Bitcoin miner TeraWulf ups hashrate guidance by 16%, raises $10 million as shares plummet

Bitcoin miner Terawulf will grow faster than expected into early 2023 despite industry woes as it bumped its hashrate guidance for the first quarter of next year up 16%. Shares tumbled more than 30%.

The hashrate will increase 4.3 EH/s to 5 EH/s by the first quarter of 2023 after restructuring a contract with hardware company Bitmain that will see TeraWulf getting more machines at the same cost.

The company also announced that it raised $10 million in fresh capital to repay a convertible promissory note. It had raised $17 million in equity and debt in October. That total comprises $6.7 million registered direct offering of common stock in addition to a previous issuance of $3.4 million of convertible promissory notes to some of its largest shareholders. 

The news comes amid an 80% slump in the price of ASICS as the difficulty of mining increases with higher energy prices and declining bitcoin prices. Margins are getting squeezed as miners are increasingly cash-strapped and buried in debt.

TeraWulf and Bitmain agreed to cancel a delivery of 3,000 S19 XP Pro machines and replace it with a batch of 14,000 S19j Pro miners in the first quarter, together with the application of remaining unused deposits with manufacturer Bitmain. TeraWulf will incur no additional costs.

The move will allow it to make full use of the 160 megawatts in power capacity that the company will have available.

“There is no doubt the mining business has been challenging over the last 12 months; however, we are strategically positioned as one of – if not the – lowest-cost producers of Bitcoin and we will continue to strategically and prudently expand our operations while remaining focused on cost savings and profit margins,” said Nazar Khan, co-founder and chief operating officer of TeraWulf.

The company said that its all-in cost to mine is approximately $6,300 per coin, assuming a total self-mining fleet hash rate of 5.0 EH/s, energy cost of $0.035/kWh, current network hash rate of 249 EH/s and total self-mining fleet load of approximately 137 megawatts.

“We firmly believe that TeraWulf will be one of the few bitcoin miners that can sustainably and profitably operate in a low bitcoin price environment,” Khan said.

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