According to Blockworks, CleanSpark has announced the acquisition of three bitcoin mining facilities in Mississippi for $19.8 million in cash. The Las Vegas-based company expects these acquisitions to help double its hash rate in the coming months, ahead of the next Bitcoin block reward halving in April. The purchased facilities will increase CleanSpark's operating hash rate by approximately 2.4 exahashes per second (EH/s). Additionally, the company is acquiring another facility for its campus in Dalton, GA, which will cost around $7 million and add about 0.8 EH/s in hash rate.
CleanSpark's hash rate was 10 EH/s on January 31, and the new acquisitions would raise it to a planned level of 13.2 EH/s. Further expansion at the Dalton site and the company's property in Sandersville, GA, would add an additional 0.8 EH/s and 6 EH/s in hash rate, respectively. This would give CleanSpark the opportunity to reach a hash rate of 20 EH/s within the first half of 2024. CEO Zach Bradford stated that the addition of Mississippi to their portfolio increases their geographic diversity and allows them to apply their proven track record of success in a new operating environment.
The acquisitions follow Marathon Digital's deal last month to buy two mining sites in Nebraska and Texas for $179 million in cash, which could potentially double its hash rate to about 50 EH/s in the next 18 to 24 months. Miners have also been investing in new equipment to prepare for the halving, with a dozen bitcoin miners purchasing roughly $1.2 billion worth of machines in 2023, totaling more than 70 EH/s in capacity. CleanSpark committed last month to buying 60,000 Bitmain S21 miners, to be delivered between April and June, and secured an option to buy 100,000 more machines at a fixed price by the end of the year. The deployment of all 160,000 machines would help CleanSpark achieve about 50 EH/s in hash rate.