Sustainability-focused Bitcoin (BTC) mining company CleanSpark has hired an additional 3,843 crypto miners amid mining industry consolidation.
The $5.9 million purchase of Antminer S19J Pro Bitcoin miners announced by the company on Nov. 1 came at a price of $15.50 per terahash — much cheaper than the current market price of $22.94, according to Hashrate Index data. is .
According to the purchasing company, its number of machines has reached around 50,000.
CleanSpark said it bought 26,500 miners since the start of “market conditions” – a time when many mining firms have been forced to sell mining equipment or even consider filing for bankruptcy.
There is a possibility that the miners were purchased from competitor Argo Blockchain as an October 31st update from Argo shows that it has sold 3,843 Bitmain S19J Pro machines, the exact number and model of the miner that CleanSpark purchased.
Cointelegraph contacted CleanSpark and Argo Blockchain to confirm whether a transaction had occurred between the companies but did not immediately hear back.
While other Bitcoin miners are struggling in the prevailing market conditions, CEO Zach Bradford said that CleanSpark’s sustainability, strong balance sheet, and operational strategy will “acquire machines at incredible prices, grow and increase our hashrate.” our daily Bitcoin production.”
Related: 3 main reasons why the Bitcoin hash rate continues to reach an all-time high
In an earlier interview with Cointelegraph Matthew Schultz, CEO of CleanSpark, said that one of CleanSpark’s operational strategies is to view Bitcoin mining as “a potential solution to create more opportunities for energy development.”
For example, CleanSpark is partnering with various city councils in the United States to purchase excess energy to improve the efficiency of their mining operations — but it also lowers energy costs for those communities, Schultz explained:
“These cities essentially become our service provider. It’s on every kilowatt hour we buy to buy our mining services. However, we are increasing energy so much that it reduces energy costs for the communities we work with.”
But as the difficulty of mining Bitcoin increases and profitability decreases, mining companies will need to look for new ways to diversify their revenue streams to stay afloat, while some companies may choose to merge rather than merge. There is no option to stay in the game.
Such was the case with Colorado-based Bitcoin miner Crusoe Energy Systems, which purchased the operating assets of portable BTC mining operator Great American Mining (GAM).
CleanSpark also purchased a 36MW facility in Washington, Georgia in August 2022, and most recently an 80MW facility in Sandersville, Georgia in October 2022 to go alongside its two existing mining facilities.
Despite CleanSpark’s recent success, its stock price fell 6.32% to $3.26 on November 1, according to Yahoo Finance — however, the decline was representative of the broader Bitcoin mining sector.
