Riot Blockchain, a Nasdaq-listed cryptocurrency mining company, has signed another deal with Chinese mining giant Bitmain to buy 15,000 Antminers. According to an announcement made December 21, the Colorado-based company expects the new purchase will help increase the overall hash rate for Bitcoin (BTC) in mining by 65%.
The purchase cost Riot $ 35 million, consisting of 3,000 S19 Pro Antminers and 12,000 S19j Pro Antminers. The company expects to receive and deploy the new miners from May 2021 to October 2021.
With the recent purchase, Riot continues to expand its entire Bitmain mining machine as the company regularly receives and deploys new miners in 2020. With more than 37,000 miners fully deployed, Riot estimates the total operational hash rate increases from 2.3 EH / s to 3.8 EH / s, consuming about 120 megawatts of energy.
Jeff McGonegal, CEO of Riot, said the continued growth of employed miners was “paramount to a miner’s success,” Price has increased noticeably. “
As part of its partnership with Riot, Bitmain has consistently delivered its latest Antminers to the US-based company. In October 2020, the companies announced a contract for 2,500 Antminer S19 Pros in addition to the previous contract for 5,100 Antminers and another one for 8,000 Antminers in September.
Bitmain, one of the world’s largest providers of crypto hardware, has actively entered the North American market. In September 2020, Bitmain announced that mining operator Core Scientific would be its first North American cooperative repair center. Bitmain had previously partnered with Foundry, a wholly owned crypto-mining subsidiary of the Digital Currency Group. As part of the partnership, Foundry was to fund Bitmain’s end customers in the market.