Riot Blockchain Acquires Whinstone’s Texas Bitcoin Mining Operations

Nasdaq-listed mining company Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ: RIOT) is acquiring Whinstone US, Inc. data center operations in Texas from Northern Data AG.

Riot Blockchain said Thursday it has signed an agreement to acquire the firm's Texas operations for $80 million cash and 11.8 million shares of Riot stock at a total value of $651 million, with the goal of “increasing the American footprint in the global bitcoin mining landscape.”

Acquired in 2019 by Germany’s Northern Data AG, a developer and operator of high-performance computing (“HPC”) infrastructure solutions, Whinstone US operates a high-performance bitcoin mining facility based in Rockdale, Texas, with a 300-megawatt capacity, which can be rapidly expanded by an additional 450 MW, according to Riot Blockchain. 

“Riot will wholly own the largest bitcoin mining facility in North America, with very low power costs, and one of the most talented development teams in the industry, ” said Jason Les, CEO of Riot Blockchain.

Once the deal closes, Northern Data will own 12% of the total outstanding common stock of Riot Blockchain.

“Through its equity stake in Riot, Northern Data will be able to benefit from the synergies generated by the transaction and continues to directly participate in the growth of bitcoin value potential,” said Aroosh Thillainathan, CEO of Northern Data.

“Simultaneously, Northern Data will be able to use the cash proceeds from the transaction to focus on, and further implement, its decentralized, multi-site, scalable and [environmental, social and corporate governance]-focused strategy.” 

On Wednesday, Riot announced it had inked an agreement to purchase 42,000 mining machines from Bitmain Technologies, increasing the firm’s bitcoin mining hashrate by 93%.

At the time of publication Riot Blockchain shares were trading up 3.62% at $50.12 on Thursday.