coincodex.com
Key highlights:
- Crypto mining firm Core Scientific sold 7,202 BTC in June for a total of around $167 million
- This represented the majority of the company's Bitcoin holdings, as Core Scientific held 1,959 as of June 30
- The company says it sold the Bitcoin to pay for ASIC servers, make capital investments, and repay debt
Core Scientific sold off the majority of its BTC holdings in June
Cryptocurrency mining and blockchain infrastructure company Core Scientific sold 7,202 BTC in June for a total of $167 million. This represented the majority of the company’s Bitcoin holdings, as Core Scientific held “just” 1,959 BTC on June 30.
According to a statement from Core Scientific, it used the proceeds from the sale of its Bitcoin holdings to pay for ASIC servers, make capital investments, and repay debt. Core Scientific plans to continue selling the BTC it mines “to pay operating expenses, fund growth, retire debt and maintain liquidity”.
Here’s what Core Scientific CEO Mike Levitt had to say about the company’s moves in June:
“We are working to strengthen our balance sheet and enhance liquidity to meet this challenging environment, and continue to believe that we will be operating in excess of 30 EH/s in our data centers by year end 2022. We remain focused on executing our plan, while taking advantage of distressed opportunities that may arise.”
Other cryptocurrency miners also had to sell off some of their BTC reserves recently. According to an Arcane Research report, Marathon Digital and Riot Blockchain sold more BTC than they produced in May. In June, Bitfarms announced that it sold 3,000 BTC for approximately $62 million.
The selling by miners created additional selling pressure in the market for BTC, which has been struggling as of late. After stagnating between $28,500 and $32,000 for the majority of May, the price of Bitcoin crashed in June to levels below $20,000.
Core Scientific trades publicly on the NASDAQ stock exchange. As is the case with most publicly-traded companies in the cryptocurrency industry, Core Scientific’s stock has taken a massive hit this year. Since January 1, the company’s stock is down 83.6%. According to Yahoo Finance data, Core Scientific currently has a market capitalization of about $556 million.
Core Scientific says it mined 1,106 BTC in June and increased its daily production from 34.8 BTC to 39.8 BTC thanks to additional server deployments during the month.