Argo Blockchain cuts Bitcoin production by 25%

In May, the British mining company Argo Blockchain mined 124 BTC. This was 25.3% lower than the previous month.

May Operational Update: https://t.co/PHJASeTPMh

-Mined 124 BTC or BTC Equiv
-Mining rev was £3.1m ($3.9m) with mining margin of 62%
-Month-end, we held 2379 BTC & BTC Equiv (187 BTC Equiv)
-Agreement for custom mining rigs from @ePICBlockchain using @Intel’s chips#ARB $ARBK

— Argo (@ArgoBlockchain) June 7, 2022

The production decline was explained by several factors:

• rise in mining difficulty;
• voluntary reduction in energy consumption at the Helios facility in Texas due to higher tariffs;
• unplanned downtime during ramp-up of the facility;
• for the hashrate in Terra Pool, the company mined fewer Bitcoins than in April, due to probabilistic results.

“You are taking on risk. In the past we were very lucky, and this month not so much. We had a couple of dry spells when we mined not many blocks,” commented Argo CEO Peter Wall.

According to him, the company is exploring alternative options to secure a guaranteed reward for its share of hashrate, rather than based on blocks found, as with Terra.

Argo’s May mining revenue amounted to £3.07 million, down from £5.52 million in April. Profitability fell from 75% to 62%, due to lower production and a drop in Bitcoin’s price.

As of 31 May, the firm held 2,379 BTC.

In May, Argo officially began mining at the Helios data centre. During the month the company deployed 2,500 Antminer S19J Pro units, received from Core Scientific under an equipment-swap agreement.

The firm also began installing similar devices on the site, supplied by Bitmain under a contract signed in September 2021. This allowed the hashrate to rise by 300 PH/s to 1.9 EH/s by month-end.

The Chinese manufacturer will complete delivery of all 20,000 miners under the agreement by October 2022 — roughly 3,000 units per month.

Argo also signed a contract with ePIC Blockchain Technologies to buy 6,600 custom Bitcoin miners based on Blockscale ASIC chips from Intel. The supply agreement with the American chipmaker was signed earlier this year.

The contract with ePIC envisages the possibility of additional orders up to 23,400 devices. The miners are optimised for operation at Helios, where immersion cooling is used to extend lifespan and efficiency.

In May, Argo reached an agreement with NYDIG’s subsidiary to provide a loan of $70.6 million for the purchase of equipment for a mining operation in Texas.