Bitcoin miner Cipher buys 37K Bitmain Antminers for $99.5M

Publicly traded Bitcoin (BTC) mining firm Cipher Mining (CIFR) is scaling operations with a new mega-purchase of cryptocurrency mining devices.

Cipher will buy 37,396 units of Antminer T21 miners from the Chinese crypto mining giant Bitmain under a new agreement, the firm announced on Dec. 18. The new mining equipment to be bought is expected to deliver 7.1 exahashes per second (EH/s) of self-mining capacity by the first half of 2025, the announcement notes.

According to Cipher CEO Tyler Page, the purchase will allow Cipher to build its first 135 megawatts (MW) at its newly acquired Black Pearl site. Cipher has also secured the option to acquire an additional 45,706 miners representing 8.7 EH/s in 2024.

The purchase allows Cipher to lock the price for mining rigs at a “very attractive” price of $14 per terahash (TH), the CEO noted, adding:

“We are controlling our biggest potential capital expense and locking in favorable terms ahead of what we believe will be a bull market for Bitcoin.”

This investment is evidence of Cipher’s bullish outlook on the Bitcoin market. In November 2023, Cipher reportedly signed a purchase agreement to acquire a new Texas site for $7 million, paid in newly issued common stocks. The site is reportedly anticipated to become operational in 2025, boasting a potential capacity of up to 300 megawatts.

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Cipher has also been aggressively buying new crypto mining devices in 2023, bagging 11,000 Canaan A1346 mining rigs in May.

Based in the United States, Cipher Mining went public in 2021 after signing a $2 billion merger deal with the Nasdaq-listed Good Works Acquisition Corp. The company is a subsidiary of the cryptocurrency mining firm Bitfury, which reportedly mined at least 600,000 BTC — or nearly 3% of all Bitcoin to be ever mined — as of March 2021.

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