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<\/p>\nBitcoin miner Riot Platforms is buying 66,560 Bitcoin mining rigs from manufacturer MicroBT, in one of its largest orders of hash-rate in the firm\u2019s history \u2014 ahead of the Bitcoin halving scheduled for April 2024.<\/p>\n
The additional purchase agreement totaled $290.5 million, Riot stated in a Dec. 4 statement \u2014 meaning it paid an average of $4,360 for each machine.<\/p>\n
The right-to-purchase option was included in Riot\u2019s initial agreement with MicroBT when it agreed to buy 33,280 machines from MicroBT in June. The two firms have now updated this agreement to provide Riot with options to purchase up to 265,000 additional miners from MicroBT on the same terms as the new order.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Riot\u2019s CEO Jason Les said the purchase order is \u201cthe largest order of hash rate\u201d in the company\u2019s history and hopes the updated agreement willenable Riot\u2019s mining performance to strengthen further.<\/p>\n
Over 48,000 or 72% of the new machines will be MicroBT\u2019s 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 M56S++ (3,720) models, Riot noted.<\/p>\n
Altogether, the 66,560 miners will add 18 exahashes per second (EH\/s) to Riot\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n
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Riot said the first 33,280 miners bought in June will start to deploy in the first quarter of 2024, while the newest stack of 66,560 miners will deploy in the second half of 2024.<\/p>\n
The firm estimates its self-mining hash rate capacity to reach 38 EH\/s once the 99,840 rigs are fully installed and operating, which the first expects in the second half of 2025.<\/p>\n
The firm previously cited the upcoming Bitcoin halving event \u2014 scheduled for April 2024 \u2014 as one of the main reasons behind its recent buying spree.<\/p>\n
Riot\u2019s stock, tickered RIOT, increased nearly 9% on Dec. 4, according to Google Finance. It is now up over 345% so far in 2023.<\/p>\n
Bitcoin miner CleanSpark produced 666 BTC in November, up 5.2% from the 633 BTC it produced in October and up 24% from November 2022.<\/p>\n
The firm\u2019s CEO Zach Bradford said the firm saw a \u201csignificant increase\u201d in production from fees, which he said is likely due to rising interest in Ordinals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis trend suggests that fees might soon become a larger source of revenue as bitcoin\u2019s use cases grow and adoption increases,\u201d Bradford added.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, NASDAQ-listed TeraWulf said it mined 323 BTC in November, up 3% from its October production. The firm said much of this was driven by higher network transaction fees but didn\u2019t mention the impact of Ordinals.<\/p>\n
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