Public Bitcoin Miners Are Gunning to Grow Their Hashrate by 270% In 2022

Try to envision all the machines that propelled Bitcoin’s hashrate recovery from its June lows of ~69 EH/s to its current level of 156 EH/s. Now take all of those machines (about 900,000 or so) and roughly double the number.

That’s how much machinery the biggest farms in North America plan to have online before the end of next year—some 80 EH/s worth, or more than half of the network’s current total hashrate.

In the fallout of China’s mining ban, North America’s hashrate juggernauts aren’t wasting any opportunity to cement their positions as the new leaders in the global mining race. With plenty of powerful financing options at their disposal, they are expanding more aggressively than ever.

How Much Hashrate Will Be in America in 2022?

Looking at publicly-available data from press releases, company presentations, and SEC filings, leading publicly traded bitcoin mining companies expect to double, triple, quadruple or even quintuple their hashrate under management by the end of 2022.

For the ten companies we’ve profiled below, their collective hashrate is expected to increase 277% from 17.83 EH/s to 67.34 EH/s. The boost will come from new generation equipment that the miners have pre-ordered and which are scheduled for delivery between now and the latter end of 2022.

Taking this analysis further, if we add other public or soon-to-be-public miners to the list (for e.g., Gryphon, Atlas, Stronghold, CCU, BIT Mining, Mawson, DMG, and a few others), we can add roughly 14 EH/s to the estimate for a total of 81.34 EH/s.

Time is hash and hash is money, so these companies aren’t wasting any effort to capitalize on the cavity of competition that China’s mining ban has temporarily left in the market. With this torrent of hashrate forecasted for 2022, we anticipate that North America’s hashrate share will easily grow to 50-60% next year. Moreover, the network’s total hashrate should eclipse 250 EH, propelled both by these companies booting up new machines and by displaced Chinese miners finding new homes for their operations.

How Are Miners Financing New ASICs?

Many of the above companies are financing these massive expansions without selling any of the bitcoin held in their treasuries. Rather than sell bitcoin to finance their growth, they are opting to leverage equity or take out loans (some of which are backed by hardware or bitcoin).

Hut 8, for example, raised $172 million in September with a common stock offering, while Riot made a common stock offering for $82 million back in June. Hive also made a common stock offering in September to the tune of $19 million, and Bit Digital sought $80 million through a private placement of ordinary shares during the same month.

Marathon took a different route, taking out a $100 million loan from Silvergate in September. Argo took out its own, $25 million loan from Galaxy Digital, using some of the bitcoin on its balance sheet as collateral.

As bitcoin mining companies continue to grow, their financing options are maturing, and as evidenced by the above data, this financing is allowing them to purchase massive ASIC fleets to expand their hashrate.

With robust capital markets and rich energy infrastructure at their disposal, these mega-farms will position North America as the world’s leading mining hub in the years to come.

This much seems certain, at least. But with hashrate on track to nearly double next year, the burning question becomes, will hashprice keep up?

Header image courtesy of Teng Yuhong via Unsplash.