Another bitcoin miner has gone public in the US

Bitcoin mining company GRIID Infrastructure was set to begin trading in the US market Monday after going public in Canada earlier this month.

The Cincinnati-based firm has a mining facility in New York, as well as three in Tennessee. It made its public markets debut on Cboe Canada on Jan. 2.

GRIID Chief Strategy Officer Harry Sudock said at the time that the company was working to list in the US as well. Now, the company said Monday it was slated to start trading on Nasdaq after merging with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Adit EdTech.

The stock was trading around $7 at 11 am ET Monday, according to Google Finance data — down about 28% from its opening price.

“In the short term, we are focused on growing our capacity and increasing our hash rate,” Sudock told Blockworks earlier this month. “Ultimately, our goal is to continue expanding our power pipeline and leveraging operational excellence to be a leader in both bitcoin mining and energy innovation.”

Founded in 2018, GRIID began operating bitcoin mining facilities the following year. It had 20,623 bitcoin mining machines installed as of Sept. 30, according to a Jan. 9 regulatory filing — giving it a total hash rate of 447 peta hashes per second (PH/s).

The company’s facilities use roughly 67% carbon-free power, it notes — a level GRIID expects to increase to 90% by the end of 2024. Its revenues in the third quarter of 2023 were $2.6 million, bringing its total revenue in last year’s first three quarters to $8 million.

GRIID CEO Trey Kelly said in a statement that the Nasdaq listing “will enhance our visibility, liquidity and broaden our investor base.”

The company’s newest public listing comes after GRIID secured a $525 million credit facility from Blockchain.com in 2021 and subsequently planned to list on the New York Stock Exchange — a move that never came to fruition.

The listing on Nasdaq also takes place before the upcoming bitcoin halving, slated for April. The event marks a reduction of per-block rewards for mining bitcoin from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

Dan Weiskopf, co-portfolio manager of the Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (BLOK), said that capital markets access is critical to growth heading into the halving.

In addition to top crypto holdings such as MicroStrategy and Coinbase, BLOK invests in bitcoin miners Marathon Digital, Riot Platforms, Cleanspark and others.

“We believe that companies in the private market are going to be at a disadvantage, so GRIID’s decision to become public makes sense,” Weiskopf told Blockworks. “For now the information available remains thin, so we are going to be watching on the sidelines as monthly and quarterly data is provided that builds the investor case.”

How new, established public mining stocks are doing

GRIID’s listing comes about nine months after bitcoin miner Bitdeer began trading on Nasdaq last April via a (SPAC) merger with Blue Safari Group Acquisition Corp.

Bitdeer’s stock price is down about 7% so far in 2024 — a trend seen around the mining space.

The stock prices of larger competitors Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms were down about 19% and 25%, respectively, year to date, as of Monday morning.

Core Scientific saw its price plummet when re-listed on the Nasdaq following its exit from bankruptcy.

Hut 8, which merged with US Bitcoin Corp. in November, has seen its stock price decline by about 31% so far in 2024. Rivals Cleanspark and Bitfarms have seen dips amounting to about 20% and 12%, respectively.

Compass Point Research analysts said in a Jan. 19 research note that the decline in hash price from $0.12 to about $0.09 earlier this month contributed to the miner stock sell-off.

“We expect continued volatility and potential weakness as investors price in further hash price declines as a result of the halving that is expected in mid-April, which we think will provide good buying opportunities,” analysts Chase White and Joe Flynn wrote at the time.

Bitcoin (BTC) is down about 3.5% year to date, as the asset’s price has steadily declined following an initial surge after spot bitcoin ETFs began trading on Jan. 11.

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