$2 Billion Merger: Bitcoin Miner Cipher Going Public Backed by Fidelity and Morgan Stanley

Cipher Mining, a bitcoin mining operation of Bitfury, has announced that it is going public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The deal values the combined company at $2 billion, with funding from investors such as Morgan Stanley and Fidelity.

• Cipher Mining Technologies Inc., a newly formed U.S.-based bitcoin mining operation of Bitfury, announced Friday it will go public through a merger with Good Works Acquisition Corp. (Nasdaq: GWAC). The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter.

• According to Cipher Mining, the deal values the combined company at $2 billion and “will provide the merged entity with gross cash proceeds of $595 million, which includes $425 million from investors including Fidelity Management & Research Company and Morgan Stanley’s Counterpoint Global,” Reuters reported. The deal is also backed by 25 other institutions.

• The merged company, to be named Cipher Mining Inc., is expected to be listed on Nasdaq under the new ticker symbol CIFR. J.P. Morgan Securities and Wells Fargo Securities are serving as financial advisors on the deal to Good Works and Cipher Mining, respectively.
• The new entity “will be established as an industrial-scale bitcoin mining company,” Cipher Mining explained, adding that its “goal is to be the leading bitcoin mining company in the United States.” Initially, four data centers are planned in Ohio and Texas.
• According to the announcement, as a stand-alone company, the new entity will have the “potential to reach a cumulative deployed capacity of 745MW by the end of 2025.” Furthermore, its “U.S.-based data centers are planned to come on-line between Q4 2021 and Q2 2022 with a total of 445MW of power capacity and planned expansion of an additional 300MW deployed between 2023 and 2025.”

• Good Works is a publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), with approximately $170 million in trust. SPACs are shell companies that raise funds to acquire a private company with the purpose of taking it public. This allows target companies to sidestep a traditional initial public offering (IPO).