Please provide a direct link to how this "future credit" works because the ERCOT settlement protocols say you are 100% wrong.
For specific refence, look at Section 9: Settlement and Billing on this page Current Protocols - Nodal (ercot.com)
If your post was an attempt to create some kind of metaphor, so be it, but acknowledge that. Because it is factually not accurate.
ERCOT has a real time settlement system. The bitminer here contracted an amount of supply for their load. The miner then reduced their load in real time. The ERCOT real time settlement processes look at this imbalance. The imbalance results in the miner have more supply than load. ERCOT then directly pays the miner for this excess energy. It is settled at the interval level. This payment happens on the standard load settlement cycle. Technically the money is going to go to the QSE hosting the miner. However, the miner is the only "customer" in the QSE, so they are going to get all the money. Money is changing hands. The miner can effectively take this money and gamble it in Vegas, have a crazy party in Dubai, they could reinvest in their business, or divest it to owner's of the private company. It is a pure windfall for the miner. The above process is the settlement for the $24.2 million ERCOT is paying Riot for energy sold back.
The $7.4 million in demand response credits is a different discussion but it only represents 23% of the $31.7 million reference in this clickbait news story.
All of the above is neither good nor bad. It just is how a very complex set of rules have evolved with the Zonal and now Nodal markets in ERCOT. The miner hit the jackpot. Oh and the miner still has to pay its energy supplier for the supply it contracted for. So, subtract that expense from this new "revenue".