Riot Blockchain, an American-based cryptocurrency mining firm, has committed to purchasing 15,000 additional Antminers from Bitmain, the notorious mining hardware producer.
Riot announced that they’ve purchased 3,000 S19 Pro Antminers and 12,000 S19j Pro Antminers for $35 million from Bitmain.
These versions are some of the highest hash-producing mining hardware available on the market, producing 110 terahashes (TH) and 100 TH, respectively.
A hash is a numerical representation of calculating the computing of hardware and its ability to solve an algorithm, essentially a unit of speed.
A terahash is 1,000,000,000,000 times larger than a hash, revealing the massive computational power these specialized mining machines are now able to achieve.
Riot to Expand Hash Rate By 65%
Riot Blockchain expects the acquisition to increase its Bitcoin mining hash rate capacity by 65%. The firm will deploy the miners in May 2021.
According to the official announcement, Riot’s estimated hashing rate will increase from 2.3 EH/s (exahashes per second) to 3.8 EH/s. If you were wondering how large an exahash is, it’s one quintillion or 1,000,000,000,000,000 times larger than a single hash.
Riot Blockchain CEO, Jeff McGonegal, expressed his satisfaction with the acquisition, stating:
“Continued growth in deployed miners is paramount to a miner’s success. Expanding the Company’s bitcoin mining hash rate and operating on a cost-effective basis is very important, particularly during periods when the bitcoin spot price has appreciably increased. We are pleased to have secured this latest purchase, especially given that the available supply of mining hardware continues to become increasingly scarce.”
Riot is a publicly-traded cryptocurrency mining firm listed on the NASDAQ with an $800 million market capitalization.
What Is Cryptocurrency Mining?
Cryptocurrency mining is the process of completing an algorithm via computational power to validate the legitimacy of a block of transactions. The successful validator receives a reward in the native cryptocurrency.
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin rely on this Proof-of-Work (PoW) validation mechanism. Originally, the Bitcoin network had few mining participants. It, therefore, required less mining power to mine BTC profitably.
Over time as additional miners have joined and the mining reward has declined, the process requires more demanding computational power.
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