Bitcoin Miner Iris Energy Jumps 9% as It Boosts Mining Capacity Ahead of Bitcoin Halving
The company's new machines should ship before the April 2024 Bitcoin halving.
With Bitcoin’s highly anticipated “halving” event only 6 months away, Canada-based Bitcoin mining firm Iris Energy has announced another major expansion to its computer fleet.
On Friday, the company confirmed that its total hashrate has increased by 25% from 5.6 exahashes per second (EH/s) to 7.0 EH/s, by adding 7,000 of Bitmain’s newest S21 miners to its fleet. The addition cost the company $19.6 million.
“The purchase is expected to be funded from existing capital sources, including cash in bank (~$64 million, no debt), operating cash flow and other recently disclosed funding programs,” the company said in a press release.
“Hashrate” refers to the number of hashes—or guesses—that miners can generate to solve a complex mathematical problem required to create Bitcoin’s next block. An exahash is equivalent to one quintillion hashes.
The first miners to build each block are rewarded with freshly minted BTC. The faster miners can produce hashes, the more BTC they earn, and the more revenue they generate. So increasing hashrate ups the chances that a company will win that race each time there’s a new block on the network.
Our expectations are that the halving might place near-term pressure on miners with less efficient fleets, high operating costs, or debt burdens, and you will note that we have positioned ourselves to ensure we are one of the most efficient and competitive businesses in the industry," Iris Energy co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts told Decrypt. “We all know what has happened to the price of Bitcoin after previously halving events, so equally are positioning ourselves for that potential upside.”
Following the announcement, shares of Iris—which trade on the NASDAQ under the IREN ticker—popped 9.5%.
