“This purchase from our strategic partner, BITMAIN, reflects Merkle Standard’s commitment to becoming one of the most efficient and sustainably focused miners.” — Ruslan Zinurov, Merkle CEO
Bitcoin miner, Merkle Standard, has increased its total hashrate or computing power to 3.1 exahash (EH/s). This is a huge increase from about 0.3EH/s in the past eight months.
The privately-owned mining company, which has a joint venture with Bitmain, added extra 40 megawatts (MW) of mining capacity in its South Carolina facility. This brings its total mining capacity to 140MW. It will be mining Bitcoin using Bitmain’s latest rigs: the S19J Pro and S19 XP.
This is in alignment with a statement made by Merkle on January 21. The mining firm made a purchase agreement with Bitmain for 13,500 ASIC miners.
According to Merkle,
“The executed purchase agreement is for 13,500 mining rigs from the leading ASIC mining manufacturer and aligns with Merkle Standard’s goal of becoming the industry’s most efficient and sustainable miner.”
They added,
“The acquisition of the miners consists of 6,000 latest generation BITMAIN S19 XP machines which boast a hash rate of 140 TH/s and 21.5J/TH power efficiency that significantly improves its operating capability.”
The crypto winter has been hitting miners hard. These miners have seen profit margins fall as the price of Bitcoin plunged over 50% this year. The prices are still rising, with little to no capital left.
Irrespective of this dilemma, some miners, such as Merkle, have persisted and continued to build up their facilities. This move enables it to establish its position as soon as the bear market is over.
The Blue Ridge, located in South Carolina, is Merkle’s second facility. According to its website, it is estimated to be valued at 80MW worth of mining capacity by the end of 2024.
Also, Merkle’s main mining site in Eastern Washington currently has about 100MW of power online. Additionally, 225MW has been fixed for 2023 with a maximum expansion capacity of 500MW.
It is worth knowing that Merkle Standard is committed to building North America’s largest sustainable digital asset mining platform. The miner has been striving hard to keep to this.
following the purchase from Bitmain, Merkle's CEO, Ruslan Zinurov, said,
“This purchase from our strategic partner, BITMAIN, reflects Merkle Standard’s commitment to becoming one of the most efficient and sustainably focused miners.”
