Riot Blockchain inks a deal to acquire the largest North American bitcoin hosting facility for $650 million

  • Date: 08-Apr-2021
  • Source: Business Insider
  • Sector:Technology
  • Country:Middle East
  • Who else needs to know?

Riot Blockchain inks a deal to acquire the largest North American bitcoin hosting facility for $650 million

Riot Blockchain has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the largest North American bitcoin hosting facility, Whinstone US, for $80 million cash plus a fixed 11.8 million shares of Riot common stock.

The total transaction value as of the purchase based on Riot's last closing price of $48.37 was approximately $651 million.

Whinstone is based in Rockdale, Texas on an 100-acre site that hosts Bitcoin mining customers in three buildings totaling 190,000 square feet. An additional 60,000 square foot building is under development as well.

The mining facility hosts three institutional clients and will hit 300 mega watts (MW) in developed capacity by the end of 2021. The company has an "attractive long-term power purchase agreement" as well and Riot hopes to push the facility's power capacity to 750 MW in the coming years.

In addition to hosting revenue, Whinstone also generates engineering and construction services revenue from hosting clients on site, and revenue from the fabrication and deployment of immersion cooling technology.

"The acquisition of Whinstone is the most significant achievement in Riot's growth to date and positions Riot as an industry leader in Bitcoin mining," said Jason Les, CEO of Riot.

"After the consummation of this transaction, we will have created a very clear