The company is accumulating newly mined Bitcoin instead of selling it
Nasdaq-listed Bitcoin mining company Riot Blockchain announced in a press release that it currently holds 3,534 bitcoins, with a market value of about $195 million.
The company reported that it produced most of the bitcoins mined this year, totaling 2,457 BTC (worth more than $135 million) mined through and including September.
Riot’s decision to retain Bitcoin rather than sell it has strengthened the view that publicly traded mining companies are accumulating the world’s leading cryptocurrency in significant quantities.
Riot has tripled its Bitcoin production so far this year compared with 2020, marking a 246% increase in mining for 2021. The company generated 406 bitcoins in September 2021—more than four times the 91 bitcoins it mined in September 2020.
Despite the strong September performance, Riot stated it has no plans to sell its newly mined Bitcoin. The company also confirmed that it has mined all the Bitcoin it currently holds.
The announcement drew a response from MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor, who said that “publicly traded Bitcoin miners are not selling Bitcoin, they’re accumulating Bitcoin. The game has changed.”
Riot operates more than 25,000 miners and currently has a total hash rate capacity of 2.6 exahashes per second (EH/s). The company expects that capacity to increase as it plans to deploy an additional fleet of 2,000 Bitmain Antminer S19J units next month, which would raise total capacity to 2.8 EH/s.
Riot noted rapid progress at its Whitestone facility in Texas and said a fourth 100 MW power substation transformer is scheduled for installation by December 2021. It also expects another 4,000 Antminer S19J units to be shipped from Bitmain’s Malaysia facility later this month.
Looking ahead, Riot said that “by Q4 2022, Riot anticipates a total self-mined hash rate capacity of 7.7 EH/s,” adding that investors can expect the full deployment of approximately 81,150 Antminers by that time.