Celsius Network to allocate additional $300m to bitcoin mining
Celsius Network will invest $300 million on top of the previously announced $200 million in bitcoin mining in the US. Cryptocurrency lending platform CEO Alex Mashinsky told The Block.
We plan to steadily increase the hash rate by the end of next year, he said.
According to the top executive, the rate of growth in the firm's computing capacity will slow down in the coming months.
In addition to buying cryptocurrency mining equipment, Celsius Network is investing in US blockchain hosting provider Core Scientific, Texas-based mining company Rhodium Enterprises and the Luxor Technologies pool.
According to Maszynski, Celsius Network currently has 22,000 ASIC devices predominantly from Bitmain's AntMiner S19. The firm had earlier reported an order for the latest S19XP with a hash rate of 140 TH/s, announced by the manufacturer in Dubai.
Celsius Network intends to use the mined bitcoins in its core business. As of early November, the firm's assets were valued at $28.6 billion.
The mining business became of interest to the platform's management in 2020. Since then, the firm has managed to support Core Scientific and Argo Blockchain in the form of loans.
We cater to miners who don't want to sell bitcoin. We give them a loan against the first cryptocurrency or hash power. The BTC mined by the partners goes to us as collateral, Mashinsky explained.
As a reminder, in June, the cryptocurrency lending platform announced an investment of over $200 million in bitcoin mining in North America.
In October, Celsius Network raised $400 million at a valuation of $3 billion following claims from regulators.
In November, the firm acquired custodial services startup GK8 for $115 million.