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Quebec-based cryptocurrency miner Bitfarms (BITF) is angling to triple its capacity for mining rigs with an expansion into Argentina.
The Quebec-based company just signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Proyectos y Obras Americanas S.A. (PROA) to start construction on a 210 megawatt Argentinian facility. It’s scheduled to open by the end of 2022.
This follows an April announcement of an eight-year deal with an Argentinian private power company which guarantees a rate of 2.2 cents per hour of electricity for the new facility. At the time, the Bitcoin price was still trading at about $55,000 ahead of its slump over the summer, and Bitfarms estimated that the new location could generate $650 million in revenue.
“Our new high-production facility in Argentina, which is expected to accommodate over 55,000 miners upon completion, will greatly expand our capacity and global footprint,” said Bitfarms CEO Emiliano Grodzki. “Combined with the expansion in Quebec, Canada and our planned build-out in Paraguay, we are positioned to achieve our corporate target of 8 exahash per second by year-end 2022.”
For context, one exahash (EH) represents one quintillion hashes per second. The entire Bitcoin network’s processing power was sitting at about 143 EH/s as of Tuesday. The largest mining pools on the network, Antpool and F2pool, account for about 30 EH/s and 24 EH/s respectively.
The company hasn’t said much about its Paraguay facility yet, other than it’s “scheduled to be up and operating” by the end of 2022 and that its completion will help the firm reach its 8 EH/s goal, Bitfarms CFO Jeffrey Lucas told Crypto Investor in an email.
It’s also worth pointing out that while the current processing time has come down considerably from an all-time high of 26 minutes per block in late June to 10 minutes per block, there’s a difficulty adjustment scheduled for Oct. 19.
The block processing time increased dramatically in June following sweeping shutdowns of crypto mining facilities in China. Many firms were forced to sell their mining rigs or make arrangements to have them shipped to other locations, like Kazkhstan, where Chinese ASIC mining rig manufacturer Canaan set up a sales center earlier this year.
The turbulence made it somewhat easier to acquire hardware, but Bitfarms chief mining officer Ben Gagnon said infrastructure and power remain the limiting factor when setting up new facilities.
“The bottleneck for the industry remains mining infrastructure and power contracts,” he said. “Industry players who can develop infrastructure will be able to take advantage of a more robust mining hardware market.”
Quebec-based cryptocurrency miner Bitfarms (BITF) is angling to triple its capacity for mining rigs with an expansion into Argentina.
The Quebec-based company just signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Proyectos y Obras Americanas S.A. (PROA) to start construction on a 210 megawatt Argentinian facility. It’s scheduled to open by the end of 2022.
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