This week, the Nasdaq-listed bitcoin miner Iris Energy Limited announced it has boosted its hashrate to 9 exahash per second (EH/s) and aims to reach 10 EH/s in the coming month. This development follows the network’s fourth halving and occurs amid a period when Bitcoin’s hashprice has significantly declined, exerting intense pressure on BTC mining operations.
Iris Energy Gears Up for Expansion, Projecting 50 MW Capacity Boost
Iris Energy Limited (Nasdaq: IREN) recently disclosed that it has elevated its total hashrate to 9 exahash per second (EH/s). The company anticipates achieving 10 EH/s by May and projects an expansion to 20 EH/s by year’s end. Additionally, Iris is poised to enhance its fleet’s nameplate efficiency to 21.9 joules per terahash (J/T).
Iris, along with several other publicly listed mining firms, has been acquiring new mining machines from producers of application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) mining rigs, which now feature devices with significantly lower J/T efficiency than earlier models. In October 2023, Iris invested $19.6 million in S21 Bitmain brand Antminers and added 7,000 T21 Antminers in November. The following month, the company secured an additional 8,380 T21 Antminers.
Currently, miners are navigating challenging times, as they previously earned over $100 per petahash per second (PH/s) per day before reaching block height 840,000, commonly referred to as the halving. As of now, the hashprice, or the anticipated value of 1 PH/s per day, has dropped to $48.62 per petahash. To mitigate some of their losses, mining companies such as Iris have branched out to provide artificial intelligence (AI) computing data alongside their mining operations.
Iris also revealed plans to increase its capacity by an additional 50 megawatts (MW) upon completing Childress Phase 3 within this year. This expansion will boost the firm’s data center capacity from 460 MW to 510 MW by the end of 2024. The upcoming 50 MW increase is partly due to a new substation design, coupled with continuous enhancements and efficiencies in the company’s construction and procurement processes.
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