Core Scientific sold more Bitcoin than it mined for the second month in a row
by James · August 30, 2022
Publicly traded Bitcoin miner Core Scientific experienced another net loss on its Bitcoin holdings last month.
The firm sold 1,975 coins at an average price of $22,000 per Bitcoin in July, bringing in $44 million in revenue, according to a company announcement on Friday. Meanwhile, only 1,221 coins were mined.
This left just 1,205 Bitcoin and $83 million in cash on Core Scientific’s balance sheet as of July 31.
“Proceeds from the July bitcoin sale were primarily used to pay for capital investments related to increasing data center capacity,” the company explained. It also paid off debt to mining server maker Bitmain for a 2021 order for 100,000 ASIC servers – the specialized machines used to competitively mine Bitcoin.
Less than $10 million in ASIC-related payments remain outstanding.
Although the sale has dragged Core Scientific’s total Bitcoin holdings even lower, it marks a relatively small hit compared to the previous month. The company sold a whopping 7,202 coins in June worth $165 million to “increase liquidity,” as Bitcoin’s price crashed well below $30,000. Meanwhile, it produced only 1,106 coins.
The bear market has caused many crypto mining companies to liquidate their Bitcoin holdings.
Core Scientific has also continued to scale operations. The company deployed an additional 14,000 ASIC servers in July, increasing its hash rate capacity to 19.3 exahashes per second (EH/s) – the largest capacity of a publicly traded North American company. That equates to 19.3 quintillion hashes per second, which represents roughly one-tenth of Bitcoin’s total hash rate, according to Blockchain.com data.
About 44% of the firm’s total hash rate was generated through colocation services, where customers rent ASICs in Core Scientific’s data centers. The company signed co-location agreements with customers in July that are expected to generate $50 million in annual revenue.
Core Scientific was one of the industrial-scale miners that halted operations in Texas to protect the grid during an overwhelming heat wave early last month. The firm reduced 8,157 megawatt hours on its own.
Some firms like Riot blockchain were financial compensated for their curtailment measures as part of Texas’ demand response program available to Bitcoin miners. It earned $9.5 million – worth more than all the Bitcoin it had self-mined in July. Core Scientific did not mention receiving similar compensation.
