TBW - Exaion-Mara: why the sale framework threatens European sovereignty
It's a document that the financial centre and players in the crypto industry were nervously scrutinising.
Concomitantly with the media La Lettre, The Big Whale was able to consult the confidential authorisation document sent by the French Treasury to Mara Holdings, the American Bitcoin mining giant, concerning the purchase of 64% of Exaion, the high-performance computing and blockchain start-up and subsidiary of EDF.
If Bercy gives the go-ahead, this "letter of conditions" reveals the ridgelines of a French sovereignty that is trying to protect itself, but which could complicate the development of 100% French mining channels in the future.
At heart, the Treasury's letter is classic in its logic.
The State authorises Mara to take control of Exaion on condition that activities deemed sensitive are preserved: maintenance of industrial capacity in France, data protection, continuity of services provided to EDF, and the administration's enhanced right of scrutiny over the company's governance and strategy.
But there is one element that challenges those familiar with the matter: the Treasury does not question the non-competition clause (which we spotted in the sale agreement filed with the SEC last summer) which requires EDF not to carry on any business in the field of high-performance computing (HPC) and by extension Bitcoin mining, for 2 years.
Above all, EDF will not be able to be a stakeholder in an HPC/mining project beyond the simple role of electricity supplier. For example, EDF will not be able to be a co-investor, operator, integrator, or industrial partner in a conglomerate that would bring together European players, as the FlexMine project has been proposing for months.
As soon as the offer goes beyond simply supplying electricity and begins to resemble an integrated offering (energy + computing), a turnkey industrial setup, or a strategic valorization of electricity through computing, it would fall within the scope of the non-compete clause.
A clause that raises questions at a time when Europe is rediscovering its dependence on the United States
"It's open bar for the Americans," confides a source close to the matter.
"Mara's good fortune is that nobody understands anything about it. It's not Exaion that's strategic, it's this clause that is", she insists.
If tomorrow the French state decided to launch a public policy to promote mining as a tool for stabilising the network, it would find itself up against a dominant player that was already firmly established, protected by US law, but operating on French soil.
Mara arrives with a financial strike force and large-scale mining experience that private French players do not yet have.
A considerable problem, in the context where Europe is currently becoming aware of its sovereignty dependencies on its (former?) American ally.
Even if the non-compete clause lasts "only" 2 years, Mara could gain a considerable head start in that time.
>> French government opens door to Bitcoin mining by EDF
Generating overcapacity means new demand
This gap comes at a particularly sensitive time for the French electricity system. RTE's recent work shows an increasingly marked situation of overcapacity: stagnant consumption, high nuclear and renewable generation, an increase in periods of negative prices and a rise in modulation, including on the nuclear fleet.
In a letter sent in December by Bernard Fontana (head of EDF) to Court of Auditors president Pierre Moscovici, the latter now warns of the economic and industrial limits of this situation.
The nuclear fleet, historically designed as a baseload producer, finds itself forced to modulate for lack of sufficient outlets. Yet electricity cannot be stored: without new uses, the system is balanced by constraint, not by valuation.
In this context, Bitcoin mining (the only really controllable intensive computing activity) appears in many countries to be a tool for absorbing surpluses, capable of consuming when demand is low and wiping itself out when it is high.
"People talk about mining as a flexibility tool that will become major in the years to come, but which today everyone regards with disdain," laments one expert.
>> France pays millions to get rid of surplus electricity
