Crypto miners continue ‘sprint’ for hash rate in lead-up to halving

Riot Platforms bought 31,500 more mining machines while CleanSpark has begun operating in Mississippi

article-image

Mark Agnor/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

Bitcoin mining giant Riot Platforms has bought more mining machines, while rival CleanSpark has closed its acquisition of three new facilities.

These moves by crypto miners are just the latest efforts aimed at boosting hash rate and optimizing efficiency as segment players prepare for the bitcoin halving. 

Riot Platforms bought 31,500 more miners from MicroBT for 97.4 million. The purchase is set to up the company’s self-mining hash rate capacity at its facility in Rockdale, TX from 12.4 exahashes per second (EH/s) to 15.1 EH/s by the end of July.

Read more: How the halving could impact bitcoin’s price

The buy of M60S air-coolers machines comes as the company has identified “under-performing” miners Riot CEO Jason Les said in a Tuesday statement. Riot is set to replace 17,000 miners in the Rockdale facility in total, while adding 14,500 more.

Securing newer and more-efficient mining machines has been a key focus for larger mining firms ahead of the “disruptive” halving event, said Louise Abbott, a crypto-focused partner at Keystone Law.

“Many factors will contribute to the success of bitcoin miners, such as who has the lowest energy costs and the most efficient equipment,” Abbott told Blockworks. “The crypto industry is very much ‘dog eat dog,’ and the lead-up and aftermath of the halving will be no different.” 

The company’s new hash rate target by the end of 2024 is 31 EH/s as it seeks to also continue building out its facility in Corsicana, TX.  

The move comes after Riot revealed in December that the company had purchased 66,000 mining machines for $290.5 million. It noted that it had the option to buy 265,000 more MicroBT miners on the same terms in a deal that could help it surpass a hash rate of 100 EH/s in the long term.

Read more: Crypto miners keep busy ahead of halving with accelerated machine buys

Las Vegas-based competitor CleanSpark is also moving ahead with its hash rate expansion plans, noting Tuesday that its acquisition of three data centers in Mississippi was complete. 

The purchases — as part of a $19.8 million cash deal — were set to expand CleanSpark’s operating hash rate by roughly 2.4 EH/s, the company said earlier this month.

“The teams have already racked miners, sending our fleetwide hashrate to over 15 EH/s, and we are hard at work as we sprint to add more hash rate as quickly as possible,” CleanSpark CEO Zach Bradford said in a statement. 

Miner moves to increase hash rate and miner efficiency comes ahead of the next bitcoin halving, slated for April

At that time, per-block rewards will drop from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, putting financial stress on miners. 

Galaxy Digital analysts said in a Feb. 12 report that up to 20% of network hash rate from eight mining models could go offline after the halving due to the machines no longer being profitable. 


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template (10).png

Research

Innovations on Aptos’ technical design through Raptr, Shardines, and Zaptos approach near-optimal latency and throughput by unlocking 100% utilization of network resources, with the capacity to settle 260k transactions per second with latencies less than 800ms. The original Move language was revamped with the launch of Move 2, supporting more expressivity in smart contract logic and a scalable ability to interact with high volume datasets. The ecosystem has benefitted from strong asset inflows, now hosting over $1.3B in stablecoins, $450M in bridged BTC, and $530M in RWAs. Activity in the Aptos ecosystem has grown notably over the past year, with monthly application revenue reaching ~$835k and monthly DEX volumes growing to over $5B, both at new all time highs.

article-image

Interchain Labs will focus on sovereign L1s and institutional demand, abandoning plans for smart contracts on the Cosmos Hub

article-image

Also, only three tokens have outperformed bitcoin so far this year: XMR, HYPE and SKY

article-image

The fund group has submitted proposals in recent months for other funds that would hold litecoin, solana, XRP, HBAR, Sui and others

article-image

Momentum’s back — BTC leads, risk assets follow

article-image

Ondo Finance’s acquisition of blockchain development company Strangelove follows its buy of Oasis Pro

article-image

Cryptocurrency and stock traders alike had a lot to unpack Wednesday