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downloadCelsius Network has invested another $300 million in Bitcoin mining.
Celsius expands its involvement in Bitcoin mining
This was revealed by the company’s CEO, Alex Mashinsky, stating that the investment aims to expand their hashrate in the Bitcoin network. Mashinsky also revealed that until the end of next year they will continue to increase their hashrate.
They had previously invested $200 million earlier this year in both mining equipment and shares in companies such as Bitcoin Core Scientific, Rhodium Enterprises and Luxor Technologies.
Celsius Network is primarily focused on cryptocurrency lending, but with these investments, it could become one of the largest Bitcoin mining companies in North America. It is currently estimated to have total assets of around $28 billion.
The investments of Celsius
Celsius announced in October that it had raised a total of $400 million in funding through a round led by WestCap.
According to the CEO, the company now owns 22,000 ASICs, most of which are the latest generation (AntMiner S19). At the beginning of November, it also announced that it had ordered new, even more advanced machines, namely Bitmain’s AntMiner S19XP with a computing power of 140 TH/s. These are individual machines that are able to process 140 trillion hashes in a single second.
It is no coincidence that these investments have been made this year, and may well go on into next year. On the one hand, the price of BTC has risen dramatically over the past 12 months, boosting mining profitability, while on the other, the Chinese miners who dominated this market until a few months ago have disappeared.
Crypto mining and lending
In particular, Celsius will also use mined BTC in its lending business, as it also pays interest denominated in BTC.
The company has already been lending funds to mining companies for some time and also provides them with other services, such as returns on Bitcoin loans.
The cryptocurrency lending market is still growing, not least because many holders prefer not to sell their cryptocurrencies by holding them in their wallets, and perhaps monetize them by lending them for interest. With this in mind, crypto lending companies are on the rise, and in the specific case of Celsius, they are choosing to differentiate by also dealing with other activities.
On the other hand, mainly due to the Chinese ban, the overall hashrate of Bitcoin mining has not been setting new records for a few months now, despite the significant increase in the value of BTC. However, the hashrate often grows much later than the price of Bitcoin, because mining requires a lot of resources and effort.