Bitcoin is back and still trading in the 40-thousand dollar range.
Hut 8 Mining Corp. (HUT) (
TSX.HUT,
NASDAQ: HUT,
OTCMKTS: HUTWF,
Forum) is a global industry leader in digital asset mining and one of the crypto space’s true pioneers. The company’s mantra is “Innovative mining, high performance computing, and cash flow businesses built on bitcoin & blockchain technology.”
Stockhouse Media’s Dave Jackson was joined by company CEO, Jaime Leverton, to get investors up-to-date on all things Hut 8.
(CLICK IMAGE TO PLAY VIDEO)
SH: To start off with, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, the history of the company, and the etymology of the name ‘Hut 8’?
JL: Well Hut 8, to start with the last part of your question first is a reference back to Bletchley park where cryptography was largely credited to be born. So obviously a bit of a homage to what we're doing in the digital asset mining space.We are one of the oldest and largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies.and recently we have diversified over the next few weeks, we will start mining Ethereum as well. We trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange. We're headquartered in Toronto, all of our operations. We've got 109 megawatts actively under production and expansion underway all in the province of Alberta and we recently listed on the Nasdaq, as well.
SH: Back in 2018, when I first wrote about Hut 8 and the crypto industry in general, I mentioned that – ironically – it takes a lot of hard cash to create an invisible currency. Does this still hold true today and, if so, why?
JL: Yeah, absolutely it's a capital intensive industry. The largest operating expense is the cost of power because for Bitcoin mining, we depend on proof of work and that requires a lot of power that goes into really ultimately securing the Bitcoin network which is so important. Then from a capital expense perspectivethat's really about the infrastructure. You can see some of our data center assets behind me here as well as the mining hardware itself that we need to make sure we we're constantly investing in the latest generation technology to drive the most efficiency and output in the digital assets that we mine.
SH: Jaime, you just released a corporate update following your recent round of financing and other corporate initiatives. Can you expand on some of this for our investor audience?
JL: We've talked about the investments that we continue to make in our hardware infrastructure, and we recently announced to be a purchase of just over an exahash of new mining equipment coming in later this year from our partner Michael Beatty. We have also announced that we are expanding our power infrastructure, starting with an additional 35 megawatts later this year and then growing that out to approximately 100 megawatts over the next 12 months. We've also recently announced that we're moving into the mining of a Ethereum with a significant investment in mining equipment from Nvidia and our partner Dell for the chassis that support those graphics cards. So certainlya lot underway for us here at Hut 8.
SH: The Company looks set for strong growth in 2021 and recently received approval to trade on the Nasdaq. That’s no mean feat! How are you placed to expand operations to meet demand?
JL: So I've talked about our expansion of power. We are building a third site. We are really excited to start to mine using GPU's as well as ASIC, which has been the traditional computer that that we mine how dates uniquely differentiated in this space, as well in that we run our own operations. So it's all Hut 8 staff that runs our data centers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We do onsite repair and maintenance of our equipment. We also have a hosting side to our business, so we do host strategic partners in this space as well, and I should also mention we are very proud to have the largest balance of self mined Bitcoin of any publicly traded company in the world and through partnerships with Genesis and Galaxy, we actually are also able to earn a yield revenue from a portion of that Bitcoin balance, which again, uniquely differentiates us in this space.
SH: You’ve also just announced Hut 8 has bought 12-thousand new Micro BT Miners for deployment by end of Q4 2021. What are Micro BT Miners and what’s the end game here with the purchase?
JL: They are ASIC miners. So it's a computer that is purpose-built to min eBitcoin. So really, the latest generation as far as productivity and efficiency that we're bringing in and ultimately that will bring our fleet by the end of this year, we're expecting our fleet to be over 2.5 EH/s of Bitcoin when mining hash power in production. So really continuing to keep usin the top,of the group,as far as one of the largest publicly traded miners in the space and then again,over and above that we do have the Ethereum mining business that starts later in August, as well as the opportunity to earn revenuefrom our hosting line and also the yield revenues from our big window.
SH: For company shareholders and potential investors, what kind of future development and progress can we expect at your crypto mining facilities?
