Why Are Cryptocurrency Miners Such As Riot Blockchain, Marathon Digital Holdings Relocating?

As of Friday morning, cryptocurrency miners such as Marathon Digital Holdings Inc MARA and Riot Blockchain Inc RIOT have risen 16% and 5.4% respectively, moving in a positive direction away from recent lows.

New York Legislation Update: New York lawmakers are now awaiting Gov. Kathy Hochul’s decision to sign or veto the two-year moratorium on crypto mining operations using proof-of-work authentication methods, unless 100% renewable energy is used.

Due to recent legislation and soaring energy prices, cryptocurrency miners are relocating to states that are pro-crypto, have low energy costs and offer tax incentives.

The Move To Texas: On July 6, Riot Blockchain announced its transition of nearly 5,700 offline S19 miners from its CoinMint facility in Massena, New York to its Whinstone facility in Texas. According to Riot’s press release, the relocation of miners is expected to reduce its cost of production through lower power costs and by eliminating all third-party hosting fees.

Jason Les, CEO of Riot Blockchain said on Wednesday, "We are pleased to report that during the month of June, we achieved full operation of all 23,000 S19 series miners in the first immersion-cooled building at our Whinstone Facility, Building F.”

See Also: Why Bitcoin- And Ethereum-Related Stock Riot Blockchain Is Up 27% Over The Past Week

Riot has also reported that it is continuing its 400-megawatt infrastructure expansion project at the Whinstone Facility in Rockdale, Texas, which would bring its capacity to 750 megawatts, the largest crypto mining facility in the U.S.

Fred Thiel, CEO and chairman of Marathon Digital said on Thursday, “In the second quarter, we continued to work through several operational obstacles as we progressed with installing miners in Texas in preparation of energization.”

According to Marathon Digital, Compute North’s West Texas wind farm facility is expecting 21,000 miners to be installed in July 2022 and 28,000 miners expected to be installed in August 2022. Not to mention, the Compute North facility is expected to house 68,000 miners with a hash rate of 6.8 exahash per second, as reported by Marathon Digital.

See Also: What's Going On With Bitcoin-Related Stock Marathon Digital?

Second Quarter Expectations: According to Riot Blockchain, on June 2022 it increased the production of Bitcoin BTC/USD by 73% or 421 Bitcoin, as compared to June 2021.

Riot Blockchain also announced it is holding 6,654 Bitcoin with a hash rate capacity of 4.4 exahash per second, and 42,455 deployed miners.

Due to a severe storm in Hardin, Montana, on June 11, some 30,000 miners have been offline without power, as reported by Marathon Digital.

The Compute North energy provider is still awaiting federal agency confirmation of its exempt status for tax purposes, stated Marathon Digital.

Marathon Digital also announced it now has 29,640 miners ready for energization with a hash rate of 2.9 exahash per second at its Compute North facility in West Texas.

Moving Forward: Riot Blockchain is expecting the hash rate capacity to increase to 12.5 exahash per second by January 2023 assuming 115,450 miners have been deployed, as reported by Riot’s press release.

Riot also announced that upon deployment of staged miners, it is expecting miner capacity to increase to 48,779 with a hash rate capacity of 5.0 exahash per second.

According to Marathon Digital, it is expecting 199,000 miners producing 23.3 exahash per second to be installed by 2023.

Additionally, Marathon Digital has reported that it expects its mining operations to reach 100% carbon neutrality by the end of 2022.

Photo: Yev_1234 via Shutterstock