London-listed BTC miner Argo Blockchain to set up operations in West Texas. And someone plonked down 20,000 mining machines in Siberia.

Argo Blockchain PLC (LON: ARB), a UK-based crypto mining company said today it had signed an LOI to acquire 320 acres of land in West Texas, USA for a proposed 200 MW mining facility to be built in the next 12 months. Argo would have access to up to 800 MW of electrical power, of which a majority would be from renewable sources. (NASDAQ.com)

Argo’s crypto mining unit in Texas: Deal payments and financing

Argo will pay DPN LLC, the seller of the land, a total consideration of US$ 17.5 million by way of shares. Of this amount, Argo will issue $5 million of shares on completion of the final agreement. The balance will be payable in step with the fulfillment of contractual milestones.

Further, Argo has arranged a pre-negotiated credit facility of US$100 million on advantageous terms.

Peter Wall, Chief Executive of Argo Blockchain, said of the transaction: “It gives Argo tremendous control over its mining operations, as well as a significant capacity for expansion. In addition, we have been able to secure access to some of the cheapest renewable energy worldwide in a location where innovation in new technologies is encouraged and incentivized.”

Meanwhile…crypto mining in Siberia

A report in Kommersant quoted Igor Runets, CEO and founder of the BitRiver data center operation, to say that an unnamed client imported 20 thousand devices (14 trucks) of mining equipment with a total capacity of 70 MW at the end of December 2020.

Runets said the client housed the equipment in a hangar as a Tier-III level data center in Russia’s Bratsk region. Further, it commenced mining immediately.

According to one estimate, assuming all the equipment is the latest version, the consignment of mining machines could be conservatively worth as much as $50 million.

Sergey Troshin, the head of the Six-Nines data center (Sweden), said the machines constituted as much as 1.1% of the global bitcoin mining capacity.

Low-cost power is key to crypto mining profitability

Bitcoin miners stand to make higher profits if the cost of power used to run the crypto mining rigs is low. This can be achieved if the supply source is cheap, such as coal, renewable solar or wind, or hydro.

In November, En+ Group (LON: ENPL), the Russian aluminum and energy giant, partnered with BitRiver, which owns the largest crypto mining venue in Russia, for crypto mining. They formed an [80:20] JV called Bit+ to offer hosting for crypto mining customers.

“Our energy assets in the region produce low-carbon, inexpensive electricity from renewable sources, and we are able to offer surplus energy to these partnerships,” said Mikhail Khardikov, head of En+ Group’s energy business, at the time.

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