Publicly traded bitcoin mining company Bitfarms (BITF) announced its deployment of 1,000 Whatsminer M31S mining machines with another 3,000 set to be deployed in Q1 2021.
- The mining capacity expansion is set to push Bitfarm's hashrate above 1.2 exahashes per second (EH/s), per an announcement shared with CoinDesk, just over one third of its target 3 EH/s hashrate.
- To date in 2020, the Toronto-based firm has acquired or deployed nearly 6,000 new machines, according to prior press releases.
- Other mining companies, including Colorado-based Riot Blockchain (RIOT), are on shopping sprees for new mining machines as leading manufacturers like Bitmain have sold out until Q3 2021. Strong demand has pushed miners to secondary markets as they scrounge for any available machines, per CoinDesk's prior reporting.
- Shares of Bitfarms are trading hands around $2.62 at last check, a more than 230% gain to date this month.
- Bitcoin gained roughly 20% over the same period.
Update (Dec. 22, 18:02 UTC): Added a total count of machines deployed and acquired in 2020.