Every innovative technology that disrupts the status quo is often first met with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Does that mean disruption is inherently bad?
For businesses that resist change, disruption can be a threat.
For innovators and early adopters, it’s an opportunity to reshape industries and solve big problems.
For consumers, disruption can mean better products, services and efficiencies.
If you embrace disruption, you can thrive. If you ignore it, you risk being left behind.
This sage advice was given to Henry Ford’s lawyer by the president of Michigan Savings bank in 1903:
“The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty – a fad.”
Over the next century, automobiles revolutionized transportation, connected cities, and supercharged the global economy.
Airplanes?
In 1903, The New York Times predicted it would take millions of years for humans to develop a flying machine.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t. Over the following decades, airplanes revolutionized global travel, tourism, and international business.
Phones?
In 1876, The New York Times published an editorial posing the question:
“What if every town in America got a phone, and never had to show up to celebrations like the Centennial in person again?”
Undeterred, innovation forged ahead with the advent of landlines, mobile technologies, and smartphones.
What about the internet?
In 1998, Nobel prize-winning economist Paul Krugman made this prediction:
“By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
Safe to say this bold claim did not age well.
Blockbuster? In 2004, the company had over 9,000 stores and earned $6 billion in revenue.
Its reluctance to embrace streaming paved the way for Netflix, which now boasts over 300 million subscribers worldwide.
Bookstores? In the late 90s, there were over 12,000 across the United States. Today, more than half have closed their doors for good as more efficient e-commerce alternatives continue to take market share.
Disrupting the Idea of Money
The evolution of money shows a natural progression toward efficiency, decentralization, and trust minimization – from gold, silver, and shells as a medium of exchange, to the introduction of standardized metallic coinage, to paper money backed by precious metals.
The next step in that evolution was fiat currency issued by governments without backing by physical commodities.
In 2008, an anonymous figure under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin whitepaper, representing the culmination of this evolution, and aiming to create a decentralized, trustless financial system that removes reliance on banks and intermediaries.
What is Sound Money?
Why do some forms of money survive while others fail?
Sound money typically exhibits the following characteristics:
- Durability: Must withstand wear and tear
- Portability: Easy to transport and transfer
- Divisibility: Can be broken down into smaller units
- Uniformity: Consistency in value across units
- Scarcity: Limited supply to prevent devaluation
- Acceptability: Widely accepted as a medium of exchange
- Stability: Retains value over time without rapid fluctuation
How do they stack up?
Based on the tenants of sound money, gold fares quite well.
Fiat, not so much.
Bitcoin’s most noticeable weakness is its relatively short, 16-year track record; however, each day the network survives, it grows more robust, more secure, and more powerful.
HIVE’s Unique Value Proposition
HIVE builds and operates next-generation data centers, leveraging sustainable energy in politically stable countries around the world.
As the first publicly traded miner, HIVE continues to pioneer innovation in Bitcoin mining and accelerated computing, with a path to quadruple mining capacity to 25 EH/s by September 2025.
With substantial Bitcoin holdings (2,657 BTC as of January 31, 2025) and judicious capital allocation focused on maximizing cash flow returns on invested capital, HIVE’s innovative strategy positions it uniquely amid evolving market dynamics.
HIVE’s Strategic Developments
Last week, we were thrilled to officially welcome Craig Tavares as President and Chief Operating Officer of Buzz HPC to lead growth in HIVE’s high-performance computing and GPU cloud services.
With over 20 years of experience in digital infrastructure, Tavares brings a wealth of expertise and a reputation as an innovative leader in the data center, cloud, telecom and energy industries.
His leadership will be instrumental in accelerating Buzz HPC’s growth and success as he champions our vision to scale our high-performance computing business to $100M in revenue.
HIVE In The Media
TheStreet: Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Frank Holmes discusses HIVE’s Q3 F2025 earnings
Proactive Investors: Sweden Country President Johanna Thörnblad details HIVE's role in balancing Sweden's energy grid and 2025 growth trajectory
Simply Bitcoin: Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Frank Holmes provides an update on HIVE’s expansion in Paraguay
Final Thoughts
On Thursday, April 17th from 5:30 PM – 9:00 PM CST, HIVE is hosting an investor dinner to celebrate the recent relocation of its headquarters to the U.S. You are invited to enjoy local cuisines, cocktails, and meet Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Frank Holmes at our new San Antonio, Texas headquarters.
Warm regards,
The HIVE Digital Technologies Team