The report also disclosed that Riot Platforms had successfully mined “2,115 Bitcoins” in the first quarter of 2023, marking a 50.5% rise from Q1 2022. To ensure our website performs well for all users, the SEC monitors the frequency of requests for SEC.gov content to ensure automated searches do not impact the ability of others to access SEC.gov content. We reserve the right to block IP addresses that submit excessive requests. Current guidelines limit users to a total of no more than 10 requests per second, regardless of the number of machines used to submit requests. For best practices on efficiently downloading information from SEC.gov, including the latest EDGAR filings, visit sec.gov/developer. You can also sign up for email updates on the SEC open data program, including best practices that make it more efficient to download data, and SEC.gov enhancements that may impact scripted downloading processes.

• It’s also important to note that Bitcoin Hash Rates have been on the rise, hitting a new all-time high earlier this week.
• It hosts Bitcoin mining customers in three buildings that total 190,000 square feet.
• During the previous winter storm in February 2021, Whinstone trimmed its power use for more than a week.
• The team wanted to acquire the HODL Ranch location, which had power to the site, in Pyote, west of Midland.
• At the time, the company wanted to expand into Bitcoin mining in the United States.

The grid is called ERCOT, which is short for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the organization tasked with operating it. To run smoothly, ERCOT requires a perfect balance between supply and demand. Having too much power and not enough buyers is just as bad as everyone wanting to fire up their air conditioning units on the same day in July. Whinstone’s site has a total power capacity of 750 MW, with 300 MW currently developed.

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It’s possible that the extra efficiency provided by immersion cooling could lift Whinstone’s output to as much as 10% of the world’s Bitcoin production. Since the Arctic blast is about to hit the state in the next few days, many crypto miners who botto’s chorizo have taken advantage of the low-energy prices in Texas decided to save electricity for what’s coming next. As part of their recent expansion, Riot Blockchain also acquired Whinstone, one of the United State’s largest crypto mining facilities.

Adding a “controllable load resource” like bitcoin miners to the grid acts as a sort of life insurance policy. Bitcoin miners specifically, and demand response more generally, are a powerful tool in the toolbox for grid management, according to Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council. Other crypto miners said they will respond in real-time to the needs of the grid. As part of the effort, Riot has partnered with Arlington-based energy solutions provider Priority Power to provide site development, utility interconnection, power purchase agreements, and power load flexibility services. “The company voluntarily curtailed its energy consumption in order to ensure that more power would be available in Texas,” said Riot CEO Jason Les. In addition, Riot has asked for authorization to end “certain hosting agreements” with Rhodium.

Bitcoin miners are helping the Texas grid brace for winter storm impact

Ripple has already worked with a number of banks and financial institutions, including Santander, BBVA, and J.P. Arizona State University, one of the world’s leading research universities, has partnered with blockchain technology firm, Ripple, to study the potential applications of blockchain technology. He has 37 five-terabyte hard drives plugged in all around his house, and he uses those machines to mine for chia, an eco-friendly cryptocurrency.

Expert Collections are analyst-curated lists that highlight the companies you need to know in the most important technology spaces. On May 2, an action seeking “more than $26 million” and reimbursement of legal expenses was launched against Rhodium Enterprises in Texas’s Milam County Court. Riot Whinstone, along with Bitdeer, Computer North, and Layer 1 have all powered down to save energy, according to Lee Bratcher, the Texas Blockchain Council president. To find good ideas for crypto stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. I asked Harris, as a former landscaper, how he felt about clearing an entire forest to create the sandpit where Whinstone’s seven buildings now rise. He responded that he’s already using his old skills in summoning nature to perfume and beautify the site.

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Bitdeer – a firm spun off from Chinese bitcoin mining giant Bitmain – is four-tenths of a mile down the road from Riot Blockchain, one of the biggest publicly traded mining companies in America. Both are tenants of property once occupied by aluminum maker Alcoa, but they share little else in common. If the grid operators pay the miners a penny more than they would have made from mining in any given hour, then they’ll gladly power down. And from Thiel’s experience, they get curtailment requests less than 3% of the time in the course of a year, which he estimates comes to about five to ten hours a month. Rhodium reportedly broke its contract with Riot by not paying hosting and service costs related to utilizing Whinstone’s Bitcoin mining capabilities, according to Riot Platform’s Q financial report issued on May 10.

• The event is expected to have a significant impact on the prices of Litecoin and other cryptocurrencies.
• Instead, there are a lot of financial perks baked into its arrangement with the nonprofit organization that operates Texas’ grid.
• The recent shutdown is a precaution by the miners, as not to repeat last year’s deep freeze that triggered blackouts that left hundreds dead.
• In addition, Riot recommended not having to pay back any outstanding power credits upon termination of “certain hosting agreements” with Rhodium.

