Foundry Digital Launches Logistics Arm to Advance Standards in the Cryptocurrency Mining Industry

July 28, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Compass Mining to add 25,000 ASIC miners just weeks after staff cuts

July 22, 2022 Coin Telegraph

The Bitcoin mining company plans to expand its fleet of mining devices comes on the back of staff lay-offs and executive salary cuts just weeks before.

Mere weeks after announcing staff lay-offs and salary cuts, Compass Mining has unveiled expansion plans in the form of a 75 megawatt (MW) hosting partnership with Compute North for its data center in Granbury, Texas.

The announcement on July 21 comes only a two weeks after the company retrenched 15% of its employees and implemented salary cuts for its top executives as a means to weather difficult market conditions.

It also follows the resignation of key executives including CEO Whit Gibbs and chief finance officer Jodie Fisher in late June, as well as losing one of its Maine-based hosting facilities after allegedly missing payments relating to utility bills and hosting fees.

Compass said the newest large-scale deployment will begin in August and continue for several months.

The expansion includes plans to deploy 25,000 application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners to the existing Wolf Hollow plant site in Granbury, including a variety of next generation Bitcoin miners.

According to Compass, the facility is state of the art and powered by a 1.1 gigawatt (GW) combined cycle natural gas fueled plant, which uses advanced gas turbine designs and air cooling to decrease carbon emissions and water dependence.

The data center also has a fully curtailable load and can shut down at a moment's notice should the draw on the grid exceed capacity.

This adds to existing Compass facilities across the U.S, Canada and Iceland, with major operations in Texas, Ontario, New Mexico and Florida.

Crypto miners in Texas however have had a difficult month as a result of a record-breaking heatwave in the state, which has caused a strain on the energy grid.

Major Bitcoin miners have been working with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) by temporarily shutting down or severely reducing their operations in the state to reduce the toll on the grid.

Crypto mining firms are still coming to Texas in droves though, attracted by less regulatory oversight and lower energy costs.

Mining stocks hit one-month high

Despite the recent heatwave impacting local mining operations, publicly listed mining stocks appear to be performing well, according to NASDAQ data.

Three of the biggest miners by market cap are all in the green as of July 22.

Marathon Digital Holdings Inc has seen a 99.85% increase in its stock price over the past month, while Riot Blockchain Inc is up 65.65% and Canaan Inc is up 42.27% over the past month.

It comes as the price of Bitcoin (BTC) has also reached a one-month high, reaching $22,938 at the time of writing.

Marathon Secures 254 Megawatts to Bolster Company’s 2023 Bitcoin Mining Goals

July 19, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Marathon inks new arrangements to achieve 2023 hash rate target

July 19, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Applied Blockchain

The Bitcoin mining firm is looking beyond its current troubles into next year to secure the energy it needs to make up a more significant portion of the network’s hash rate.

Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital Holdings has secured a deal that it says provides electricity to generate enough power to contribute 23.3 exahashes per second (EH/s) to the Bitcoin network.

Marathon revealed in a July 18 announcement that data center operator Applied Blockchain would host 254 megawatts of power, with an option to add 70 megawatts from various other providers, including Compute North. Marathon expects this hosting deal will help it achieve its goal of 23.3 EH/s in computer power by 2023.

Exahashes per second (EH/s) refers to the amount of hash power a miner contributes to secure the Bitcoin network.

$MARA Secures hosting capacity to support all 23.3 EH/s of #Bitcoin mining

- 200 MW (9.2 EH/s) w/ @APLDBlockchain

- Additional 42 MW w/ @computenorthllc

- 12 MW (0.8 EH/s) w/ other providers https://t.co/fXgmN4ppTL
— Marathon Digital Holdings (@MarathonDH) July 18, 2022

Applied Blockchain will supply 90 megawatts to Marathon’s Texas facility and 110 to 180 megawatts to a North Dakota facility. Combined, they will contribute about 9.2 EH/s.

Compute North has obtained the regulatory approval required to supply 42 megawatts of hosting capacity to Marathon at its Granbury, Texas facility. That location will house 26,000 mining devices that will contribute about 3.6 EH/s by the end of 2022, according to Marathon.

Marathon also stated that various unnamed providers would provide up to 12 megawatts of hosting capacity worth about 0.8 EH/s, bringing the total new capacity to 324 megawatts.

Marathon CEO Fred Thiel stated in the announcement that the deals should provide adequate hosting capacity to help his company contribute 23.3 EH/s by 2023. He expects hosting to begin in August and continue into the following year.

“The first miners to be hosted under these new arrangements are scheduled to be installed in August, with installations ramping at other locations in the fourth quarter of this year and continuing into 2023.”

Delays with Compute North’s regulatory compliance may have partly contributed to Marathon’s disappointing 43.8% drop in productivity in Q2. Hosting was expected to begin in June, but the firm did not obtain the necessary permissions.

Marathon’s reduced productivity can also be attributed partly to its Hardin, Montana, mining facility, which was shut down following a severe storm on June 11. That facility represented 75% of the company’s mining power and still appears to be down as the MARA mining pool has not mined any blocks since the storm.

The new power deals come as Democrat U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren claimed that miners are driving up energy costs for other consumers. She and a coalition of five other lawmakers asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Energy Department (DOE) to share their findings on the energy consumption trends of Bitcoin (BTC) miners last week.

compute north