As Bitcoin’s (BTC)’s price surges to multi-year highs, mining firm CleanSpark has closed another nine-figure infrastructure deal to help the company seize as many newly minted units of BTC as possible.
In a press release on Monday, the company announced that it has purchased 60,000 Bitmain S21 miners for $193.2 million, at an average of $16.10 per terahash per second (TH/s). The machines are expected to arrive between April and June of this year.
The firm also secured a call option to purchase an additional 100,000 machines at a fixed price of $16.00 per terahash, up until the end of 2024.
Today we announced the purchase of 60,000 Bitmain S21 units with delivery expected April through June 2024. The agreement also includes a strategic call option to purchase an additional 100,000 machines at a fixed price of $16.00 per terahash until the end of the calendar year.… pic.twitter.com/LDwHT9ERM1
— CleanSpark Inc. (@CleanSpark_Inc) January 8, 2024
“We are ready to expand into the next bull market without the need to worry about an increase in machine prices, since the call purchase option acts as a hedge to this risk,” wrote CleanSpark CEO Zachary Bradford in an accompanying statement.
Should the call option be exercised, CleanSpark expects to reach a total capacity of 50 exahashes per second (EH/s) upon full deployment, up 400% from its present fleet. By current standards, that would be nearly 10% of the entire Bitcoin network’s hash rate.
A ‘hash’ is a guess answer to the cryptographic puzzle that miners consume energy to solve. A terahash is equal to one trillion hashes, and an exahash is equal to one million terahashes.
Bitcoin Miners In The Green
Energy and equipment costs are meant to be offset by the number of BTC that miners accumulate over time. Thankfully for the industry, profits have been up over the past two months between the rising market value of BTC and record-breaking transaction fees being paid to miners.
Rising BTC prices can naturally increase demand for mining equipment, however, which inspired CleanSpark to get ahead of the curve. “In the last bull market, machine prices increased by three to five times, and we expect the same to occur in future bull markets,” explained Bradford.
CleanSpark stock (CLSK) is up 385% over the past year, reflecting a broader trend of mining firms outperforming BTC itself during bull market phases. After a brief dip, the stock was up 5% between Monday’s open and close.
JPMorgan analysts shifted CLSK’s rating to neutral last month after a rally period for the stock, which brought it out of “overweight” territory.
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