Iris Energy posts quarterly loss of $144 million

For the fourth quarter of 2022, the mining company Iris Energy mined 722 BTC and recorded a loss of $144 million.

Mining revenue for the period was $13.8 million, down from $16.2 million in the previous quarter. The firm attributed the decline to lower Bitcoin production (780 BTC in the prior quarter) and to the price of the asset.

The losses Iris Energy incurred for the quarter were mainly due to non-cash asset impairments and provisioning for debt repayments. The EBITDA was negative $8 million.

As of December 31, 2022, the company had cash and cash equivalents of $39.4 million and no debt.

In January the firm earned $6 million in revenue from monetising the previously advanced payment under the Bitmain contract.

In February the parties agreed to apply the remaining $67 million advance payment toward purchasing new miners from the manufacturer with a total hashrate of 4.4 EH/s.

The deal will enable Iris Energy to increase its hashrate from 2 EH/s to approximately 5.5 EH/s in the coming months. The company also expects to sell part of the equipment received from Bitmain.

As part of expanding its mining capacity, Iris Energy plans to connect a 600 MW facility in Childress, Texas, to the grid. The first phase of the data centre will be 20 MW. After energisation, the provider AEP Texas will return to the company a deposit of around $18 million.

“The year 2022 was a challenging year for the digital assets industry and for financial markets more broadly. Despite the difficulties, we expanded the capacity of our data centre in British Columbia by more than fivefold, to 160 MW,” said Iris Energy co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts.

In December, the authorities of this Canadian province imposed a moratorium on connecting Bitcoin miners. The decision did not affect existing operators such as Iris Energy or Hut 8.