{"id":64220,"date":"2025-12-18T14:16:33","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T14:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=64220"},"modified":"2025-12-18T14:16:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T14:16:33","slug":"jimmy-carr-tells-uk-to-mine-bitcoin-with-wasted-night-time-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=64220","title":{"rendered":"Jimmy Carr Tells UK To Mine Bitcoin With Wasted Night-Time Power"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UK comedian and TV host Jimmy Carr suggested the British state should consider mining bitcoin using electricity that would otherwise go unused overnight, framing the idea as part of a broader push for more \u201cradical\u201d thinking about public finances.<\/p>\n

Will The UK Mine Bitcoin With Excess Energy?<\/h2>\n

Carr made the comments in a Dec. 11 TRIGGERnometry interview recorded on \u201cthe day of the budget,\u201d where he questioned why the UK has never created a sovereign wealth fund and argued that some revenue-generating assets should be treated as collectively owned.\u201c<\/p>\n

There are certain things that should belong to everyone,\u201d he said, pointing to \u201cthe oil and gas that sit under the UK\u201d and \u201cthe wind farms around the coast.\u201d Carr claimed that \u201call of that money goes to the Crown,\u201d and asked why it shouldn\u2019t accrue more directly to the public.<\/p>\n

He extended the argument to infrastructure such as \u201cmobile phone masts,\u201d while stressing he wasn\u2019t making a socialist case. \u201cI\u2019m not a socialist. I\u2019m not even for state capitalism,\u201d Carr said, before arguing that some assets \u201cshould belong to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, Carr offered bitcoin mining as a concrete example of a non-tax revenue lever the government could explore. \u201cI would not mind it if our government said, yeah, we\u2019re going to mine for Bitcoins,\u201d he said. \u201cOur power stations, they don\u2019t do anything at night, so we\u2019re going to mine for Bitcoins.\u201d He added: \u201cGreat. New gold standard. Fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jimmy Carr is the United Kingdom\u2019s most popular comedian and celebrity. Carr says, \u201cI would not mind it if our government mines for bitcoins. Our power stations don\u2019t do anything at night, so we\u2019re going to mine for bitcoins. Great. New gold standard. Fine.\u201d pic.twitter.com\/GZRvQT8mua<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Documenting \u20bfitcoin \"\ud83d\udcc4\" (@DocumentingBTC) December 17, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Carr did not propose a formal policy design, cite figures on spare capacity, or address governance questions around state-run mining. The point, as he presented it, was directional: use underutilized national infrastructure more aggressively and stop treating taxation as the default answer to funding pressures. \u201cDo something radical, something interesting with the finances of the country,\u201d Carr said. \u201cWhy does it all have to come from taxation?\u201d<\/p>\n

While the remarks come from an entertainer rather than a policymaker, the framing is notable for how it positions bitcoin in a nation-state register: not only as a tradable asset, but as something a government could plausibly produce using excess energy capacity, then hold as an alternative form of reserve value.<\/p>\n

Carr\u2019s \u201cmine with spare power\u201d idea has real-world analogs: Bhutan has quietly built<\/a> a state-linked bitcoin mining operation powered largely by hydropower, a model often described as a way to monetize seasonal surplus generation.<\/p>\n

El Salvador has also leaned into the \u201cexcess energy\u201d narrative. The country mined<\/a> nearly 474 BTC over roughly three years using 1.5 MW of geothermal energy from a state-owned plant tied to the Tecapa volcano. And in places like Iceland<\/a>, miners have long been drawn by plentiful renewable supply (and the economics of cheap, clean power), making it one of the most mining-dense jurisdictions globally.<\/p>\n

At press time, BTC traded at $87,113.<\/p>\n

\"Bitcoin<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UK comedian and TV host Jimmy Carr suggested the British state should consider mining bitcoin using electricity that would otherwise go unused overnight, framing the idea as part of a broader push for more \u201cradical\u201d thinking about public finances. Will The UK Mine Bitcoin With Excess Energy? Carr made the comments in a Dec. 11 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-64220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=64220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=64220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=64220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=64220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}