CleanSpark Inc., the third largest public Bitcoin mining company by hashrate, has agreed to purchase up to 160,000 Bitmain S21 miners, according to a Jan. 8 announcement.

The move could propel its hashrate to an impressive 50 EH/s over the coming year, marking a substantial leap from its current 10 EH/s.

Bitcoin hit a record high in mining difficulty to kick off the year and, with the halving only months away, miners are starting to ramp up their operational expansion efforts.

Fixed-rate deal

The deal involves an initial investment of $193.2 million for 60,000 units and a strategic option to acquire an additional 100,000 miners at a fixed rate of $18/TH/s over the next 12 months. The deal is a hedge against fluctuating prices once the halving kicks in.

Historically, Bitcoin’s price has shown a tendency to surge following its halving events — a feature built into its protocol to reduce the reward for mining new blocks by half, thereby slowing down the creation of new Bitcoins. CleanSpark’s investment is a strategic move to capitalize on this potential upswing.

CleanSpark CEO Zach Bradford said the purchase was a strategic decision to prepare for the next halving and ensure long-term, sustainable growth in an increasingly competitive industry. He added that the move highlights the company’s continued belief in Bitcoin. Bradford said:

“This is more than growth; it’s about ensuring operational efficiency and embracing market opportunities.”

CleanSpark’s operations, primarily powered by low-carbon power sources, reflect a growing trend in the cryptocurrency mining industry, where there is an increasing focus on sustainability and energy efficiency.

The Halving effect

Miners have been factoring in the halving into their projections for years, acknowledging its inevitability and preparing accordingly. The focus is on enhancing operational efficiency and securing economic incentives to continue supporting the Bitcoin blockchain.

This preparation is critical, especially for smaller miners who might struggle with profitability due to higher operational costs and less efficient equipment. The halving’s impact depends largely on Bitcoin’s market price. A higher Bitcoin price can offset the reduced block rewards, maintaining or even increasing overall mining profitability.

However, if the price remains low, the reduced rewards might push some miners, especially those with higher electricity costs and less efficient rigs, out of the network. This potential fluctuation in the number of active miners could lead to a temporary dip in the network’s mining difficulty, making mining slightly easier and more profitable for those who remain active.

There’s also a growing interest in alternative revenue streams, such as Bitcoin Ordinals, which have driven transaction fees within the Bitcoin network to new heights. These Ordinals, essentially metadata attached to each satoshi, create unique assets on the Bitcoin blockchain and have opened up new income opportunities for miners.

Crypto exchange dYdX has published the open source code for its new Cosmos-based network of the same name, according to an October 23 blog post. The new code includes the “protocol, order book, front-end, and more,” the post stated. The publication of the code is intended to pave the way for a mainnet launch, which is being organized by the dYdX Decentralized Autonomous Organization (dYdXDAO) SubDAO on Operations.

1/ It’s finally here

Today, we’re proud to present and fully open-source the completed dYdX Chain!

This is the next chapter for dYdX and we’re so excited that it’s here.

Let’s get into the details:https://t.co/ydil2jkqJs

— dYdX (@dYdX) October 24, 2023

DYdX is one of the largest non-custodial cryptocurrency exchanges, with over $2.6 billion in daily trading volume, according to Coingecko. However, it relies on a centralized order book to match traders with market makers. Because of this order book, it’s sometimes regarded as not being truly decentralized. 

The dYdX team has been trying to create a new Cosmos-based dYdX chain they say will allow them to decentralize the exchange’s order book, taking the protocol out of the hands of the development team and making it truly decentralized. They launched a testnet of the new network on July 5. DYdX currently runs on StarkEx, a layer-2 of Ethereum.

Related: Evmos, Swing, Tashi, Wormhole team up to solve Cosmos’ liquidity issues

According to the October 23 post, the new code will allow the dYdX infrastructure to “run globally by DeFi [decentralized finance] enthusiasts.” Once the mainnet launch is complete, the dYdX development team “will not run any part of the infrastructure behind any deployment of the new dYdX Chain.” The team did not state an official launch date for mainnet. Instead, it stated that readers should “check out the blog post from the dYdX Operations subDAO” to learn more.

In an October 4 post, the dYdX Operations subDAO proposed a phased mainnet launch. The proposed alpha phase will allow token holders to stake their tokens and earn staking rewards, but trading will not be possible. The beta phase will enable trading and allow further testing to occur. The post does not state a launch date for either phase.