Canadian cryptocurrency miner Bitfarms Ltd. will lease 2,000 WhatsMiner M31S rigs from market-maker BlockFills as the Bitcoin network's ever-increasing difficulty rate turns up the heat on mining outfits.
- Bitfarms' new equipment will add 360 petahashes of mining power by the end of October, according to a press release.
- The lease, set to last 24 months, comes with a 9.5% interest rate as well as a purchase option.
- BlockFills may furnish Bitfarms with even more miners by the the end of 2020, depending on equipment availability. The pair signed a non-binding letter of intent for up to 7,000 additional miners.
- Last quarter, Bitfarms mined 815 bitcoins – a high point among publicly traded miners. But it also lost $3.7 million as the entire mining market adjusted to COVID-19 challenges as well as the ramifications of the bitcoin halving.
- Bitcoin's price recovery, repeated breaks above the $10,000 and $11,000 thresholds, and record-high network difficulty are forcing mining companies around the world to bulk up their computing power.