Publicly traded Canadian miner doubles its capacity through strategic acquisition

HIVE Blockchain Technologies, an Ethereum miner listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, has announced its acquiring 30MW of hydroelectric power at a leased facility from Cryptologic Corp for $4 million CAD, or around $2.8 million USD. The acquisition will be used to diversify the companies revenue by mining Bitcoin with the facility's approximately 14,000 Bitmain S9 miners, which will more than double its total available power capacity globally. The firm also has facilities in Sweden and Iceland and plans on increasing its operation in Sweden by 20% over the next two quarters.

Why it matters

• As Bitcoin's halving approaches, there are concerns over miner profitability with the mining reward being cut in half and prices down around 40% from its local high 6-weeks ago. Some miners have been forced to shut down operations recently which has led to one of the largest difficulty adjustments in history. In light of this, HIVE believes mining bitcoin will still be a profitable endeavor, in part due to their cheap electricity costs of $0.04 kWh.
• The company's stock (TSX: HIVE.V) increased with the rest of the equities market as it closed up 5.41% on the day.