Crypto miner CleanSpark expands with acquisition of two Wyoming locations: CNBC Crypto World

Crypto miner CleanSpark expands with acquisition of two Wyoming locations: CNBC Crypto World

today Bitcoin and ether head for another week of declines shares of marathon digital fall even after the company reports record earnings and clean spark CEO Zachary Bradford breaks down that crypto miners acquisition of two mining facilities in Wyoming welcome to cnbc’s crypto world I’m Brandon Gomez major cryptocurrencies moving lower this morning by noon Eastern Bitcoin fell a little less than 2% back under $61,000 ether dropped 2.8% and is back below $3,000 while polygon’s madic token fell 2.9% to 67 now we are looking at another week of losses for some of the biggest cryptocurrencies with Bitcoin and ether down 1.5% and 5% respectively okay let’s talk about the top stories Kraken has asked a federal judge to dismiss the sec’s lawsuit against it back in November the regulator alleged that Kraken operated as an unregistered broker dealer and exch change along with inadequate record keeping that would be prohibited by a registered Securities intermediary well in a filing yesterday Kraken argued that the SEC failed to prove that the transactions on kraken’s platform were investment contracts and the agency’s argument would transform the sale of any digital asset or commodity into an investment contract a kraken said it thinks Congress should be the one to decide such a significant reordering of US Financial rules next shares of marathon digital are falling the morning despite the crypto minor reporting record Revenue the company reported $165.6 million in Revenue in the first quarter up 223% from a year ago but that’s still less than Wall Street estimates of 182 million for the quarter the minor also reported a 184% year-over-year jump in net income to $337 million now that spike is mostly due to a change in accounting standards for the Bitcoin minor which raised the value of the digital asset it’s holding that coincides with a huge rise in bitcoin’s price in the first quarter of the Year by midday shares of marathon digital were down nearly 10% in reaction to yesterday’s earnings release finally another publicly traded mining company cleanspark is expanding its operations the company announced yesterday that it’s acquiring two mining sites in Wyoming for just under $19 million those facilities will add 75 megawatt in available power to clean Sparks 400 megaw currently under management across eight sites in the Southern United States the expansion announcement comes after clean spark also reported earnings yesterday the company brought in $111.8 million in revenue for its second fiscal quarter beating Wall Street estimates of 106 million all right sticking with clean spark for our main story crypto worlds T mckel spoke with Zack Bradford the CEO of cleanspark about this latest acquisition and how the company is fairing after the Bitcoin having you announced earnings yesterday you announced a new expansion in Wyoming tell me more about the this latest acquisition yeah we’re really excited about Wyoming um we’re moving to another state this will be our third state um we are going to have two sites in which we will be building uh Bitcoin mining data centers um we expect it to be about 75 megawatts of total power between the two sites and we have the ability to expand beyond that for those in the audience who um don’t cover The Binding sector so closely can you put the 75 Watts um megawatts into some context for us yeah so all in all you know we think about everything in processing power so to put that in perspective right now as a company we have 17 x aash that’s how we measure processing power this new facility is going to allow us to add about 4.2 more and so you know as a company on a PO halfing environment and we could obviously talk a lot about halfing but that really means that we’re going to be producing between four and 500 Bitcoin um every month as we are now so this is going to be you know roughly a you know call it a 20% increase in that um depending on how things land and what the Network’s doing in a in a few months when we’re finished with this um these two mining sites in Wyoming are these sites that you’ve had your sites on for a while or or is this something that you’re scooping up post having you know we’ve we’ve kept an eye on Wyoming for a little while you know we’ve had our earliest conversation with utility actually going back a few years when our actually our former CFO had some family Connections in Wyoming in the same area um but we put it down and walked away from Wyoming for a while and um this was actually a new opportunity something we became aware of you know only about five or six weeks ago and um it was just a great opportunity right time right place for us to come in and and scoop it up uh we’ve been preparing for these opportunities for quite some time and uh now we thought was the good time uh what is it that brought your attention to Wyoming why is that a good market for um you know the kind of operations you guys are running you know we were really attracted by the political welcomeness of the state you know Senator Lumis has been a long time big component of you know blockchains and Bitcoin in general for a long time and so we we sought as a place just like the place we already operate in Mississippi and Georgia that it’s a place that’s welcoming of you know blockchain technology in general and so we thought it would be a great home in addition to that you know Bitcoin mining we are operating data centers and heat is always the you