China-based Bitmain, one of the world’s biggest producers of cryptocurrency mining rigs, has sealed a deal with its United States partners — ISW Holdings and Bit5ive — to expand its operation in America.

Fast facts

  • ISW Holdings, a Nevada-based portfolio company with extensive crypto mining operations, will host 56,000 Bitmain mining rigs and pair them with 200 megawatts of power at the company’s “POD-CITY” location in Georgia, ISW said in a statement released Tuesday.
  • ISW plans to have the first 20 MW of power paired with rigs by next month, and expects to have all 56,000 miners fully rollout by October 2022. As part of the partnership, Bit5ive, which runs crypto mining farms, will bring power, hosting services and project management services to the table.
  • The cost, for ISW, for the entire roll-out will amount to a total of US$62 million, while the project — once in full capacity — is expected to bring in over US$10 million per month, the company said.
  • The new partnership for mining machines comes as the global Bitcoin hashrate is on an uptrend as miners pushed out by China resettle in friendlier jurisdictions and resume investing big money in mining equipment. On Wednesday, the total hashrate reading was at 134.85 million terahashes per second, an increase from 84.79 million on July 3, which was the lowest since September 2019, according to data from Blockchain.com.
  • North America has emerged as a hotspot for mining, following China’s clampdown on the sector. Last month, China-based mining rig maker Canaan received an order from Genesis Digital Assets, one of the world’s first Bitcoin mining companies, for 20,000 of its Bitcoin mining machines to fuel the growth of Genesis’s operation in North America and the Nordics.
  • In August, Vancouver-headquartered HIVE Blockchain Technologies placed an order to buy 1,800 machines from Bitmain. Also in the same month, Nasdaq-listed Marathon Digital Holdings, one of the biggest Bitcoin mining companies in North America, announced a deal to buy an additional 30,000 mining machines from Bitmain to boost its mining capacity.
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