Hive Blockchain Technologies (HIVE.V) ordered another 1,800 Antminer S19j Pro miners from Bitmain, bringing them a total aggregate hash rate of 180 Petahash per second (PH/s) in a strong bid to surpass an exahash of mining power by the end of the month.
Bitmain is one of the biggest manufacturers of cryptocurrency mining equipment in the world. Hive intends that the 1,800 miners are the first in a wave of acquisitions in a mining purchase program which will carry them through 2022. It’ll be delivered in six equal tranches of 300 miners beginning January 2022 and ending in June.
“We are constantly upgrading our ASIC fleet to have the most efficient miners we can buy from cash flow. This purchase with Bitmain enables us to maintain our strategy to diversify the manufacturers we purchase from. Over the past year, we have been expressing our concerns about global shortages in chips and logistics delays in shipping equipment from Asia due to Covid 19. We have deep relationships Bitmain, MicroBT and Canaan which are all top global manufacturers in our industry,” said Frank Holmes, executive chairman of Hive.
Hashing involves processing data from a block via a mathematical function, which results in a fixed length output. Solving the hash starts with the available data in the block header, and is basically involves computers gobbling up energy to continually try to solve a math problem. One hash is basically one kick at the can for solving the problem, and a petahash is one quadrillion hashes, or a one with 15 zeros.
It’s like the world’s most lenient math quiz where the reward isn’t a gold star, but somewhere around $300,000. Every ten minutes. In perpetuity.
You could equate the bitcoin mining industry to an arms race. If one company upgrades to terrahash, then the next step is adding mining capacity in the petahash range like Hive is doing. After which, the next step is exahash. Ultimately, that’s Hive’s stated goal—one exahash by month’s end. It’s ambitious, but eminently possible.
What’s especially interesting is that they have 25,000 Ethereum and 875 BTC in cold storage—all of which was mined with green energy. The total amount of both coins are valued at $100 million.
—Joseph Morton
