Iris Energy to Triple Mining Capacity With Thousands of New Rigs

Iris Energy, a Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm located in Australia, has said that it plans to roughly increase its mining capacity by adding thousands of mining rigs.

The company said on February 13 that it has bought an extra 4.4 exahashes per second (EH/s) worth of Bitmain Antminer S19j Pro ASIC miners, which increased the company’s self-mining capability from 2.0 EH/s to 5.5 EH/s.

Iris’ co-founder and co-chief executive officer, Daniel Roberts, referred to the acquisition as “a huge milestone” for the firm. He also said that the current time period has been “a trying one for both the sector and markets more generally.”

Iris said that the new miners would be put at the company’s centers, but she did not specify which areas those centers are located in. The company runs four different sites, three of which are in British Columbia, Canada, and one of which is in the state of Texas, in the United States.

“without any extra monetary expenditure,” the acquisition of the machines was made possible by the use of the company’s leftover prepayments totaling $67 million to the ASIC miner manufacturer Bitmain.

Iris had a deal with Bitmain for 10 EH/s, however the company claims that the arrangement “has been entirely settled, with no lingering obligations.” It was said that there are no outstanding debts.

The company has said that it is also contemplating its options regarding the sale of surplus miners that are in excess of its 5.5 EH/s of mining capacity in order to reinvest the cash.

Because the units were generating “insufficient cash flow to meet their individual debt financing commitments,” the firm was compelled to disconnect miners that were used as security on a loan worth 107.8 million dollars in November of last year.

Over the course of the last several months, cryptocurrency miners have been subjected to pressure from numerous fronts. They have been forced to contend with low Bitcoin values in the context of high hash rates, high mining difficulty, and high energy expenses.

The pressure drove publicly listed Bitcoin mining businesses to sell off virtually all of the BTC generated for the year of 2022. For example, according to data provided by blockchain research company Messari, Iris sold about 100% of the roughly 2,500 BTC it mined during that year.

Hashrate Index conducted an investigation in February which found that publicly listed miners boosted their output in January. The analysis also found that improved weather and steady rates for energy contributed to the production rise. Iris’ output in January resulted in 172 BTC, which is an increase over December’s total of 123 BTC.