Upgrade expected to improve average fleet efficiency from 31.7 to 19.9 J/TH and increase self-mining hashrate by ~66%
Combined with BITMAIN purchase option at Vega, creates path to ~24 EH/s of self-mining hashrate with average fleet efficiency of 15.7 J/TH as early as Q2 2025
MIAMI, Nov. 06, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hut 8 Corp. (Nasdaq | TSX: HUT) ("Hut 8" or the "Company"), a leading, vertically integrated operator of large-scale energy infrastructure and one of North America's largest Bitcoin miners, today announced an initial ASIC fleet upgrade with the purchase of 31,145 BITMAIN Antminer S21+ miners. Under the purchase agreement, Hut 8 will acquire the miners at a price of $15.00 per terahash, with delivery expected in early Q1 2025.
Hut 8 plans to upgrade 111 MW of self-mining capacity across existing sites with a focus on optimizing fleet efficiency and self-mining economics. Upon energization, expected in Q1 2025, the new miners are expected to increase the Company's current self-mining hashrate by ~3.7 EH/s to ~9.3 EH/s, an increase of ~66%, while driving its average fleet efficiency down from 31.7 to 19.9 J/TH, an improvement of ~37%. Alongside the Company's previously announced purchase option for ~15 EH/s of hosted U3S21EXPH ASIC miners at its Vega site, this upgrade creates a path to ~24 EH/s of self-mining hashrate with an average fleet efficiency of 15.7 J/TH as early as Q2 2025.
"After extensive modeling, we selected the BITMAIN Antminer S21+ for our initial fleet upgrade due to its strong return profile relative to higher-efficiency models that require larger capital outlays," said Asher Genoot, CEO of Hut 8. "The S21+ offers a faster payback period than more efficient models across a wide band of future hashprice scenarios, enabling us to optimize investment returns and accelerate value creation."
"Deep, strategic partnerships across the value chain are central to our approach to building a next-generation energy infrastructure platform. This purchase builds on our previously announced ~15 EH/s partnership with BITMAIN to host the U3S21EXPH ASIC miner, and we look forward to further developing our relationship with BITMAIN and other partners as we focus on disciplined, creatively structured growth across Bitcoin mining and AI compute infrastructure."
As part of its long-term power-first strategy, Hut 8 continues to scale its compute layer across energy-intensive technologies, including both Bitcoin mining and AI compute, with the aim of maximizing returns on its portfolio of power assets and digital infrastructure.
About Hut 8
Hut 8 Corp. is an energy infrastructure operator and Bitcoin miner with self-mining, hosting, managed services, and traditional data center operations across North America. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Hut 8 Corp.'s portfolio comprises twenty sites: ten Bitcoin mining, hosting, and Managed Services sites in Alberta, New York, and Texas, five high performance computing data centers in British Columbia and Ontario, four power generation assets in Ontario, and one non-operational site in Alberta. For more information, visit www.hut8.com and follow us on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @Hut8Corp.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information
This press release includes "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws and United States securities laws, respectively (collectively, "forward-looking information"). All information, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that Hut 8 expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including such things as future business strategy, competitive strengths, goals, expansion and growth of the business, operations, plans and other such matters is forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is often identified by the words "may", "would", "could", "should", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "allow", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "predict", "can", "might", "potential", "predict", "is designed to", "likely" or similar expressions. Specifically, such forward-looking information included in this press release includes statements relating to the execution of the purchase agreement with BITMAIN, including the expected delivery and energization of the miners and the anticipated impact to the Company's self-mining hashrate and average fleet efficiency, as well as the Company's focus on disciplined, creatively structured growth and aim to maximize returns on its portfolio of power assets and digital infrastructure.
Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts, but instead represent management's expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events based on certain material factors and assumptions at the time the statement was made. While considered reasonable by Hut 8 as of the date of this press release, such statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to, security and cybersecurity threats and hacks; malicious actors or botnet obtaining control of processing power on the Bitcoin network; further development and acceptance of the Bitcoin network; changes to Bitcoin mining difficulty; loss or destruction of private keys; increases in fees for recording transactions in the Blockchain; erroneous transactions; reliance on a limited number of key employees; reliance on third party mining pool service providers; regulatory changes; classification and tax changes; momentum pricing risk; fraud and failure related to digital asset exchanges; difficulty in obtaining banking services and financing; difficulty in obtaining insurance, permits and licenses; internet and power disruptions; geopolitical events; uncertainty in the development of cryptographic and algorithmic protocols; uncertainty about the acceptance or widespread use of digital assets; failure to anticipate technology innovations; the COVID19 pandemic, climate change; currency risk; lending risk and recovery of potential losses; litigation risk; business integration risk; changes in market demand; changes in network and infrastructure; system interruption; changes in leasing arrangements; failure to achieve intended benefits of power purchase agreements; potential for interrupted delivery, or suspension of the delivery, of energy to mining sites and other risks related to the digital asset mining and data center business. For a complete list of the factors that could affect Hut 8, please see the "Risk Factors" section of Hut 8's Transition Report on Form 10-K, available under the Company's EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov, and Hut 8's other continuous disclosure documents which are available under the Company's SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca and EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov.
