Nasdaq-listed mining company Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ: RIOT) has inked an agreement to purchase 42,000 mining machines from Bitmain Technologies, pushing the total of fully deployed Antminers machines to 81,150.
- In an announcement Wednesday, Riot Blockchain said it plans to buy the S19j Antminers machines for $138.5 million; once active, these additional miners would increase the firm’s bitcoin mining hashrate by 93%.
- Riot said it is expecting the first batch of 3,500 S19j Antminers to be delivered in November with additional monthly deliveries expected to continue through to October 2022.
- Since 2019, Riot has made nearly $230 million worth of purchase agreements with the mining hardware supplier Bitmain.
- “By nearly doubling its planned hashrate capacity, Riot continues to take great strides forward in growing both the company’s and the United States’ share of the global network hashrate,” said Megan Brooks, COO of Riot.
- As reported by CoinDesk, bitcoin’s hashrate, which is a way to measure the total power consumption and mining output of the network, has topped a new all-time high as mining firms like Riot continue to add more hash power.
- In February, Riot announced a change in management, naming Jason Les as its new CEO. He had been serving as an independent director on the firm’s board since 2017.