The bitcoin crisis combined with galloping energy prices is doing strange things: The mining company Riot Blockchain proudly announced that it made more money from electricity credits in July than from mining in the same period.
The operator shut down its 750-megawatt facility in Rockdale, Texas, in July, Bloomberg reported. Through long-term electricity contracts, he purchased cheap electricity that he could bill, earning about $9.5 million. With an average bitcoin value of $21,634, that equates to about 439 bitcoins.
At the same time, the company mined 318 bitcoins in July, equivalent to about $6.88 million. It’s down 28% from the same period last year, the company said in a press release at Twitter wrote. At the end of the month, the company had a decent crypto account: they still had 6696 bitcoins at the end of July.
The heat is driving up the price of electricity and down the value of bitcoin
The reasons for the income are a chain of circumstances: The USA is also suffering from the heat wave, which is putting pressure on the power grids in Texas in particular. Electricity providers can therefore use every gigawatt saved to avoid power outages, since extreme weather conditions in Texas have already led to production losses. In addition, there are the high electricity prices, which have risen massively since the war in Ukraine and are a heavy burden on the crypto miners, which can also be seen from the collapse in the Bitcoin price.
The company’s stock then rose 8.4% to $8.40. That should cheer up shareholders just a little, though — Riot stock has already plummeted 63% this year.
Despite the revenue, Riot Blockchain had to sell 275 bitcoins for net proceeds of $5.7 million, in part because electricity revenue is offset against utility bills rather than being paid out. Like a virtual currency.
The Internet is full of hot IT news and stale Pr0n. In between there are always gems that are too good for /dev/null.
(mawi)
