CleanSpark’s 8 EH/s Bitcoin Mining Facility Goes Live

CleanSpark Mining Campus in Washington

CleanSpark, a Bitcoin miner, has advanced to the second phase of operations at its mining campus in Washington, Georgia, reaching 8.0 exahashes per second (EH/s), which is half of its annual target of 16 EH/s.

The second phase involved an investment of nearly $55 million in the construction, infrastructure and machines of the facility, which was bought in August 2022 for $25.1 million and had 15,000 mining machines with a power capacity of 50 megawatts (MW). With the capital deployed, the total power capacity of the campus has increased to 86 MW.

Matthew Schultz, CleanSpark’s executive chairman, stated during an investors’ conference on July 13 that the city of Washington has seen its annual budget almost double year-over-year due to the company’s collaboration with city officials and the community. “The city becomes our utility, and rather than compete with ratepayers for power, we agreed to buy power from the city at a cost-plus level,” he explained. Schultz further revealed that the town had a budget last year of about $16 million, but its annual city budget this year is over $30 million.

CleanSpark’s Expansion Plan

Despite the current bear market, CleanSpark has aggressively pushed an expansion plan. Last month, the company purchased Bitcoin mining facilities in Dalton, Georgia, which will house 6,000 Antminer S19 XPs and S19j Pro+s, adding an estimated 1 EH/s to its hash rate. The chairman stated that Georgia was an ideal location due to its predominantly nuclear power and status as a net power exporter.

CleanSpark has also invested over $150 million in building its computer power infrastructure in the past few months. According to the executive, the strategy was first drafted in November 2021, when Bitcoin mining companies placed billion-dollar orders for mining machines.

In response to the high-value rigs, CleanSpark chose to sell Bitcoin between the $40,000 and $60,000 range and reallocate the funds into more efficient infrastructure. “Zach [Bradford], Gary [Vecchiarelli] and myself sat back and kind of realized that with that much new equipment being added to the Bitcoin blockchain, as well as analyzing some future energy models, it was likely that Bitcoin was going to pull back from that $60,000 range,” the executive noted during the investors call.

With the upcoming Bitcoin halving event, CleanSpark has revamped its strategy. According to CEO Zach Schultz, they have been stocking up on Bitcoin with the expectation that it will bring them rewards. Furthermore, Bradford remarked that post-halving could present numerous M&A opportunities, which CleanSpark is looking to capitalize on in 2024. He suggested that they could buy up empty facilities and introduce cutting-edge miners.

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