know opposite of what you want in a data center space all about the cooling and and Wyoming is just cooler year round than some of the other places that exist in the US so it’s a great environment in the literal sense and also a great political environment also how are you feeling about everything post having you guys reported your uh Financial results for your latest quarter yesterday earnings per share 58 cents versus a loss a year ago of 23 cents per share um of course Bitcoin up 120% over over the last year so how are you approaching growth now given the lull that we’re experiencing in the Bitcoin price we have these two big key catalysts behind us High inflation slowing economic growth GE geopolitical issues what have you um I know you know you and a bunch of your peers in the industry were um well prepared months in advance for the having which of course reduced the uh Bitcoin block reward Bo for miners so now we’re just a couple weeks out from that big event that was so widely watched this year how are you feeling about it we’re feeling great um you know we as a company we’ve been lucky enough that we did prepare ourselves Luck’s really the wrong word but we made sure we were ready to go we’ve been the only public company that has outperformed Bitcoin and I think here to date we’re the only public company that our stock is actually up for our shareholder so we’re really happy about that that helped us prepare for where we are today and you know we are running strong so the block reward or the number of Bitcoin we get on the Baseline was cut in half but we were set up so that it was really just a compression of margins and didn’t affect anything really on a long-term basis um we’re seeing now that the global hash ratees decreasing a little bit 15 to 20% Which signals that the miners that were less efficient or less prepared have actually had to unplug and that creates opportunities for us for companies like us where we’re in a really strong position um that we can capitalize on that either through buying the data centers or the fact that the piece of the pi which is global hash rate ours got bigger um we’re currently about 3% of global hash rate and things are looking good for us to continue to increase that to a much higher percentage um over the you know months and years to come um what if any challenges do you are you looking forward to over the next few weeks um you know I mentioned the lull it’s it’s only been a few weeks but some analysts warning about a pullback to 50K in Bitcoin uh one analyst even said 49k so below that $50,000 level um is there is there a we’ve talked about this a little bit before but is there a certain number in the Bitcoin price uh that you are most comfortable or uncomfortable at and you know I know we’re talking short term here and you seem very set up you’ve just said for the long term um anything you’re worried about in the next few months you know obviously you know there’s things we can and can’t control and we focused on what we can control but what that means being prepared is means to be prepared for bitcoin price to drop right we’re we’re all doing great as much miners if the Bitcoin price always continued to go up but it’s it’s what happens when you have to battle through the tough times we’re incredibly well prepared I think something that would be you know really important for any investor looking the space to understand is really you know hash price that means really for every you know hash or the you know processing that we do you know how much is that worth right now and then how much does it cost us to do it we right now are set up amongst the lowest of all the publicly traded companies that have reported on our hash cost or the cost to ultimately mine a Bitcoin and as long as we can stay on that bottom you know we’re really at the bottom you know quarter that means there’s 75% of the miners that will be mining at a deficit or will have to turn off before we have to worry about turning off and every time someone else turns off it makes our piece of the PIP bigger and therefore further and further away from us needing to turn off any machine machines so for us that’s how we think about positioning so absolutely there’s a con there’s always a concern it’s a volatile asset but on a long-term basis we’re incredibly bullish on the direction of Bitcoin on adoption you know today we’re seeing a pullback but you know we’re really trading inside a band we’ve been bouncing around for you know about three weeks in this like 59 to $65,000 band and I think that this pull back is just you know pulling down to the bottom end of the band and you know if it does slide further we we’re well prepared for that to continue to remain profitable and if it bounces back up in the other direction then it’ll be good for not only us but also some of our less efficient peers all right that’s all for crypto world this week we will be back again on Monday we will see you then [Music]

CNBC Crypto World features the latest news and daily trading updates from the digital currency markets and provides viewers with a look at what’s ahead with high-profile interviews, explainers, and unique stories from the ever-changing crypto industry. On today’s show, Zachary Bradford, CEO of CleanSpark, discusses the company’s earnings and plans to expand in Wyoming.

Chapters:
00:00 – CNBC Crypto World, May 10, 2024
0:22 – Bitcoin falls for the week
0:47 – The headlines
2:55 – Zachary Bradford of CleanSpark

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Crypto miner CleanSpark expands with acquisition of two Wyoming locations: CNBC Crypto World