Crypto Mining Hosting Firm Applied Blockchain Adds $15M Loan to Pay Off Debt, Fund Growth

Bitcoin mining hosting company Applied Blockchain (APLD) has secured a $15 million loan to pay off its existing debt and fund the buildout of data centers.

The loan, which was granted by a North Dakota bank, is expected to have an interest rate of 1.5% for the first 13 months after including "state-based economic incentives" and 6.5% for the remainder of the term, according to a company press release on Friday.

Debt has been a sore spot for some crypto miners, some of which have faced margin calls on their loans as the value of their collateral, usually bitcoin or equipment, has diminished during the past few months' market rout. Given the capital-heavy nature of the mining business, however, raising funds through debt has been one of the few ways miners have been able to build during the bear market.

“The new credit facility doubles our loan-to-value on our Jamestown facility and provides us with additional capital to fund our growth plans and deliver on the increasing demand from our customers,” CEO Wes Cummins said in the press release.

In March, the company signed a $7.5 million five-year loan with Vantage Bank Texas with 5% interest to build the site in Jamestown, North Dakota.

Read more: Crypto Miners Face Margin Calls, Defaults as Debt Comes Due in Bear Market

The hosting firm has 100 megawatt (MW) worth of bitcoin mining capacity at its Jamestown facility, which has been partially offline "due to unexpected equipment failure at the substation powering the facility," but which was expected to be back up and running early in September, according to a July 18 press release. The company didn't immediately respond to requests for comment on any progress on the facility.

Hosting is a service that data centers provide to crypto miners so that customers can store their mining rigs and mine their preferred digital assets for a fee without having to build the accompanying infrastructure themselves. In recent months, demand for hosting crypto miners has seen an uptick as infrastructure and power supply-related delays – as well as the lack of capital – have caused bottlenecks for miners that are often now finding themselves with more mining rigs than available power.

Most recently, Applied Blockchain has signed a deal to host 200 MW of Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) mining rigs in the North Dakota and Texas facilities. Applied will supply Marathon with 90 MW of hosting capacity at its Texas location and at least 110 MW at a second facility in North Dakota.

Shares of Applied Blockchain were down 3% on Friday morning, while bitcoin's price was down slightly.