US Mining Firm Plans to Nearly Double Hash Rate After Halving

U.S.-based mining firm, Riot Blockchain, has more than doubled the number of next-generation Bitcoin (BTC) miners it has purchased, buying 1,040 Antminer S19s from Bitmain on May 6. 

The additional miners cost the firm $1.9 million, following Riot’s purchase of 1,000 S19s Pros, revealed on April 30.

Riot predicts 80% increase in hash rate after deploying S19s

Anticipating that the units will have been shipped and deployed during the third quarter of this year, Riot expects the coming 2,040 S19s will increase its operational hashrate by 80% by 2021.

In total, the Riot predicts that it will command an operating hashrate of 457 petahashes per second while utilizing approximately 16.5 megawatts of electricity after deployment.

A spokesperson representing Bitmain in North American stated that the firm “has been working with Riot Blockchain for several years,” with Riot “using [Bitmain’s] Antminer products for operating their data centers.”

S17 failures cast a dark cloud over S19 launch

Riot’s near-multi-million dollar purchase from Bitmain came on the same day that the ASIC manufacturer acknowledged having problems with a recently shipped batch of S17s — with miners reporting failure rates as high as 30% among the units.

The company told Cointelegraph that it is currently in negotiating solutions with customers who have purchased defective units, encouraging affected users to contact it directly.

Riot partially relocated due to pandemic 

After reporting that the COVID-19 outbreak had impacted the business activities at its facility in Oklahoma, Riot Blockchain relocated a portion of its recently purchased S17 miners to a facility operated by mining firm, Coinmint, in New York during April.

Last week, a New Jersey judge granted seven motions of dismissal ending a two-year lawsuit against Riot Blockchain alleging that the firm misled its shareholders at the start of 2018.