COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- When the controversial speaker at Ohio State's spring commencement called for help with a Bitcoin demonstration on stage, he asked for an assistant who happened to be an industry player. "Social entrepreneur" Chris Pan had just drawn booing from the audience on Sunday after encouraging students and attendees to invest in the cryptocurrency, which he called "misunderstood." He tried to demonstrate a point about Bitcoin's resistance to inflation with a magic trick, and OSU President Ted Carter ended up holding a metaphorical coin while taking part. "What do we got?" Pan asked. "Bitcoin," Carter replied. Chris Pan, right, discusses Bitcoin in his commencement speech alongside Ohio State President Ted Carter. (Courtesy Photo/Ohio State University)Chris Pan discusses Bitcoin in his commencement speech alongside Ohio State President Ted Carter. (Courtesy Photo/Ohio State University) Pan noted the day before in an Instagram post that Carter is involved in a multimillion-dollar Bitcoin business. Indeed, 2021 filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosed that Carter joined Bitcoin miner TeraWulf, Inc.'s board of directors when it became a publicly traded company. TeraWulf's Chief Strategy Officer, Kerri Langlais, shared with NBC4 that Carter came to be involved with the company through a mutual connection. "Admiral Carter …  previously served as the Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy, his alma mater," Langlais said. "Our founder and chief executive officer, Paul Prager, is also an alumnus of the U.S. Naval Academy and actively contributes as a member of the investment committee and trustee of the U.S. Naval Academy Foundation." How a 70-year-old law could apply to pro-Palestine protesters at Ohio State Langlais said Carter serves as the chair of TeraWulf's audit committee, which oversees the accounting and financial reporting processes for the company. He has his work cut out for him. The company's mining rigs enjoy benefits like electricity priced at two cents per kilowatt-hour in one facility -- a fraction of the average Ohioan's cost -- and 2023 gross profits of $41.9 million, according to TeraWulf's earnings reports. TeraWulf acknowledged in the documents that the income, up from $4 million in 2022, is partially thanks to a skyrocketing dollar price per Bitcoin. Mining is the process of validating cryptocurrency transactions and creating new coins, and is part of how many cryptocurrencies' networks operate without any central group. Volunteers offer up computing power to run the network's transactions in exchange for being rewarded with Bitcoin. With readily accessible equipment like a computer's GPU, anyone can mine cryptocurrency, whether at home or in more unusual places like the crawl space of a school. For Bitcoin, the first and oldest cryptocurrency, miners can come in the form of industrialized farms like TeraWulf's. Rows of computers mining Bitcoin line the interior of TeraWulf's Nautilus Cryptomine. (Courtesy Photo/TeraWulf)An aerial view of the Nautilus Cryptomine. (Courtesy Photo/TeraWulf)An aerial view of the Nautilus Cryptomine. (Courtesy Photo/TeraWulf) With this kind of scale in play, Bitcoin mining's impact on the environment is a concern among critics. A study from scientists with the United Nations found from 2020 to 2021, Bitcoin miners worldwide consumed enough electricity that they surpassed the usage of most countries. Mining's carbon footprint for the year also equated to burning 84 billion pounds of coal. The primary issue, scientists said, was mining companies' reliance on fossil fuels for energy. Nearly half of the energy supply required for all miners' operations came from coal, and a quarter from natural gas. TeraWulf finds itself in a smaller sect of miners using what Senior Vice President of Operations Sean Farrell referred to as "sustainable and responsible" energy sources in a video tour. Despite all the electricity it consumes so cheaply, the company brands its Nautilus Cryptomine in Pennsylvania as using 100% zero-carbon nuclear energy, while its Lake Mariner facility in New York uses a 93% carbon-neutral mix of nuclear and hydropower. Superman movie filming in Ohio now hiring locals as extras, casting for ‘female stand-in’ It's here where Langlais said Carter's military past also comes in handy. The company specifically notes on its profile of the OSU president that during his time in the Navy, he had two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers under his command. "His strategic and operational understanding of nuclear power generation is also invaluable to the company’s operations," Langlais said. "We estimate that our cost to mine a bitcoin is among the lowest compared to other publicly listed bitcoin mining companies, and now post halving, we anticipate that our position as the lowest-cost producer of bitcoin will only be further strengthened." An aerial view of TeraWulf's Lake Mariner mining facility. (Courtesy Photo/TeraWulf)TeraWulf employees inspect mining rig equipment. (Courtesy Photo/TeraWulf)Bitcoin mining computers line the racks of TeraWulf's Lake Mariner facility. (Courtesy Photo/TeraWulf) Bitcoin isn't a foreigner to the local college space, as Ohio University offers a blockchain fundamentals course, according to its website. The University of Cincinnati reported in 2022 that it also launched programs and a cryptocurrency lab complete with a mining rig. But Carter is the only university president, at least in Ohio, directly affiliated with a cryptocurrency mining operation. However, Ohio State spokesperson Ben Johnson said Carter is not the first president to have roles outside the university. "It is common for university presidents to sit on public and private boards," Johnson said. The spokesperson referenced three past presidents who did the same, albeit for different companies. Kristina M. Johnson most recently left the university in 2023 and serves on the board for tech firm Cisco, which is ironically averse to mining because it can be associated with cyberattacks. She was also elected to another board for DuPont, a materials manufacturer of products like Kevlar. Presidents farther back like Dr. Michael Drake, who left OSU for the University of California, serve on the board for Amgen, a biotech firm. E Gordon Gee, president at OSU until 2013, served on the board of directors for L Brands from 2012 to 2020.