Hi,
My own two cents are to use the strengths of the tribe and the independent nation status that make you unique.
1. Mining is great if it is primarily for teaching and learning for those people who have a technical interest. It is important to have a group who understand these aspects.
2. There is also the advantage of location where heat dissipation isn't as large a concern in winter. :-)
3. The big competitive advantage though is the unique legal structure being an independent nation offers. I think it is clear the US government recognizes it in respect to casinos, so should with other things too. So the question is how to leverage the competitive advantages that you have and that is by offering services to the world that might be difficult or impossible elsewhere. This probably includes online gambling (with IP blocks no doubt for some countries-which is somewhat meaningless for bitcoin obviously), exchanges (which since you are a nation provides different rules versus the rules in each US state), and banks to help the exchange. (There may be things like a Silk Road replacement that are possible, but they would attract the wrong kind of attention in my opinion).
There are probably many other things that you can provide that give you a competitive advantage under your legal status and I think that could be of great benefit to the tribe and to bitcoin itself. The key is what is the advantage you have and it isn't in mining except as a learning tool because the mining ROI is difficult for everyone.
If you intend to set up an exchange etc once you have people up to speed you could no doubt get investors because there you have a great advantage over many others. Again given the nation status, getting investors could be much different than what is required outside the reservation. Services like this will provide a good recurring income stream and a lot of valuable technical education to many people that is not just applicable to bitcoin.
You'd want to go through whatever legal reviews are available (if any, if needed) before doing this, but this sentence encapsulates the advantage you have over many others, a much freer environment to do business. And that is worth a lot.
Ok well in response to the question of speaking with tribal governing bodies, I have already had meetings with our He Sapa Oyate Council and they gave me the go ahead as long it will help the community. I know several elders there that are excited about t he program and looking forward to it's development. As far as the Mining aspect we Do have some donated gear coming in which people are looking forward to seeing the basics of how things start out. Alot of people mentioned just buying BTC instead of mining...the problem with that is unemployment still hovers around 83.5% average income is around $7,000 a year...people struggle to get the basics....where would they get the income to buy BTC for training purposes? not trying to be a smart ass...just saying. Thats the main purpose for the Mining element...is to generate enough to A:) Show the Viability of a major tribal Mining cluster and B:) to generate enough BTC for young people to train on with exchange trading that they can learn effective trading strategies. The Commercial Businesses can accept it pretty easy so thats a no brainer but it's getting our people started in learning how the tech works and how to use it...without keeping it on a HD and later finding out you just dumped $6.7M in the landfill...LOL
-Payu-