bitcoin mining facility

UK’s Argo Blockchain Buys 320 Acres in Texas to Build Bitcoin Mining Facility

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Global crypto mining firm Argo Blockchain announced its plans to establish a crypto mining facility in West Texas.

The crypto mining company listed on the London Stock Exchange revealed that it has acquired a 320-acre plot of land in west Texas, which gives the company access to up to 800-megawatts of electrical power. The company has revealed plans to build its new energy-efficient 200mw mining facility over the next 12 months. The purchase is a result of Argo’s acquisition of New York firm DPN LLC.

Argo’s purchase of land in Texas not only gives the company greater control over its mining operations but also the ability to meaningfully expand its mining capacity on a large scale. Peter Wall, the CEO of Argo Blockchain, said: “We now have access to some of what we believe is the cheapest renewable energy worldwide, in a location where innovation in new technologies is encouraged and incentivized.”

Argo is the latest crypto mining firm seeking to build a facility in the Lone Star State (Texas). In the previous few years, a rising number of crypto mining firms have moved to the Lone Star State, attracted by cheap electricity from the state’s abundance of wind power and natural gas energy. The state has more than 33 GW of wind power capacity – the highest number in the US – mainly located in West Texas.

In 2019, Bitmain Chinese cryptocurrency mining giant launched a shop in Rockdale, a small town in East Texas. During the same year, German crypto company Northern Data AG began constructing what it said would become the world’s largest Bitcoin mining facility on an area of 100 acres. Last year, Peter Thiel-backed Bitcoin mining startup Layer1 started crypto mining at its West Texas facility.

Suitable regulatory environment and cheap electricity are two of the most important factors that make Texas a new attractive territory for Bitcoin mining. The abundance of natural gas and wind energy boom makes Texas one of the most attractive places for crypto mining. Texas is becoming one of the most favoured jurisdictions in the US for blockchain innovation and investment, joining the likes of other crypto-friendly states like Arizona and Wyoming.

Argo Heavily Investing in Blockchain Infrastructure

The current Argo’s moves come at a time when the crypto mining firm is heavily investing in its mining infrastructure and this explains why its crypto mining production has significantly increased. The firm recently announced that it has achieved another high operating mining profits and revenue last month. The company mined 129 Bitcoins in the month of February compared to 93 Bitcoins in January. This brings the total amount of Bitcoin mined year-to-date to 222 Bitcoins. At the end of February, the company held a total of 599 Bitcoins.

In February, the company’s mining revenue amounted to $6.04 million compared to $3.46 million in January 2021. The firm recently installed an additional 4,500 Bitmain Antminer S19 and S19 pro miners procured from Celsius Network blockchain company. The company also announced that as of March 1, 2021, it started paying its CEO’s salary in Bitcoin and other employees given the crypto salary option as well.

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Greenidge Commits to Being 100% Carbon Neutral for Its Bitcoin Mining Facility Starting June 2021

Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc. has announced that it will offset all greenhouse gas emissions from its Bitcoin mining facility through a portfolio of fully accredited offset credits, beginning June 1st.

The company has said that it will conduct an entirely carbon neutral Bitcoin mining operation at its powerplant-cryptocurrency mining hybrid facility in Upstate New York. The company’s announcement comes at a time when Tesla automaker and Square payment company announced that they will not make future Bitcoin purchases, citing environmental concerns associated with crypto mining.

Greenidge has said it will buy voluntary carbon offsets from a selection of U.S greenhouse gas reduction projects. The company mentioned that each project has been reviewed and credited by one of three well-known Offset Project Registries, Verra, the Climate Action Reserve (CAR), and the American Carbon Registry (ACR), ensuring that any project funded by Greenidge minimizes emission or increases sequestration of greenhouse gas in a manner that is verifiable, real, and permanent.

Apart from offsetting 100% of its carbon emissions from its Bitcoin mining, Greenidge also plans to invest in a portion of its mining profits in renewable energy projects. The firm is actively considering direct financing of alternative green energy sources in New York and other locations across the country.

