Former Marine and South Carolina Politician Raises $200M to Start Bitcoin Mining Company

Former U.S. Marine and 2018 candidate for South Carolina governor John Warren has started Gem Mining after raising over $200 million in institutional capital, according to a statement on Wednesday. The company claims its operations are 92% carbon neutral.

• Warren served four years on active duty as an infantry officer in the U.S. Marine Corps. In 2018 he lost in the Republican primary run-off to be South Carolina’s governor.
• “Over the past 10 months, my partners and I have built an institutional-grade bitcoin mining company by purchasing the highest quality machines and partnering with industry-leading companies to host these machines,” said Warren, who serves as Gem’s CEO and who co-founded Gem with four other partners.
• The Greenville, S.C.-based mining company currently has over 8,000 miners in operation, producing five bitcoins per day. Nearly 15,000 additional miners will be turned on over the next four months, the company said.
• In addition, Gem owns over 32,000 mining machines that are either operational or will be delivered in the near term and won’t require additional capital for full deployment.
• The company said it mined 431 bitcoins in the past nine months and has been profitable since February. It also had revenue of $7.8 million and adjusted EBITDA exceeding $6.2 million in November.
• On Sept. 15, another bitcoin miner, Greenidge Generation, said it would buy 10,000 crypto mining machines for its planned new facility in Spartanburg, S.C., and expects to start mining in late 2021 or early 2022.

CORRECTION (Dec. 15, 18:32 UTC): Corrects headline to “Former Marine” from “Ex-Marine.”