Sustainability-focused Bitcoin miner CleanSpark has agreed to purchase two ready-to-use mining facilities for $9.3 million in Dalton, Georgia, continuing a trend of weighty investments into the mining industry this year.
The deal, scheduled to close later this week, is expected to add nearly 1 exahash per second of mining capacity to CleanSpark’s fleet. One exahash is equal to 1 quintillion hashes.
Mining rigs work by generating hashes—or guesses—as fast as they can to be the first to solve a complex math problem in order to create Bitcoin’s next block. A higher hashrate means better odds of winning the Bitcoin (BTC) rewards attached to the network’s next block, meaning greater profits for the firm.
“This acquisition ensures that we have more than enough infrastructure to reach our year-end target of 16 EH/s,” said Zach Bradford, CEO of CleanSpark, in a press release. “It also continues to position us as one of the most power-efficient miners on an energy-per-hash rate basis.”
The new facilities will consist of 6,000 Antminer S19 XPs and S19J Pro+ mining rigs ordered by CleanSpark earlier this year. The former machine boasts a power efficiency of 21.5 joules per terahash (J/TH), making it among the most efficient machines available according to Hashrate Index.
CleanSpark Borrows Against Bitcoin Mining Rigs to Get $35M for More Mining Rigs
Bitcoin miner CleanSpark has agreed to borrow up to $35 million from Trinity Capital to purchase more mining equipment. The three-year financing agreement has been secured by 3,336 new S19j Pro Bitcoin mining rigs, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing submitted Friday. The company has 23,000 Bitcoin miners in operation, and expects to add 12,000 before the end of October. The Las Vegas-based Bitcoin miner, which trades on Nasdaq under CLSK, immediately receives $20 million, a...
For Bitcoin miners, keeping their business profitable is very much about increasing hashrate and keeping facility costs, like energy and maintenance, down. To that end, CleanSpark has already spent more than $200 million buying new rigs this year.
Back in February, CleanSpark bought 20,000 S19J Pro+s machines for $13.15 per terahash ($/TH)—a total of $43.6 million. It later purchased 45,000 S19 XPs in April for $23/TH, or roughly $144 million, after which it used some of its existing machines to collateralize a loan to buy even more equipment.
In June, the company acquired another fleet of 12,500 S19 XPs for $23/TH ($40.5 million), of which 6,000 are scheduled to arrive this month.
CleanSpark CFO Gary A. Vecchiarelli said the company’s latest acquisition has already been paid for by existing cash reserves and is expected to almost immediately start generating revenue.
“We continue to make use of opportunities created by current market conditions to prepare for next year’s bitcoin halving,” he added.
Bitcoin Miner Iris Energy Shares Pop 21% After Major Hash Rate Expansion Plans
The NASDAQ-listed Bitcoin mining firm Iris Energy (IREN) announced plans on Tuesday to boost its hash rate capacity by 63% to 9.1 exahashes per second (EH/s) by early 2024. Iris is in the process of building 80MW of data center space to finish off phase 1 of its 600MW site in Childress, Texas. “Near-term focus remains on data center construction, whilst retaining flexibility on timing for miner purchases, which is subject to funding and market conditions,” the company wrote in a press release....
The Bitcoin halving is a scheduled 50% reduction in Bitcoin’s issuance rate that occurs roughly once every four years. The next halving is expected to occur in April 2024, reducing the number of Bitcoin per block from 6.25 to 3.125.
Bitcoin halvings have historically been followed by bull markets that take the asset’s price to new highs the following year. Indeed, many other mining firms including Iris Energy and Blockstream appear to be investing in mining in preparation for the event.
