Galaxy's 4.2GW Bitcoin (BTC) Mining Portfolio Wins Conditional ERCOT Batch Zero Status

ERCOT Batch Zero at 474GW

The race to lock up Texas grid access has become the new scoreboard for Bitcoin miners. ERCOT, the state's grid operator, approved the Batch Zero process in June to evaluate large-load interconnection requests collectively rather than project by project. The scale is unprecedented: the operator reported more than 438GW of applications at approval time, nearly 89% tied to data centers, and figures cited by Governor Greg Abbott's office put the total above 474GW as of Aug. 3 — roughly 90% data center related and more than five times ERCOT's historic peak demand. The program covers facilities of at least 75MW that completed sufficient pre-studies and carry development commitments. Its key distinction separates baseload projects, which enter the initial study models without a further capacity allocation round, from studied load projects that must still clear one. A Sept. 3 notice from ERCOT to transmission and distribution providers listed remaining conditions — applicant verification, corrections to dynamic modeling data and, in some cases, waivers from the Public Utility Commission of Texas — with failures risking disqualification. The classifications followed an August directive from Abbott requiring verification and audits for data centers moving through the queue. None of it converts into energized capacity on its own: a Batch Zero label is not final interconnection approval.

Miner-by-Miner Classifications

Disclosures over the past week show how unevenly the designations landed. IREN said its 2GW Sweetwater hub received conditional baseload status, split into 1,400MW at Sweetwater 1 and 600MW at Sweetwater 2, with 300MW of data center capacity targeted for supply in the fourth quarter of 2027. Hut 8's Beacon Point project and Soluna's entire 166MW Kati campus also earned the designation. Galaxy disclosed on Sept. 8 that five Texas projects totaling roughly 4.2GW received conditional classifications: the 1.63GW Helios I and II sit in the baseload column, while Caspian, Selene and Helios III — about 2.6GW combined — were tagged as studied load. Notably, Galaxy submitted the 700MW Caspian site as baseload, but ERCOT tentatively placed it in the studied bucket. CleanSpark reported 585MW conditional baseload and 300MW conditional studied. Ionic Digital said its transmission provider notified it that an additional 466MW at its Ward County campus was provisionally baseload, lifting the site to 700MW of total demand with completion targeted by the end of 2027. Cipher disclosed 3.2GW conditionally classified without splitting baseload from studied, and is separately building natural gas supply pipelines to support up to 2.5GW of self-generation. ERCOT plans a final transmission plan covering all Batch Zero projects in fall 2027.

Antpool Outpaces Spiderpool at 966,500

While the power race dominated headlines, the Bitcoin network itself produced the week's more technical story. On Sept. 11, two valid blocks appeared at height 966,500, each built on the same parent. Antpool's candidate prevailed and Spiderpool's equally valid block was orphaned in a single-block reorganization. Galaxy Research flagged the event on X, noting its own node did not see the winning block until it was confirmed and extended — and that this was the third such reorg in four weeks, following single-block reorganizations at heights 962,722 on Aug. 16 and 963,853 on Aug. 24. The mechanism is routine in a proof-of-work system: when two miners publish competing blocks nearly simultaneously, the network follows whichever chain attracts the next block and accumulates more work, abandoning the loser. Depth changes the stakes. On Monero, Qubic once published a withheld chain from height 3,499,659 that replaced 18 blocks, and Bitcoin SV suffered a 100-block reorganization in the summer of 2021. Bitcoin's occasional one-block reorgs, while worth monitoring, do not carry the settlement-reversal risk those deeper events posed. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bybit.

Galaxy Research flagged the event on Xhttps://x.com/glxyresearch/status/2098450862222045506?s=20

Fall 2027 Grid Plan in Focus

Read together, the two developments describe a network repricing its own inputs. COINOTAG's view: Batch Zero turns power access into a ranked, comparable asset, and Galaxy's Caspian downgrade shows how much uncertainty hides inside gigawatt headlines until ERCOT's final transmission plan lands in fall 2027. The settlement layer, meanwhile, just absorbed its third one-block reorg in a month without incident — precisely the self-correction mining is designed to deliver. The metric to watch per site is baseload versus studied megawatts, not the headline total.