Hi everyone,

In this newsletter, we summarize some of the big events from this week. Subscribe to get it straight in your inbox.

Here's what happened in the world of mining this week:

• Marathon released their June numbers with 32.6 BTC a day 🏃 

• CleanSpark mined 1624 BTC in Q2, increase of 170% QoQ 📈 

• SATO with June update and energy cost update ⚡️ 

• Bitfarms mined 385 BTC in June and is on track to 50 MW in 🇦🇷 

• Hut 8 mined 120 BTC in June and is getting closer to a merger 🤝 

• Several miners announce moves into AI 🤖 

How We See Bitcoin and Sustainability 💚 

Our Sustainability Report is out, where we outline the issues with the green transition and how the special attributes of Bitcoin mining make it the perfect partner for green energy. We also present how we want to incentivize green energy mining on our platform. Read more

Marathon Mined 979 BTC in June with 17.7 EH/s 🏃‍♂️

• Marathon mined 979 BTC in June which was a 21% decrease. The average daily production rate was 32.6 BTC.

• The operational hash rate increased by 16% MoM to 17.7 EH/s, and the installed hash rate increased by 8% to 21.8 EH/s.

• The final steps to achieving the company's 23 EH/s goal are underway in Ellendale, ND, and Garden City, TX.

• Marathon's joint venture in Abu Dhabi started hashing, and the full 7.0 EH/s is expected to be online by the end of 2023.

• The company currently has approximately 149,900 Bitcoin miners, capable of producing approximately 17.7 EH/s.

• Marathon holds a total of 12,538 bitcoins, all of which are unrestricted.

• The company sold 700 bitcoins in June and ended the month with 113.7 MUSD in unrestricted cash and cash equivalents.

CleanSpark Mined 1,624 Bitcoin in Q2 an Increase of 170% QoQ 🤟 

• CleanSpark mined 491 BTC in June, bringing the total mined in 2023 to 3,495.

• The company's total BTC holdings as of June 30 were 529, and 413 BTC were converted for operations and growth in June.

• CleanSpark has a deployed fleet of approximately 68,678 latest-generation Bitcoin miners with a hashrate of 6.7 EH/s.

• The company funded growth and operations by selling 413 BTC in June, generating approximately 11.2 MUSD in proceeds. The average daily BTC mined in June was 16.4, reaching a high of 17.4.

• CleanSpark's newest campus in Dalton, Georgia, started hashing immediately after the acquisition, with about 1,500 machines currently online and an additional 4,500 machines expected to go live soon.

• The 50MW expansion in Washington is expected to be operational by the end of the week, with over 14,000 machines ready to start hashing.

• CleanSpark's ambitious expansion in Sandersville is progressing, with crews preparing the land for the addition of over 6 EH/s to the company's mining operations.

SATO Technologies Mined 38.72 BTC in June ⚡️ 

• SATO Technologies reported mining 38.72 BTC in June 2023, with an average monthly revenue equivalent to 1,075,000 USD based on the average BTC price of 27,763 USD.

• The company operated an average of 5,518 rigs throughout the month, resulting in an aggregate average hash rate of 0.526 EH/s.

• The weighted average bitcoin mined per 1 EH/s was 75.25 BTC.

• On-site, the company mined an average of 1.29 BTC per day, considering both self-mining and hosting activities.

• SATO Technologies boasts one of the lowest renewable energy costs at approximately 0.0288 USD/kWh. Additionally, the company pays a monthly demand charge of 10.20 USD per KW for its Contracted Reserve. The total energy cost aggregates to 0.043 USD/kWh.

Bitfarms Mined 385 BTC in June ☀️ 

• The company remains on track to expand to its full operating capacity of 50 MW in Rio Cuarto, Argentina, and achieve 6.0 EH/s overall in Q3 2023.

• Bitfarms is finalizing an acquisition in Baie-Comeau, Quebec, which will enable miner deployments, with the first 11 MW of the 22 MW expansion expected to come online this year. The Baie-Comeau acquisition will close in early July 2023, further expanding its hydro power capacity.

• In June, Bitfarms produced 385 BTC, a YoY increase of 47% due to a higher hashrate offsetting increased network difficulty. The total hashrate increased by 6% month-over-month, reaching 5.3 EH/s.

  

• Bitfarms purchased an additional 1,650 Bitmain S19 Pro+ miners, which will be added to the existing miner fleet, bringing the total to 4,950 high-efficiency miners.

• Bitfarms sold 346 BTC of the 385 BTC mined, generating total proceeds of 9.5 MUSD, and held 30 MUSD in cash and cash equivalents at the end of June.

• Bitfarms has seen steady BTC production throughout the first half of 2023, with a total of 2,520 BTC mined year-to-date.

• Financially, Bitfarms generated 9.5 MUSD in proceeds from BTC sales, reduced indebtedness, and held 19 MUSD in remaining credits for pre-paid deposits for future miner purchases.

Hut 8 Mining Mined 120 BTC in June 🤝

• Hut 8 sold a total of 217 BTC in June, generating proceeds of 7.9 MUSD. The company currently holds a total of 9,136 BTC in reserve, with 8,289 of them unencumbered.

• The installed ASIC hashrate capacity at Hut 8's Alberta facilities was 2.6 EH/s at the end of June. Hut 8 achieved a production rate of 46.2 BTC/EH in June.

• The repair and restoration efforts at Hut 8's Drumheller, Alberta site continued, with over 3,700 hashboards repaired during the month.

• Hut 8 signed a five-year agreement with Interior Health, the health authority for southern British Columbia, for co-location services at its flagship Kelowna data center.