Greenidge also stated that it will continue participating in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a market-based program in which participating states sell CO2 allowance through auctions and invest profits in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and other consumer benefits programs to generate local green jobs and encourage innovation in the clean energy economy. According to the report, the company buys RGGI allowances every year to cover 100% of its CO2 emitted from power generation and it has been doing so since it started gas-fired operations in 2017.

Bitcoin Mining Worries Many

As institutional and retail investors continue adopting Bitcoin, one concern that has emerged is its connection to energy and environmental issues. Experts argue that the crypto strains the environment because of all the energy it takes to mine a single Bitcoin. The amount of electricity used daily to mine Bitcoin has been identified to be more than electricity used by entire countries such as Ireland.

Some Tesla investors and environmentalists have been increasingly critical about the manner in which Bitcoin is mined using huge amounts of electricity generated from fossil fuels.

On Wednesday, May 12, Bitcoin’s price dropped by 10% after Elon Musk announced that Tesla has suspended the use of cryptocurrency as a payment method, less than two months after the electric vehicle manufacturer started accepting Bitcoin for payment. Musk cited the energy concern, especially the use of “coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.”

Earlier this month, a bill was introduced in the New York State Senate to stop Bitcoin mining until the state assesses its impacts on the environment.

Bitcoin Miner CleanSpark Acquires 36 MW Facility, 3,400 Antminers for $25M

CleanSpark, Inc., a US Bitcoin mining company based in Nevada, announced on Tuesday that it is expanding its crypto mining business to take advantage of opportunities that emerge in the ongoing bear market.

CleanSpark disclosed that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Waha Technologies, a low-carbon Bitcoin miner, to acquire a Bitcoin mining site (owned by Waha), which includes the mining facility and machines.

CleanSpark acquired an active Bitcoin mining facility located in Washington, Georgia, for $16.2 million. The firm also bought around 3,400 of the latest generation Antminer S19 series of machines for approximately $8.9 million from Waha Technologies.

Such machines, already operating at the acquired site, will add over 340 petahashes per second (PH/s) of computing power, CleanSpark said.

The firm said it will fill the balance of the 36 MW with machines already paid for and on hand. The site has exclusive rights to an additional 50 MW of power, making the site scalable to 86 MW.

CleanSpark seized on current market conditions to acquire the site. The firm stated that most of the acquired machines are the Antminer S19 or S19J Pro models, among the most power-efficient Bitcoin mining machines on the market.

CleanSpark expects to close on the transaction within the next 30 days, subject to customary closing conditions.

Zach Bradford, CleanSpark’s CEO, further talked about the development: “We are excited to expand our footprint in Georgia. The market has been preparing all summer for consolidation, and we are pleased to be on the acquiring side. Our focus on sustainability and maximizing value for our stakeholders have put us in a unique position to take advantage of the current market’s unprecedented opportunities. We are especially excited to be working with the citizens of Washington, GA, who have been so welcoming to us. We look forward to maintaining and growing jobs and infrastructure at our new campus in Washington.”

The site is CleanSpark’s third clean-energy facility in Georgia, with other locations in College Park and Norcross. The facility draws power mainly from low-carbon sources, such as nuclear energy.

Surviving the Bearish Market

Cryptocurrency mining firms have a lot of fixed costs, such as power, real estate, and rigs that do the actual mining.

That is the reason why it can be hell for their margins when the market significantly drops the value of funds they were holding in crypto like Bitcoin. As now the market seems to be in a prolonged bear market, mining companies are being forced to adjust.

In June, many publicly listed Bitcoin mining firms collectively sold more Bitcoin than they mined in May as the value of Bitcoin tumbled 45%.

For instance, in June, Bitfarms sold 1,500 Bitcoins for around $62 million and used the proceeds from the sale to reduce its debt.

Early last month, Core Scientific announced that it sold about $165 million worth of Bitcoins in June, as inflation and market turbulence piled pressure on public crypto companies. The NASDAQ-listed company sold 7,202 Bitcoins mined during June in order to enhance liquidity.

Last month, CleanSpark acquired 1,061 Whatsminer M30S rigs at a steep discount as it continues expanding its infrastructure.

As markets have slumped, firms have gone to great lengths to adjust their businesses; some are buying mining rigs, while others are pausing the construction of their mining sites, and others are expanding their projects.