JL: Well the two sites that we have in production today are fully maxed out. So we've expanded to as much power as we can take down at both of those sites maxing out at 109 megawatts. So that's why we'rebuilding a third site and we do have our eyes on continued expansion. We're very blessed to be in the province of Alberta, which is a very energy-rich province. So it gives us the opportunity for further expansion going forward as well and of course we're always looking at opportunities for further expansion globally if the time is right and we find somethingthat makes sense. We're very much open to further expansion in lots of different areas.
SH: I have to mention your stock has had a very nice bump over the last 12 months…nearly quadrupling in value since then with a robust market cap of about 750-million dollars….wait…890 million as I check your chart right now! What can you tell our investor audience regarding the current valuation of your stock and why you think it’s still a good buy right now?
JL: So I think this space is still very early. I think investors are starting to pay more attention and get educated on this space and really start to learn why it makes sense to invest in a cryptocurrency miner or a digital asset minor and how we differentiate from others in this space. I think for us it was certainly an important milestone for the company to start trading on the Nasdaq and to get that visibility to institutions and a larger audience that otherwise probably wasn't aware of our story. So we're really focused on getting our story out there. We think we are uniquely differentiated in this space again by having the diversification that we do coming online with diversification of mining but then also with our hosting and yield programs as well. So we think that we definitely think we're unique. We think we're new to many audiences with the Nasdaq listing and we're just really excited to tell the story.
SH: Jaime, what’s the long-term strategy for the company moving into 2021 and beyond, and what retail, private equity, and institutional investors should be looking out for?
JL: Honestly, I think I've covered it. We're incredibly transparent. We try to be really active in our communications and social; we try to make ourselves available to investors for any questions they have or education they might need as they start coming into this space. So I think first and foremostwe want peoplet o get to know us and to know that we're here and to listen to our story andto really start to think about well I know one of the things I started to think about I'm from the more traditional technology industry and the data center space in particular. When I took over the helm here at Hut 8 Mining it seems to me there are so many parallels between the traditional data center world and the digital asset mining world, and I think we're going to see a lot more convergence between the worldas we go forward in this industry becomes more widely known and less nascent. So I think there's a lot of exciting things that we'll continue to see coming out of this space and I'm really proud to be one of the leaders on the forefront.
SH: Can you tell our audience a little bit about your corporate management and board teams, along with the experience and innovative ideas they bring to the crypto mining space?
JL: Absolutely. So we definitely have a unique leadership team. As far as what we've built out over the last eight months since I took over the helm, we've got an incredible head of technology, who's got a deep background in both the traditional tech space as well as digital asset mining. So he's always got something up his sleeve that he's bringing to the table which is awesome. We have a new CFO who's got a strong background on the M&A side of the house. We've got a general counsel head of regulatory, who has spent many years in the blockchain space and knows the industry incredibly well...we are really, proud of that. We've got a head of IR who -- many of you I'm sure have already interacted with if you've been following Hut 8 at all -- Sue Ennis.Our operations team is led by James Creswell who is absolutely incredible in the field. We have got a great head of HR. We're one of the few if not the only miners that has a Head of Sustainability. So we are really focused on how we look at our governance and our interactions with the environment, with society as a whole, and really looking to build out a robust framework in that area.
From a board perspective we're incredibly blessed to have Bill Tai as the Chairman of our Board. He's very well known in the venture cap space in California. We've got Joe Flinn who has of our audit committee's been with us for a number of years and Jeremy Sewell who also has been with us for a number of years and then we've newly welcomed Alexia Hefti to the board who actually started the blockchain tax practice at Deloitte many years ago so deep in this space. We're proud that we have we've got 40% representation of women on our board. We've got 50% of our leadership team is diverse. So we think we're building a really unique team in this space that is really just getting warmed up as far as what we think we're capable of.
SH: And finally, Jaime, if there’s anything I’ve overlooked please feel free to elaborate. The floor is all yours.
JL: Dave, I think you've asked me everything. I can't think of anything we haven't covered. And again, I'll just reiterate, we're always open and available to anybody that has questions or wants to learn more. Please don't hesitate to reach out either to myself directly on LinkedIn, Twitter, or our website. We are launching a brand new website later in August. So please stay tuned for that. I'm super excited about that and then of course, through our head of IR, always available and active on all channels for anybody that needs anything at all.
For regular updates, visit
hut8mining.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.