Australian bitcoin (BTC) mining company Iris Energy has announced that it will nearly triple its mining capacity by adding thousands of mining rigs.
February 13 firm said it purchased an additional 4.4 exahashes per second (EH/s) of Bitmain Antminer S19j Pro ASIC miners, bringing self-mining performance up to 5.5 EH/s from 2.0 EH/s.
Based on the S19j Pro’s maximum hash rate of 100 terahashes per second (TH/s), the purchase adds roughly 44,000 miners to its fleet, according to Cryptooshala’s calculations.
Daniel Roberts, co-founder and CEO of Iris, said the purchase “is a significant milestone” for the company and added that it was “a challenging period for both the industry and the markets as a whole.”
Iris said that the new miners will be installed in the company’s centers, but did not specify in which places. The firm operates three locations in British Columbia, Canada and one in Texas, USA.
The company used the remaining $67 million prepayment to ASIC miner maker Bitmain to fund the purchase of the rigs “at no additional cash cost.”
Iris had a 10 EH/s contract with Bitmain, which she said “was completely resolved, with no remaining commitments.” He stated that he remains free of debt.
The firm said it is also considering selling surplus miners above 5.5 EH/s to reinvest funds.
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Last November, the company was forced to turn off miners that were used as collateral on a $107.8 million loan because the divisions were generating “insufficient cash flow to service their respective debt financing obligations.”
Cryptocurrency miners have faced pressure on several fronts over the past few months, having to deal with low Bitcoin prices amid high hash rates, high mining difficulty and high energy prices.
Pressure has caused listed bitcoin mining companies to sell almost all of the BTC mined during 2022, with data from blockchain research firm Messari showing that Iris has sold about 100% of the nearly 2,500 BTC mined this year.
The February analysis of the Hashrate Index shows that listed miners increased their production in January thanks to better weather and stable electricity prices, which contributed to the increase in production. The January production of Iris generated 172 BTC, up from 123 BTC in December.
Credit : cointelegraph.com
