Canadian-based Bitcoin mining firm Hive Digital Technologies (Nasdaq: HIVE) has purchased 13,480 mining units from Chinese-based manufacturer Bitmain with an option to purchase 13,480 more miners within one year.
According to its press release, Hive paid $14 per terahash and the purchased units are capable of generating a total of 4,300,000 terahash or 4.3 exahash. A hash is the output of a complex cryptographic algorithm and a terahash is equivalent to a trillion hashes per second.
The move comes at a time when competition among miners has increased significantly with Bitcoin mining difficulty – how much computational effort is required to mine the next block – reaching an all-time high of 103.92 T (trillion) and the average network hashrate coasting along at 730.46 exahash per second (EH/s) at the time of publication.
The 4.3 exahash total puts Hive’s purchase order at a little over $60 million and the miners are set to be delivered in April and May of 2025.
“At 2% of the Bitcoin network’s total hashrate, we expect to produce approximately nine bitcoin per day at the current difficulty level,” said Frank Holmes, Hive’s executive chairman. That works out to just under $1 million per day at current prices.
Hive specifically ordered Bitmain’s S21+ Hydro units because they use liquid cooling to dissipate heat and are well suited for the South American climate in Paraguay where Hive will house the machines.
“This strategic purchase and deployment of highly efficient…miners in Paraguay will significantly enhance our profitability and substantially lower our Bitcoin mining break-even point at current difficulty levels,” said HIVE’s CEO and President, Aydin Kilic.
