To stay afloat, some BTC miners have filed for bankruptcy or requested financial aid. In the midst of the bear market, others are developing in novel ways.
Despite the ongoing bear market, bitcoin miner CleanSpark is growing its operations in the state of Georgia and increasing its mining capacity.
According to a Jan. 31 announcement from CleanSpark, construction has begun on a new 50-megawatt Bitcoin mining facility in Washington, Georgia. 19. The company’s hashrate is anticipated to increase by 2.2 exahashes per second as a result of the almost $16 million expansion, with a maximum total hashrate of 8.7 EH/s.
The expanded facility will host up to 16,000 miners, including newly added Antminer S19j Pro and Antminer S19 XP models.
“This second phase more than doubles the size of the existing operations,” said CEO Zach Bradford.
Prior to purchasing the local mining operation Mawson Infrastructure Group the following month for $33 million, CleanSpark acquired its Georgia location in August. The business stated at the time that it intended to support a mining fleet of up to 70,000 units by 2023.
CleanSpark received approval to trade publicly on the Nasdaq stock exchange in early 2020. The business raised $200 million through an equity offering the following year.
Miners have been forced to reconsider their business plans in order to survive in the long run as the price of Bitcoin has dropped more than 76% from peak to trough. Core Scientific, one of the biggest players in the sector, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December. In contrast, mining company Greenridge was given a $74 million lifeline in order to survive.
Some miners have prospered in the bear market by using less energy and avoiding using too much leverage. In October, CleanSpark’s executive chairman Matthew Shultz told Cointelegraph that “Increasing the opportunities for energy development through bitcoin mining is a potential solution.”
