decrypt.co
Bitcoin miner Bitfarms has hit a new milestone after growing operations in Argentina, the company said in an announcement to investors.
On Thursday, the group hit a hashrate of 5 exahash per second (EH/s), meaning 5 quintillion hashes per second were achieved.
The all-time high was attributed to the expansion of production at its farm in Argentina, which was first fired up last year.
The facility, in Rio Cuarto, immediately boosted Bitfarms’s hashrate to 4.1 EH/s from 3.9 when it went live in September.
This has continued to increase, as the business takes advantage of low energy costs in the region.
The most recent increase came as 2,100 new miners were energized earlier this week, while some existing miners who had been “underclocked” were brought to full capacity.
“This exciting moment reflects our team’s hard work over the last two years resulting in our largest, most advanced, and lowest cost facility,” said Geoff Morphy, CEO of Bitfarms.
He added that the business is now targeting a hashrate of 6 EH/s by the end of the year, as it takes advantage of further expansion opportunities.
Argentina expansion plans
The company has already purchased another 6,200 new Bitmain and MicroBT miners, which chief mining officer Ben Gagnon said earlier this week would shortly be in transit and should bring the business’s total hashrate to 5.7 EH/s once activated.
Even more orders for new equipment are currently in the works.
Energy costs for the site are currently expected to be below $0.03 per KWh, Bitfarms CFO Jeff Lucas explained, giving Bitfarms a “best-in-class average cost of Bitcoin mined.”
Bitfarms, which is listed on both the Nasdaq and the Toronto Stock Exchange, has a total of 10 mining facilities across Canada, the U.S., Paraguay, and Argentina.
While the company uses hydroelectric power to mine Bitcoin at its other sites, the Argentina location uses natural gas.
The Argentina project was first announced in April 2021, with the initial contract due to last for eight years.