Several other crypto miners across Texas have followed suit in voluntarily curtailing energy consumption in the run-up to the arctic blast. In 2021, Riot reported a total revenue of more than $213 million, a 1,665% increase from the previous year. As of last month, the company said it held nearly 5,800 bitcoins on its balance sheet, an amount equivalent to more than $232 million today. Companies in this collection build, apply, and analyze blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies for business or consumer use cases.

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ERCOT isn’t asking anyone to shed loads just yet but miners are being proactive. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the grid operator, said that it will “use all tools available to manage the grid” and that it is not asking any business to shed loads during the potential freeze. And just as Bitcoin surged in the year’s first quarter, so did Riot’s revenue streams.

Seasoned crypto investors are accustomed to such swoons, which are usually mirrored in the performance of Bitcoin-related stocks, such as miner Riot Blockchain (RIOT). One of them is the Riot Blockchain, a known miner in North America which is currently on the watch for the disaster that will hit the state’s power grid. “Rather than incremental energy production, we reduce our load giving power back to the grid, which is more cost effective and efficient than spinning up additional energy reserves,” Liska added.

Doing all those computations is hard work, which is why the hardware gets hot, fast. To make sure they don’t overheat, a facility will typically install fans to cool them down. At the Whinstone site, this hot air is blown by individual fans into a central chamber known as the “hot aisle.” “It just doesn’t matter, because what we’re working on will take them two years to catch us,” Harris said.

Riot Blockchain, one of the biggest publicly traded crypto mining companies in America, began shutting down power to its Rockdale mine on Tuesday, a process that occurs in phases. At full capacity, the development is expected to have one gigawatt (GW) of capacity—enough energy to power around 750,000 households. For the first phase of the project, which will have 400 megawatts (MW) of capacity, Riot is investing $333 million for things like site preparation and construction on buildings to house the company’s immersion-cooling technology. The facility is expected to begin mining and hosting operations next July and to create about 270 direct jobs when the first phase comes online. Riot Platforms, previously known as Riot Blockchain, a crypto mining company, has initiated legal proceedings against Rhodium Enterprises, a Bitcoin miner based in Texas. The dispute involves recovering an alleged unpaid sum exceeding $26 million in mining facility fees.

Miners are not altruistically opting to do the grid a solid by sometimes powering down some or all of its bitcoin miners to free up electricity for those in need. Instead, there are a lot of financial perks baked into its arrangement with the nonprofit organization that operates Texas’ grid. Many in the mining industry tell CNBC that the next few days are a high-stakes way of testing out whether the narrative of crypto miners being good for the grid bears out under pressure.

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Bitcoin news portal providing breaking news, guides, price analysis about decentralized digital money & blockchain technology. Hirs says there are millions of consumers already connected to the grid that would happily shut off their power in exchange for financial compensation, without adding additional strain to the grid or causing a price increase. The China-based company said it would invest $500 million to build a massive mining facility at the decommissioned Alcoa power plant in Rockdale in 2018 and create 400 local jobs in the process. But as the world descended into crypto winter, so too did the company’s ambitions. Whinstone has multiple buildings on site, each stacked 20 feet high with rows of computer hardware designed specifically for this purpose. Harris estimates that at its current capacity, it’s producing more than 500 bitcoin per month, which at today’s prices, is about $30.7 million, or $368 million a year.

To lower the temperature, the team built a 20-foot-tall rectangular wooden box to contain a rack of computers, and devised an exhaust system, using parts bought at Home Depot, to pump the hot air through ducts in the roof. At a Bitcoin conference in Tbilisi, Georgia, Theriot and Ashton met someone in a bar who became fascinated by their description of the contraption, and showed it to reps from a big Japanese conglomerate Harris declines to name. At the time, the company wanted to expand into Bitcoin mining in the United States. Of all things, Harris’s unwieldy tower would spearhead the company’s campaign. Meanwhile, Kazakh crypto miners were reportedly relocating to the United States of America and Russia because of the worsening electricity shortage in the country. During the previous winter storm in February 2021, Whinstone trimmed its power use for more than a week.

When someone mines for bitcoin, they’re actually lending their computing power to the bitcoin network. In order to mint these new tokens, a global pool of miners compete against each other to see who can unlock a batch of new bitcoin first. Not much else is known about the specifics of how Bitdeer’s bitcoin mining operation works. CNBC reached out to ask how many mining rigs and employees they have on site, as well as how much cryptocash they mine in a given month, and the company did not respond. ROCKDALE, Texas – In this rural Texas town of 5,600 people, two of the biggest names in bitcoin mining are battling it out for market share and cheap electricity.