Which bitcoin miners are growing the fastest in 2023?
As Marathon Digital has aggressively grown, the deployed hash rates of Iris Energy and Cipher Mining have also more than doubled in the last six months
melhijad/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks
Bitcoin mining giant Marathon Digital has outpaced many of its publicly traded competitors so far this year in terms of hash rate growth, a Blockworks review of production reports indicates.
The Florida-based company has more than doubled its deployed fleet over the last six months.
Marathon had roughly 69,000 operating miners capable of producing about 7 exahashes per second (EH/s) on Jan. 1. Six months later, its fleet numbered 149,900 — yielding an operational hash rate of 17.7 EH/s — Marathon revealed in a July 5 production report.
The company had a goal of reaching 23 EH/s by mid-year, a mark Marathon CEO Fred Thiel said in a statement can be fulfilled via “final steps” at facilities in Ellendale, North Dakota, and Garden City, Texas.
“The final building in Ellendale is expected to come online this month, and final Garden City tie-in is also expected within that same period,” Thiel added.
Read more: Marathon CEO: ‘Diversity in Site Mix’ Is Key to Future Growth
Another company that has more than doubled its hash rate this year is New York-based Cipher Mining, which stood at 6.7 EH/s last month — up from 2.8 EH/s at the end of 2022.
Coming in with a slightly lower hash rate, but with an even higher high growth is Iris Energy, at 5.6 EH/s. The Australia-based company has brought that capacity up more than 250% since December, when it had a hash rate of 1.5 EH/s.
Iris Energy is targeting a data center capacity of 9.1 EH/s by early 2024.
The roughly 150% year-to-date hash rate growth is outpacing other notable public mining companies.
Core Scientific, a Texas-based miner currently navigating bankruptcy, reported a self-mining hash rate of 15 EH/s at the end of June, down from 15.7 EH/s in December.
Riot Platforms — also operating in Texas — reported a deployed hash rate of 10.7 EH/s as of June 30, up from 9.7 EH/s at the end of 2022, a 10% increase.
The company revealed a deal with miner manufacturer MicroBT last month that includes an initial order of 33,280 MicroBT miners for Riot’s Corsicana facility in Texas. Those miners would add roughly 7.6 EH/s to its fleet in mid-2024, according to the company.
Meanwhile Nevada-headquartered CleanSpark’s number of deployed miners increased from 63,700 to 68,678 in the last six months, boosting its hash rate 8% from 6.2 EH/s to 6.7 EH/s over that span.
Though Hut 8 Mining had a hash rate capacity of 2.6 EH/s at the halfway point of 2023 across its Alberta facilities — just a slight increase from 2.5 EH/s six months ago, its upcoming merger with US Bitcoin Corp. may be set to spur quick growth.
The company, which first revealed the combination in February, said it expects to have a hash rate capacity of 7.5 EH/s across facilities in Alberta, New York, Nebraska and Texas post-merger.
Hive Blockchain Technologies, which intends to rebrand as soon as next week as part of a strategic shift to focus more on supporting artificial intelligence (AI) projects, had nearly 2.1 EH/s of hash rate capacity at the end of last year.
The company last reported its hash rate as of May, at which point it stood at about 3.3 EH/s.
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