Bitcoin Miner Iris Energy’s Monthly Revenue Fell 10% in November on Higher Difficulty

Iris Energy (IREN), a Sydney-based company that mines bitcoin primarily with renewable energy, said its monthly revenue and number of bitcoin mined fell in November, mainly due to timing issues and an increase in network difficulty, according to a statement.

• “Revenue per bitcoin mined increased by 1%, with revenue down 10% from October 2021 primarily due to one less day in the period combined with an increase in the network difficulty (average implied global hashrate increased from 142 EH/s to 159 EH/s),” the company said.
• Mining revenue in November was $6.59 million, falling 10% from $7.34 million in October. Iris mined 113 bitcoins in November, an 11% decline from 127 bitcoins in the previous month.
• The company also noted that its operational performance “remained strong” during November as the miner continued to ramp up its mining power. However, the performance was slightly impacted at the end of the month due to a scheduled outage and firmware updates on some of the miners.
• Iris remains on track to be one of the top miners with a goal to have hashrate of 15.2 exahash per second (EH/s) by 2023. It currently has miners with 0.7 EH/s operating, 0.8 EH/s will be shipped by the end of this month, 5.7 EH/s will be shipped in 2022 and 8 EH/s in 2023.
• Iris Energy went public on Nov. 17, after raising $232 million through an IPO. The stock has tumbled 37% since its debut. The shares fell about 6% on Thursday, along with those of other crypto miners, as bitcoin prices fell.