Bitcoin 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’s history — ahead of the Bitcoin halving scheduled for April 2024.
The additional purchase agreement totaled $290.5 million, Riot stated in a Dec. 4 statement — meaning it paid an average of $4,360 for each machine.
$Riot Exercises Purchase Option on 18 EH/s of Latest Generation Immersion Miners from MicroBT, and Secures Additional Purchase Options Providing a Path to Exceed 100 EH/s.
– Riot places order for 18 EH/s of latest generation MicroBT Bitcoin miners, primarily consisting of the… pic.twitter.com/tEEudV6Z8n
— Riot Platforms, Inc. (@RiotPlatforms) December 4, 2023
The right-to-purchase option was included in Riot’s 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.
Riot’s CEO Jason Les said the purchase order is “the largest order of hash rate” in the company’s history and hopes the updated agreement will enable Riot’s mining performance to strengthen further.
Over 48,000 or 72% of the new machines will be MicroBT’s 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.
Altogether, the 66,560 miners will add 18 exahashes per second (EH/s) to Riot’s operations.
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.
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.
The firm previously cited the upcoming Bitcoin halving event — scheduled for April 2024 — as one of the main reasons behind its recent buying spree.
Riot’s stock, tickered RIOT, increased nearly 9% on Dec. 4, according to Google Finance. It is now up over 345% so far in 2023.
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