April 2022 update HIVE Blockchain Provides April 2022 Production Update
This news release constitutes a "designated news release" for the purposes of the Company's prospectus supplement dated February 2, 2021 to its amended and restated short form base shelf prospectus dated January 4, 2022.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - May 4, 2022) - HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (TSX.V:HIVE) (Nasdaq:HIVE) (FSE:HBF) (the "Company" or "HIVE") is pleased to announce the production figures from the Company's global Bitcoin and Ethereum mining operations for the month of April 2022, with a BTC HODL balance of 2,832 Bitcoin and 15,914 Ethereum as of May 2, 2022. In addition, the Company is providing an update on our continued operational scaling with renewable green energy.
April 2022 Production Figures
HIVE is pleased to announce its April 2022 production figures and mining capacity:
268.8 BTC Produced
2.0 Exahash of Bitcoin mining capacity at beginning of April
Increased to 2.15 Exahash of Bitcoin mining capacity at end of April
2,537 ETH Produced*
6.1 Terahash of Ethereum mining capacity at beginning of April
Increased to 6.26 Terahash of Ethereum mining capacity at end of April
*The Company's production of ETH from GPU mining (including selective optimizations of GPU hashrate) has yielded a total ETH production of 2,537 ETH.
Frank Holmes, Executive Chairman of HIVE stated "We are very pleased to report HIVE has continued its strong momentum in hashing power expansion, notably our Bitcoin mining hash power grew by 8% this month, through ongoing optimizations and electrical upgrades. In April we produced an average of 9.0 BTC per day, and we are pleased to note that as of today, we are producing approximately 9.2 BTC a day even after the recent difficulty increase of 5.5%."
Aydin Kilic, President & COO of HIVE noted "We continue to strive for operational excellence, ensuring that as we scale our hashrate as a company we also optimize our uptime, to ensure ideal Bitcoin and Ethereum output figures. Mr. Kilic continued, "We also would like to provide an update on the BTC and ETH equivalency, where one can equate value of the coins produced daily. As such the ETH that HIVE produced during the month of April, calculated on a daily basis, is approximately equal a monthly total of 189.5 BTC, which we refer to as Bitcoin equivalent or BTC equivalent. This is in addition to the 268.8 BTC produced from our Bitcoin mining operations during April, for a total of 458.3 Bitcoin equivalent"
The Company's total Bitcoin equivalent production in April 2022 was:
458.3 BTC Equivalent Produced
15.3 BTC Equivalent produced per day on average
3.4 Exahash of BTC Equivalent Hashrate (BTC hashrate plus equivalent ETH Hashrate as of April 30)
Successful Green Energy Scaling Through Supply Disruptions
HIVE is pleased to provide a market update on the Company's growth plans for the year ahead. The Company will be at 6.2 Exahash BTC equivalent hashrate in one year, based on contracted monthly deliveries of ASIC and GPU hardware (with deposits in place), up from 3.4 Exahash of BTC equivalent hashrate today.
The Company has been consistently receiving ASIC and GPU deliveries monthly and is hopeful this to continue on schedule. However the supply chain challenges that have faced the world for the past 2 years has not ended, with lockdowns continuing to take place in China which is a source of a great deal of the world's manufacturing. HIVE has carefully endeavoured to balance sustainable growth of its data center infrastructure to optimize the incoming ASIC and GPU hardware orders, so that we have maximum operating hashrate, and the best efficiency in Bitcoin per Exahash amongst industry peers.
The crypto mining industry in general appears to find itself at a crossroads with a supply of very expensive ASIC chips and no few places to plug them in. Moreover, new market entrants racing to secure a position in the Bitcoin mining ecosystem contend with a current payback of buying ASIC chips at current retail prices from Chinese manufacturers with close to a 2-year ROI. Only a year ago, the experience was one where it was only a 6 to 9 month payback on capital. This is a result of the disproportionately high $ per Terahash ($/TH) retail prices from Chinese manufacturers, relative to current hashrate economics. Securing hardware at an attractive $/TH price, is key to generating a strong return on invested capital (ROIC). Whereas HIVE's deal with Intel is much more attractive in ROIC, which the Company has studied in comparison to market offers from other Bitcoin ASIC miner suppliers.
HIVE is resolute in cautiously and strategically building our BTC production to generate the highest ROIC for our shareholders. Over the past year our production of BTC has grown substantially and we are now at 1% of the global network while our profitable ETH production has increased over the past 4 months. The current daily revenue generated from coin production is approximately US$600.000 per day.
As it pertains to rapidly scaling, HIVE has endeavoured to first find sources of renewable green energy before buying large allocations of GPUs or ASIC miners in an effort to maximize our efficiencies and generate robust returns on invested capital. In our market intelligence, the Company has noticed significant supply disruptions for electrical equipment needed to make data centers, such as transformers and switch gear. Striving to scale large production has run into many roadblocks due to these supply line issues. Our research from China with over 30 cities locked down has created an epic traffic jam of empty ships waiting to pick up manufactured products in ports along the China coast. This is impacting their whole manufacturing sector, as well as other industries which rely on these suppliers. We are closely monitoring the trade off between risks of not receiving needed electrical and hardware for building data centers and Bitcoin mining machines. Our treasury of Bitcoin and Ethereum mined with green energy is currently valued at approximately US$150 million.
Network Mining Difficulty
The Bitcoin network difficulty increased as much as 5.5% and similarly the Ethereum network difficulty increased as much as 5% during the month of April. These factors impact our gross profit margins.