Blockchain technology firm Blockstream has bought $25mln worth of Bitcoin miners from Chinese manufacturer MicroBT.
Blockstream confirmed that it had acquired the mining equipment which will be deployed across its various mining centres in the United States and Canada although no official time frame was given for the delivery of the equipment.
The miners will help increase Blockstream’s mining capacity for its Blockstream Pool which was launched in 2019 while the company has also operated a miner hosting service since 2017. The firm is also a big supporter of MicroBT’s WhatsMiner units, which made up the entirety of its $25mln purchase.
“We’re excited to continue our relationship with MicroBT and this latest batch will provide our hosting clients with an extremely reliable foundation to contribute to the security of the Bitcoin network. Part of the order should also go toward a new, top-secret mining service we’ll be launching soon,” the company said in a statement.
Blockstream also noted that it has over 300 megawatts in capacity available for its operations in North America and plans to continue growing its operations ‘aggressively’ in 2021 on the back of growing institutional interest in the cryptocurrency space.
American mining firms continue to scale up
Blockstream is not the only company to be purchasing new cryptocurrency mining equipment in North America. Mining firm Marathon completed a $200mln fundraising drive that will be used to pay for miners bought from Bitmain in early January as it looks to continue building its capacity.
The company announced the completion of its $200mln shelf offering through an at-the-market (ATM) facility and the fundraising round has left Marathon with $217.6mln in cash at the end of the 2020 fiscal year.
Marathon confirmed that it will use the funds raised to pay for miners it purchased from Chinese manufacturer Bitmain. The firm has bought a total of 103,060 miners to date and expects to produce 10.36 EH/s once all of their miners have been delivered and deployed in 2021.
Marathon is expecting the mining equipment it has purchased from Bitmain to arrive in separate shipments in the first half of 2021. The company plans to install 4,000 units in February, 6,300 in March and a further 4,800 in April.
The company owed Bitmain $163mln after paying an initial deposit for the miners which had been ordered in 2020.
