining hardware retailer that is introducing their first Chia plug-and-play farming product.
- Twitter: @BadgerMiners
- Website (coming soon): badgerminers.io
- Website: badgerlandcrypto.com
- Discord: Badger Miners
Editor’s Note: This interview was not sponsored and should not be taken as endorsement of any particular product or company.
Hi Justin, thanks for chatting with us today! Can you tell us about your background and your journey with selling mining hardware? What made you interested in Chia farming?
My first mining company, Badgerland Home Crypto Mining, was started in 2021. My mission was to give retail ASIC customers a safe and reliable place to buy their hardware. After a successful few months, I quit my six-figure job to channel all my accumulated experience and insights into launching Badgerland Mining Club. Through this mining operation I raised $275,000 in a seed round and shortly after was acquired by Mati Greenspan and Quantum Expeditions. I now serve as the COO of Quantum Expeditions bringing my expertise in mining to the company with the aim of becoming a billion-dollar bitcoin mining operation.
Other play & plug models left me feeling like the consumer deserves better. I immediately began exploring options so that we could bring maximum value at a lower cost to both elevate Chia and offer exposure to a wider customer base.
Justin Kramer, CEO Badger Miners
A colleague of mine, Warren Sexton, turned me on to Chia. Among the many benefits of Chia I recognized was the opportunity it presented in affordable mining. Other play & plug models left me feeling like the consumer deserves better. I immediately began exploring options so that we could bring maximum value at a lower cost to both elevate Chia and offer exposure to a wider customer base.
I threw myself into the research, vetted a number of potential partners and was fortunate to connect with JuseyMiners CEO, Jesse Bates. Partnering with Jesse gave each of us the opportunity to bring the next generation of Chia farming hardware to market. Badger Miners couldn’t be more proud to announce the latest addition to the Chia ecosystem, the Honey Badger plug-and-play farmer.
Can you provide specifics (specs, price, compression software) of the Honey Badger farmer?
The Honey Badger is an all-in-one system that runs a full Chia node and comes pre-plotted with Gigahorse C30 plots, harvested locally with a dedicated GPU. The specs are below:
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5600 |
| GPU | Nvidia RTX 4060 Low Profile 8GB |
| RAM | 16GB |
| Storage | 1TB NVMe |
| Drives | 20TB SATA drives |
Pricing is as follows, there will initially be three size options up to 1.1 PBe total.
| Product | Effective Farm Size | Price (USD) |
| Honey Badger | 368 TBe | $3,999 |
| Honey Badger Pro | 736 TBe | $5,999 |
| Honey Badger Max | 1.1 PBe | $7,999 |
We will also be releasing a Honey Badger Expansion pack, priced at $1,999 to add 368 TBe to your farm targeted at those that opted for the Honey Badger or Honey Badger Pro, to expand it up to 1.1 PBe in total.
Who is your target market for this product and how do you plan to set yourself apart in the market amongst several other plug and play offerings?
In short, everyone. We were determined to create a product that did not exclude non-tech or semi-tech savvy individuals that are interested in mining. We were acutely aware that there are a number of hurdles that typically stand in the way of people mining which include high electrical rates, noise considerations, or simply their living space. Therefore, it was important that the Honey Badger would address all these issues while delivering superior performance.
By far my favorite part of this process was working on our key technical differentiators. We use C30 compression, by far the highest offering of all plug-and-play farmers made possible by the local powerful GPU. This allows us to offer a 20% lower $/TBe than the nearest competitor.
One of the “coolest” features of the Honey Badger that will be rolling out in the not-too-distant future is the ability to dual mine with the CPU alongside Chia farming since the CPU itself is no slouch. Not to mention the entire farm only has four cables to keep it neat and tidy.
With discussions of a new plot format, what are your thoughts on it? And more importantly how would that impact the longevity of your farming hardware?
Development in crypto moves fast and Badger Miners is positioned and prepared to be as nimble as possible for any changes that may impact our farming badgers. This is why we’ve deliberately chosen to limit our sales to 100 units to allow us to feasibly offer an affordable and timely replotting service in the future should the need arise.
Editor’s Note: Depending on specifics of the new plot format, it might also be possible for these miners to replot locally, given they have a very capable CPU and GPU.
Some would say it makes more sense to buy XCH instead of farming it, especially in light of the reward halving. What would your response be to that?
“Good for you. Go buy coin.” We’ll continue to create it at a fraction of the price. We’re targeting crypto miners, not crypto traders. Our customers are those that value the ability to run a full node, believe in participating in the security of the network, that are in crypto for the long haul, and want to profitably mine crypto every single day.
Unlike ASIC mining, my hard drives will still profitably mine Chia for years to come in addition to having tangible value three, four, or five years down the road. Most ASICs would be obsolete AND worthless after two or three years.
What do you think about the future of Chia? Outside of farming, are there particular use cases or projects you’re most looking forward to?
Scalability in all senses of the word. I’m looking forward to Chia scaling its use cases, scaling its throughput with L2s, scaling its adoption, and especially excited for Chia to scale its farmer base and network security with the help of Badger Miners.
Will farmers be able to choose their own pool?
We currently support Space Pool and we are actively developing support for Space Farmers with more pools to come.
Thank you for taking the time to chat, is there anything else you would like to share with XCH.today readers?
I got my foot in the door in crypto by helping home miners and it’s still a passion of mine. Being able to champion a product like this that opens up mining to so many more people is a really proud moment for myself and the Badger Miners team. Thank you for the chance to share our passion with your readers.
Editor’s note: Don’t miss Justin and Jesse’s interview and demo with Chia Network Inc on Tuesday April 23, 2024. See the Discord event announcement for exact time and link.
