Bitcoin Miner Core Scientific Inks Deal With Bitmain for 112K Antminers

Core Scientific, the largest mining host in North America, just got bigger as it completed a purchase of 112,800 application specific circuit (ASIC) bitcoin mining machines from Bitmain.

Revealed exclusively to CoinDesk, the company, which provides mining hosting services alongside its own mining operations, bought S19, S19 Pro, S19J and S19J Pro Antminers to double its inventory of mining machinees. The agreement also authorizes Core Scientific to repair Bitmain machines that are under warranty.

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Core Scientific will use half of the machines for its own bitcoin mining. The other half is under contract with existing clients.

The shipment and future ones like it could help Core Scientific increase its global share of Bitcoin’s hashrate from 5% to 12%, CEO Kevin Turner told CoinDesk.

Turner’s forecast aligns with North America’s growing presence in bitcoin mining. Along with Core Scientific, miners such as Marathon, Riot, Blockcap and Gryphon have expanded their operations this year.

Turner doesn’t expect the trend to stop soon given the interest from new, high-net worth players in the industry.

“We do expect this trend to continue as we’re witnessing an increasing number of publicly traded companies, large family offices and hedge funds looking for enterprise-grade, trustworthy and credible mining operations in North America. While other countries have been early adopters of digital assets, blockchain technology and mining, we believe that the United States, specifically, has an interest in being a leader in these spaces,” he said.