Along with Gryphon and Hut 8 Mining Corp, many other companies invest in bitcoin miners. There’s a reason why Bitmain Antminers are some of the most popular in the world. All of these invest in Bitmain mining hardware only. Gryphon is a minor mining operation compared to some of the more prominent players, but they all have a role to play. We will discuss TeraWulf first.
TeraWulf
TeraWulf is a new mining company based in the United States purchasing 30,000 miners from Bitmain with plans to have greater than 3 Exahashes (EH/s) of Bitcoin Mining power, which is some serious power that would put it in the top 10 mining pools in terms of hash rate.
TeraWulf is soon to have a Nasdaq Listing; it agreed to merge with Ikonics, an imaging tech company whose stock is traded on Nasdaq. The newly merged company will trade under “WULF”.
TeraWulf is an example of a medium-sized operation, who has also placed its trust in Bitmain to provide mining hardware.
TeraWulf has a long-term goal to mine Bitcoin with more than 90% Zero-Carbon energy. It has around 50 megawatts of electricity capacity, with long-term plans to increase this to 800 Megawatts by 2025. This would enable a hashrate of more than 23 EH/s. It is ambitious, as it would be in the top 5 of hashrate.
TeraWulf’s low-carbon commitment is a sign of the times with concerns about the carbon footprint of the Bitcoin blockchain. Players the size of TeraWulf can make a difference in the carbon footprint of Bitcoin and help set trends.
Core Scientific
Core Scientific is a mining company in North America. It has recently completed a buy of 112,800 ASIC mining rigs from Bitmain. Core Scientific provides hosting services for miners alongside its operations bought S19 Pro, S19j, and S19j Pro miners intending to double its fleet of miners. Core Scientific can also repair Bitmain mining machines that are under warranty, thus offering Bitmain Warranty services in North America.
Core Scientific intends to use half of the machines it has ordered for its mining operations. They will use the other half to fulfill contracts with existing mining clients.
The large 112,800 shipment and future ones of similar magnitude will help Core Scientific more than double its share of Bitcoin’s hashrate. Core scientific currently has approximately 5% of the current Bitcoin Hashrate. They intend to increase this to 12$, according to their CEO Kevin Turner.
Turner’s forecast aligns with the growing presence of North America in the Bitcoin mining sphere.
Along with Core scientific, Gryphon, and TeraWulf, other mining companies are looking to expand their operations, such as Marathon, Riot, and Blockcap.
Kevin does not expect the trend of big players investing in the mining space to stop soon, and new prominent players are continuing to enter the game.
Kevin stated that larger numbers of publicly traded companies, large family companies, and hedge funds are looking for trustworthy mining operations in North America. Kevin believes that the United States is interested in being a leader in digital assets, despite other countries being early adopters before the United States was.
Marathon Patient Group
Marathon is another significant player in the Bitcoin mining industry, based in Las Vegas. They mined no fewer than 196 Bitcoins in 2021, worth over $11 million at current prices. Marathon has planned to expand its mining operation to have no fewer than 100,000 miners online by 2022. Marathon’s hold more than 5,000 Bitcoin. Marathon received an order in Q1 of 2021 for 1,300 Bitmain S19 Pro mining rigs.
Marathon will have ongoing shipments from Bitmain throughout 2021, with a plan to have over 100,000 online by January 2022. Marathon’s total network hashrate is estimated at 10.3 Exahashes per second by then, putting them in the top 10. The company used stock offerings and other financings to invest in the latest Bitmain hardware.
Marathon has planned its high-speed expansion to keep up with other big names in the mining industry. The new machines coming online in 2021 after heavy demand has caused the Bitcoin difficulty to skyrocket due to the flood of hashrate. Bitcoin difficulty is the algorithm that keeps the supply of bitcoins and the Blockchain’s growth constant despite the varying market conditions.
The CEO of Compass Mining, Whit Gibbs, commented on Marathon’s “mammoth” ASIC order. He mentioned he feels that this trend of increasing hashrate and difficulty shows no signs of slowing in 2021 and that it should track with Bitcoin’s price.