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ASIC miners

With the tough conditions that faced Bitcoin miners last year, Iris’ co-founder said the purchase was a “significant milestone” for the company.

Australia-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining company, Iris Energy, revealed it will nearly triple its mining capacity with the addition of thousands of mining rigs.

On Feb. 13 the firm said it purchased an additional 4.4 Exa Hashes per second (EH/s) worth of Bitmain Antminer S19j Pro ASIC miners bringing its self-mining capacity to 5.5 EH/s from 2.0 EH/s.

Based on the S19j Pro’s maximum hashrate of 100 Tera Hashes per second (TH/s), the purchase adds an estimated 44,000 miners to its fleet, according to Cointelegraph’s calculations.

Daniel Roberts, Iris’ co-founder and Co-CEO said the purchase “is a significant milestone” for the company and added its been a “challenging period for both the industry and markets more generally.”

Iris said the new miners will be installed in the company’s centers but did not mention in which locations. The firm operates three facilities in various locations in British Columbia, Canada and one in Texas in the United States.

*Iris’ flagship site in Mackenzie, British Columbia. Source:* *Iris Energy*

The company used $67 million of remaining prepayments to ASIC miner manufacturer Bitmain to fund the purchase of the rigs “without any additional cash outlay.”

Iris had a 10 EH/s contract with Bitmain which it says “have been fully resolved, with no remaining commitments.” It stated it remains debt free.

The firm said it’s also considering options to sell surplus miners above its 5.5 EH/s of mining capacity to re-invest.

In November last year the company was forced to unplug miners used as collateral on a $107.8 million loan as the units were producing “insufficient cash flow to service their respective debt financing obligations.”

Over the past few months cryptocurrency miners have faced a squeeze from multiple directions, having to confront low Bitcoin prices amid high hash rates, high mining difficulty and high energy prices.

The pressure caused publicly listed Bitcoin mining companies to sell off almost all of the BTC mined throughout 2022 with data from blockchain research firm Messari showing Iris sold around 100% of the nearly 2,500 BTC it mined that year.

A Febuary analysis from Hashrate Index shows publicly listed miners increased their production in January with better weather and stable electricity prices helping the production surge. Iris’ January production resulted in 172 BTC compared to 123 BTC in December.

Bitcoin ASIC miner prices hovering at lows not seen in years

December 27, 2022 Coin Telegraph

ASIC miners

ASIC miners' price per terahash has fallen more than 80% from its peak in 2021 as Bitcoin mining machines continue to flood the marketplace.

Bitcoin ASIC miners — machines optimized for the sole purpose of mining Bitcoin — are currently selling at bottom-of-the-barrel prices not seen since 2020 and 2021, in what is being viewed as another sign of a deepened crypto bear market.

According to the latest data from Hashrate Index, the most efficient ASIC miners, those generating at least one terahash per 38 joules of energy, have seen their prices fall 86.82% from May. 7, 2021 peak of $119.25 per terahash down to $15.71 as of Dec. 25.

Miners in these category include Bitmain’s Antminer S19 and MicroBTC’s Whatsminer M30s.

The same statement holds true for the mid-tier machines, with prices now averaged out at $10.23 after falling a massive 89.36% from its peak price of $96.24 on May. 7, 2021.

However, the least efficient machines, ones that require more than 68 Joules per TH, are now priced at $4.72, a 91% drop from its peak price of $52.85. The last time it was priced near this was around Nov. 5, 2020.

*Bitcoin ASIC Miner Price Index for machines with varying levels of efficiency. Source: Hashrate Index.*

The fall in prices has largely been attributed to large Bitcoin mining companies that have struggled to remain profitable throughout the bear market, with many either filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, taking on debt, or selling their BTC holdings and equipment in order to stay afloat.

Among the firms to have done that include Core Scientific, Marathon Digital, Riot Blockchain, Bitfarms and Argo Blockchain.

But the steep price fall has been met with some keen buyers. Among those include many Russian-based mining facilities like BitRiver who are able to capitalize on relatively low electricity costs, with some up-to-date hardware capable of mining one Bitcoin (BTC) at about $0.07 per kilowatt-hour in the energy-rich nation.

While it’s hard to predict what price direction ASIC miners will head toward next, Nico Smid of Digital Mining Solutions pointed out in a Dec. 21 tweet that ASIC miner prices bottomed at Bitcoin’s last halving cycle in May. 11, 2020 and moved up aggressively shortly after — something which could play out in Bitcoin’s next halving cycle which is expected to take place on Apr. 20, 2024.

ASIC miners