Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms is buying 66,560 Bitcoin mining rigs from manufacturer MicroBT, in one of its largest hash rate orders in company history – ahead of the Bitcoin halving scheduled for April 2024.
The additional purchase agreement totaled $290.5 million, Riot said in a statement on December 4 – meaning an average of $4,360 was paid for each machine.
$Riot exercises purchase option for 18 EH/s from MicroBT's latest generation immersion miners and secures additional purchase options that provide a path to exceed 100 EH/s.
– Riot orders 18 EH/s of latest generation MicroBT Bitcoin miners, consisting primarily of… pic.twitter.com/tEEudV6Z8n
— Riot Platforms, Inc. (@RiotPlatforms) December 4, 2023
The right-to-purchase option was included in Riot's original agreement with MicroBT when the company agreed to purchase 33,280 machines from MicroBT in June. The two companies have now updated this agreement to give Riot the option to purchase up to 265,000 additional miners from MicroBT under the same terms as in the new order.
Riot CEO Jason Les said the order is “the largest hash rate order” in the company’s history and hopes the updated agreement will allow for further strengthening of Riot’s mining power.
Over 48,000 or 72% of the new machines will be MicroBT's latest model, the M66S, which has a hash rate of 250 terahashes per second (TH/s), while the remaining machines will consist of the M66 (14,770) and the M56S++ ( 3,720) models, Riot noted.
In total, the 66,560 miners will add 18 exahashes per second (EH/s) to Riot's operations.
Purchase overview of Riot's latest deal with MicroBT. Source: Riot Platforms
Riot said the first 33,280 miners purchased in June will begin deploying in the first quarter of 2024, while the latest batch of 66,560 miners will begin deploying in the second half of 2024.
The company estimates that its self-mining hash rate capacity will reach 38 EH/s once the 99,840 rigs are fully installed and operational, which is expected to be the first in the second half of 2025.
The company previously cited the upcoming Bitcoin halving – scheduled for April 2024 – as one of the main reasons for its recent buying spree.
Riot's stock, with the stock ticker RIOT, rose nearly 9% on Dec. 4, according to Google Finance. So far in 2023, it is up over 345%.
Bitcoin Miners Increase Production; Hut 8 Corp begins trading
Bitcoin miner CleanSpark produced 666 BTC in November, 5.2% more than October's 633 BTC and 24% more than November 2022.
The company's CEO, Zach Bradford, said the company has seen a “significant increase” in production from fees, which he said is likely due to increasing interest in Ordinals.
“This trend suggests that fees could soon become a larger source of revenue as Bitcoin use cases expand and adoption increases,” Bradford added.
In November, $CLSK achieved our second highest monthly #Bitcoin production despite increased difficulty and without using more energy.
*Monthly production: 666 (24% increase compared to the same period last year)
*Total #BTC holdings: 2,575
*Fleet efficiency at the end of the month: 26.4 J/TH
*Daily… pic.twitter.com/i65AY2pskk
— CleanSpark Inc. (@CleanSpark_Inc) December 1, 2023
Meanwhile, NASDAQ-listed TeraWulf said it mined 323 BTC in November, up 3% from October production. The company said much of this was due to higher network transaction fees, but did not mention the impact of Ordinals.
Related: Marathon, Riot Among Most Overvalued Bitcoin Mining Stocks: Report
Hut 8 completed its merger with US-based mining company Bitcoin Corp on November 30 to form Hut 8 Corp, which began trading on the NASDAQ and the Toronto Stock Exchange (ticker: HUT) on December 4.
However, according to Google Finance, the combined company's stock market debut apparently failed, falling 11.75% and 7.44% on the day, respectively.
Change in HUT's share price on NASDAQ on December 4th. Source: Google Finance
Magazine: Bitcoin 2023 in Miami deals with “shit coins on Bitcoin”.
Learn Crypto Trading, Yield Farms, Income strategies and more at CrytoAnswers
https://nov.link/cryptoanswers
Comments are closed.