How Riot Plans to Add Hashrate Without Adding Miners

Riot Blockchain plans to increase its crypto mining hashrate potentially by up to 50% through adopting 200 megawatts (MW) of immersion-cooling technology at its Whinstone facility in Texas.

The technology allows the mining rigs to be submerged in a specialized fluid, which helps them operate at lower temperatures, resulting in a more efficient and stable environment, the Castle Rock, Colorado-based miner said in a statement on Tuesday. The initial deployment of ASIC miners in the immersion-cooled buildings is expected to commence by the fourth quarter of 2021.

“Based on industry data and the company’s own preliminary immersion-cooling test results, an estimated 25% increase in hash rate is expected, with an estimated potential to increase ASIC performance by as much as 50%,” Riot said in the press release. The company expects more test results from its pilot project by the end of the first quarter in 2022.

“If successful, Riot will be able to leverage its infrastructure development capabilities to increase its Bitcoin mining hash rate without relying solely on purchasing additional mining equipment, resulting in increased operating efficiencies, and thus, capital efficiencies,” the miner added.

Riot currently has a hashrate capacity of 2.6 exahash per second (EH/s) and plans to ramp up to 7.7 EH/s by the fourth quarter of 2022.

Riot will apply the technology to 200 MW of its previously announced 400 MW expansion of its Whinstone facility, hosting about 46,000 S19 Antminers from the miner’s existing mining rigs.

This is not the first time a miner is using this technology. Recently a Canadian cleantech cryptocurrency miner, MintGreen, said it will be using its own immersion technology to supply the city of North Vancouver, British Columbia, with heat generated from bitcoin mining.

However, Riot says its deployment of immersion technology will be the first to be used by any miner at this scale.