Canada-headquartered bitcoin mining firm Bitfarms is expanding to the U.S. with an imminent plan to deploy 600 PH/s of hashrate in Pennsylvania.
The company said in an announcement on Thursday that it has entered into an agreement with an unidentified counterparty to develop up to 120 megawatts of power capacity and lease a site in Sharon, Pennsylvania, tapping into the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection (PJM) energy market.
The construction at the site will start immediately after closing the deal. “The existing structure will be retrofitted with the expectation of bringing 12 MW online in Q4 2024 and the remaining load online in the second half of 2025,” Bitfarms said in the release.
Bitfarms added that the transaction will be paid by the issuance of 1.53 million shares of the company, worth around $3.6 million. That implies a cost of about $300,000 per MW for the existing 12 MW of capacity. The deal also includes a five-year lease in an industrialized area in Sharon, including an 11,200 square feet warehouse with the option to renew for a total of 17 years and purchase at fair market value throughout the lease term.
“With the site’s ability to support 8 EH/s, alongside our recent acquisition of an additional 100 MW in Paraguay, we project 2025 guidance of over 35 EH/s,” Bitfarms’ chairman and interim CEO Nicolas Bonta said in the release.
While Bitfarms did not specify the counterparty of the transaction, it is worth noting that Mawson Infrastructure (Nasdaq: MIGI) announced in February 2023 that it was breaking ground in Sharon, Pennsylvania. “The first stage of 12 MW is scheduled to be energized in early Q2, 2023. The balance of the 120 MW capacity will come online incrementally through 2023 and early 2024,” Mawson indicated at the time. However, on February 2, 2024, Mawson terminated the lease for a non-operating property in Sharon and exited the facility, according to Mawson’s filing in Q1.
Bitfarms’ expansion to Pennsylvania comes at a time when its Texas rival Riot Platforms is planning a “hostile takeover” with the acquisition of over 13% of Bitfarms’ issued and outstanding shares from the open market.
“We are confident that Sharon and other similar prospective PJM sites will provide long-term access to low-cost U.S. energy and flexible power trading options. Additionally, these locations boast milder temperatures and climates than Texas,” Bitfarms’ senior vice president of corporate development was quoted as saying in the release.