The phone just won’t stop ringing, beams Zach Bradford, the CEO of Bitcoin mining company CleanSpark. The calls are from other mining bosses—and they’re panicking. After Bitcoin crashed and energy costs spiraled over the summer, mining firms that took out expensive short-term loans to buy hardware during the bull run now teeter on bankruptcy. Lenders are breathing down their necks, and the miners need quick cash. But only a handful of companies are buying mining rigs these days—and Bradford’s CleanSpark, which only took on a small amount of debt during the bull run, is one of them.
Having always sold 70% of the Bitcoin it mined using mostly cheap nuclear energy, CleanSpark is in the enviable position of being rich enough to swoop in to buy box-fresh, top-of-the-line machines from near-bankrupt miners at sensible prices. At the start of the month, CleanSpark spent $5.9 million on 3,843 miners that Bradford says cost about $1,500 each—down from $13,000 last November during peak Bitcoin mania. Crypto finance giant Grayscale also had hopes of buying miners on the cheap but then pulled back amid economic troubles at its parent company, while Bitdeer set up a $250 million fund to exploit the crisis.
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