• The company expects its installed self-mining capacity to be 7.5 EH/s, assuming the completion of the proposed merger between US Bitcoin Corp (USBTC) and Hut 8.

• Hut 8 entered a 50 MUSD credit facility with Coinbase Credit on June 26.

• Hut 8 remains focused on closing the merger with USBTC and maintaining momentum across its mining and high-performance computing operations.

Stronghold Digital Mined 225 BTC in June 🏰 

• Combined with Bitcoin production in April and May, the company mined over 626 BTC during Q2 2023, representing a 43% growth compared to Q4 2022.

• Despite significant growth in the Bitcoin network hash rate (39% in Q4 2022 and 23% in Q1 2023), Stronghold achieved a 1% sequential growth in BTC awards during the same periods.

• The company received and energized 2,000 Avalon 1346 Bitcoin mining rigs in June as part of its Canaan Bitcoin Mining Agreement.

• Stronghold continues to evaluate opportunities to fill its remaining data center slots, representing over 1 EH/s. The company aims to fill its existing 4 EH/s of data center capacity by the end of the third quarter of 2023.

• Additionally, Stronghold owns an additional 25 MW of end-to-end data center equipment, including 20 proprietary StrongBox containers and supporting infrastructure. A decision on the location of a third site for deploying this equipment is expected during the third quarter of 2023.

  
  Bit Digital Produced 119.1 BTC in June 🖥️ 

• Bit Digital held 485.0 BTC and 11,738.9 ETH in its treasury, with a fair market value of approximately 14.8 MUSD and 22.7 MUSD, respectively, as of June 30, 2023.

• The BTC equivalent of the company's digital asset holdings was approximately 1,445.2 BTC or approximately 44.0 MUSD.

• Bit Digital transferred 129 BTC to its strategic partner, Auros Global Limited, as collateral for yield optimization strategies connected to 430 BTC that Auros is managing on behalf of Bit Digital.

• The company had cash and cash equivalents of 18.5 MUSD as of June 30, 2023.

• Bit Digital had approximately 11,716 ETH actively staked in native and liquid staking protocols, with 9,312 ETH natively staked and 2,404 ETH deployed in liquid staking protocols.

• Additionally, the company had 960 ETH (30 Nodes) deposited but in queue to be activated on the Ethereum staking network, estimated to come online by the end of July 2023.

• Bit Digital earned a blended APY of approximately 5% on its staked ETH position in June 2023 and received aggregate staking rewards of approximately 27 ETH during the month.

Third AI Deal - Applied Digital Saw a 12% Surge in Share Price 📈 

• The partnership involves using HPE Cray XD supercomputers, designed by Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) and equipped with NVIDIA H100 GPUs, in Applied Digital's AI cloud service.

• The deployment of the supercomputers aims to enhance Applied Digital's AI Cloud service, supporting critical workloads such as AI, machine learning, rendering, and high-performance computing (HPC) tasks.

• Applied Digital has already secured two hosting deals for AI workloads, potentially generating up to 640 MUSD in revenues over the next 36 months.

• Bitcoin miners, including Applied Digital, are turning to AI to bolster their revenues amid price slumps and increased network difficulty.

• Applied Digital plans to expand its current capacity pipeline for HPC data centers to up to 200 MW.

• HPE is among the few remaining companies in the supercomputing arena, alongside tech giants like Google, IBM, Intel, and Nvidia. It recently launched a supercomputing-as-a-service offering, allowing cloud access to supercomputing infrastructure for training and operating large language models.

Hive Blockchain and AI 🤖 

• Hive Blockchain aims to offer customers the ability to train large language AI models in its data centers and highlights better privacy compared to rivals like OpenAI's ChatGPT as a selling point for its AI training services.

• The company plans to provide a service agreement where companies retain ownership and privacy of their data while running AI workloads on Hive's GPUs.

• Hive's shares on the Nasdaq rose by almost 2% following the announcement. Miners are increasingly shifting toward AI due to mining profitability challenges, while the AI sector experiences significant investor interest.

• Hive possesses a fleet of 38,000 GPUs, some of which are used for mining altcoins, while others are available for rental or deployed in its cloud offering.

• The firm expects an annual run rate of 1 MUSD for its GPUs, with 500 GPU cards generating 230,000 USD in revenue in the latest quarter.

• Hive reported 106.3 MUSD in revenues for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2023, with a gross operating margin of 50.4 MUSD (47% of revenue).

• However, the company experienced a net loss of 236.4 MUSD in FY2023, attributed to various non-cash charges, including depreciation and impairments. In contrast, Hive reported net income of 79.6 MUSD in the fiscal year 2022.

Bernstein Gives Its Take on the Bitcoin Mining Industry 🔍️ 

• Bitcoin mining stocks listed in the U.S. have more than doubled in value this year after a decline in 2022, according to a research report by broker Bernstein.

• The resurgence of mining stocks is attributed to two factors: strong BTC price action driven by improving sentiment from institutional ETF filings by companies like Blackrock and Fidelity, and some miners diversifying their revenue streams by tapping into high-performance computing and AI opportunities.

• Analysts highlight that the best-in-class miners with low costs and conservative debt profiles can survive and consolidate the capacity to earn significant profits when BTC prices exceed production costs.

• Weaker miners with high debt are unable to survive and often face bankruptcy during crypto winters, as seen in the case of Core Scientific.

• Bernstein suggests that the first wave of consolidation among miners has already taken place, and surviving miners are now expanding their capacity in preparation for the Bitcoin halving event, which typically drives the BTC price higher. The next halving is expected around April 2024.

• JPMorgan also predicts that the Bitcoin mining industry will consolidate and become more competitive over time, with miners with lower production costs being the ones to survive.