In a small Texas town of only 5,600 people, a territorial battle is being waged over what is likely set to be the Bitcoin (BTC) mining capital of the world. The combatants are none other than Bitdeer (a spin-off of Chinese bitcoin mining giant Bitmain), and Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIOT), both jostling over market share and positioning within an area of cheap electricity, in a building formerly occupied by Alcoa. Ever since China put a halt to crypto activities within its borders, focus is being given to operations in North America, making the US now the official top destination for miners, including Dogecoin (DOGE) miner and livestreaming platform Hello Pal International Inc. (CSE:HP) (OTCQB:HLLPF), as well as BTC miners BIT Digital (NASDAQ:BTBT), Bitfarms (NASDAQ:BITF), and Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:GREE).
Headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, Hello Pal International Inc. (CSE:HP) (OTCQB:HLLPF) recently announced the relocation of its crypto mining rigs to North America. The move came after strategic search for secure new locations for their newly acquired ASIC miners.
Hello Pal is set to re-house their Bitmain Antminer L7 Machines which are ranked among the Top 5 most profitable miners and are the most profitable DOGE miner on available.
“We expect that the relocation of our mining operations to North America will set us up for long term stability in our crypto-mining operations,” said KL Wong, Founder and Chairman of Hello Pal. “In turn, this will provide us a solid base to execute our plans of integrating crypto into our social networking core business.”
A thorough review of optimal global mining locations led Hello Pal and their partners Shanghai Yitang Data to decide upon moving most of their rigs in New York State, where all locations are set to use clean renewable energy (hydro-powered).
Each of the new mining rigs will be shipped directly to the NY facilities by Bitmain, which is expected to be in November and/or December this year. Hello Pal is also continuing to sell its existing Antminer L3+ mining rigs in China and using the proceeds to purchase brand new Antminer L7 models, which will be housed in North America.
The announcement came within a week of Hello Pal announcing record quarterly revenues, the majority of which came from cryptocurrency mining.
“We are very pleased to see the progress we have made as a Company, and believe that the results are evident in the financial figures,” said Wong. “We are particularly excited in the continued internationalization of our business, as reflected in our expansion of livestreaming services outside China and the integration of cryptocurrency into our platform through our newly launched crypto-mining operations.”
Meanwhile, down in Texas at its Whinstone Facility, Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ:RIOT) recently announced its October 2021 production of 464 BTC—an ~433% increase over its 87 BTC production in October 2020.
So far in 2021, Riot has stated its year-to-date production total being 2,921 BTC—representing an increase of approximately 257% over its BTC production during the same period in 2020 which yielded 818 BTC.
The miner recently completed a $54 million purchase order with Bitmain (the same company that spun out its neighbors Bitdeer) for 9,000 S19j Pro (100 TH/s) miners, that are expected to be delivered May 2022 through October 2022. Shipments of 11,500 S19J Pro Antminers under previous purchase orders are also expected to be shipped to Riot‘s Whinstone facility in November 2021.
Also awaiting new miners is BIT Digital (NASDAQ:BTBT), which in October announced an agreement to buy 10,000 machines from Bitmain. The announced purchases are expected to increase Bit Digital’s miner fleet hash rate by over 1.0 Exahash (“EH/s”).
“By contracting for these Bitmain units, we have opened a new channel in our procurement strategy, diversifying our access to miners,” said Bryan Bullett, CEO of Bit Digital. “While we believe we continue to enjoy differentiated access to the miner spot market, and expect to continue our ongoing spot purchases, our deal with Bitmain is an efficient means to procure a large quantum of new miners on attractive terms. This is key, as we believe that scale is paramount in importance in the bitcoin mining business.”
There’s not only a race for machines, but also for power. Bitfarms (NASDAQ:BITF) recently announced the acquisition of 24 Megawatts (MW) of Hydro Power in Washington State, USA, and its entering into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to expand that up to 99MW.
The announcement marks the first entry of Bitfarms into the United Statess, as the Ontario-based company plans to house approximately 6,200 Bitmain S19j Pro miners in the facility.
“The Washington farm meets all these criteria,” said Emiliano Grodzki, CEO of Bitfarms. “With this acquisition, we enter the United States and continue our global expansion to 10 farms in operation or under development in four countries. The initial 24 MW acquisition will increase our total mining capacity to 106 MW and boost our total hashrate as additional miners are installed.”
Not to be outdone in the race to make good business relations with Bitmain, Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:GREE) recently announced a deal to be the initial global launch customer for the state-of-the-art ANTMINER S19 XP, which is said to be approximately 27% more efficient than any BTC mining technology currently available.
“We are excited to be chosen as a launch partner for this latest release from Bitmain,” said Greenidge’s CEO Jeff Kirt. “The ANTMINER S19 XP demonstrates a step-function increase in efficiency for our industry, and we are excited to deploy this next generation technology at one of our 100% carbon-neutral facilities.”
The ANTMINER S19 XP has 21.5 joules/TH of efficiency compared to Bitmain’s previous S19 Pro technology of 29.5 J/TH. The units will consume 27% less energy per terahash and will deliver 37% more computing power per kilowatt hour than current technology. The order is set to be delivered in Q3 2022, after which Greenidge intends to deploy them to a facility to be developed either in South Carolina or Texas.
