Cleanspark Buys US Bitcoin Miner for $19.4 Million, Plans to Quadruple Mining Capacity

Cleanspark Inc., a Nevada-based corporation, said Thursday that it is acquiring U.S. bitcoin miner ATL Data Centers for $19.4 million in a deal to be completely settled in shares.

Cleanspark specializes in microgrid energy software. It claims that it can use this technology at the ATL facility to create energy savings, expand total power capacity, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

According to a press statement, Nasdaq-listed Cleanspark intends to quadruple the number of ASIC bitcoin miners in operation at ATL. This will happen once the firm adds another 30 megawatts (MW) of electricity to the facility by April 2021, bringing total capacity to 50MW.

There are currently 3,471 bitcoin mining units at ATL, with a combined hashrate of 190 petahash per second (PH/s). When the new rigs are fully installed, Cleanspark expects that the facility will increase its bitcoin mining capacity to between 0.9 and 1.4 exahash per second (EH/s).

The company said it will “demonstrate” that through the use of its microgrid software, “we can reduce the cost of energy to below $0.0285 per kw/h.” Eventually, the facility will feature a real-time web-based view of power and dollar savings generated by Cleanspark’s technology, it claimed.

“We identified energy-intensive companies facing the greatest amount of exposure to high power costs and resiliency risk,” detailed Zachary Bradford, chief executive officer of Cleanspark. “Our prior experience in the digital currency mining industry provided insight into how proper energy management was crucial to successful and profitable mining operations.”

In 2018, Cleanspark designed what it calls “a microgrid solution for a ‘stand-alone’ mobile bitcoin mining system.” Bradford said as part of the ATL complex, they now have 23 such mobile mining rigs in addition to the main facility.

Shares of Cleanspark soared as much as 13% on the news on Thursday. The stock is up 6.6% at $16.41 in Friday morning trade. In the past 52 weeks, it has oscillated between a low of $0.97 and a high of $16.95.