Iris Energy Turns On 41 Megawatts of Bitcoin Mining Machines Ahead of Schedule

The company plans to add another 50 MW by the end of next month, bringing its total hashrate to 3.7 exahashes per second.

AccessTimeIconAug 8, 2022 at 3:20 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 5:42 p.m. UTC
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Iris Energy (IREN) has brought 41 megawatts of bitcoin mining machines on line in British Columbia more than a month ahead of schedule.

  • The addition doubled the company's operating hashrate, or computing power, on the Bitcoin network to 2.3 exahashes/second (EH/s), it said in a press release on Monday. Another 1.4 EH/s, requiring 50 MW of energy capacity, also in British Columbia, is scheduled to be up and running by the end of September, it said.
  • Rack space has been a major constraint for bitcoin miners, many of which have received mining rigs but have nowhere to plug them in because of construction delays.
  • Iris Energy "continues to work through deployment options for its remaining 2.3 EH/s of miners," including 1.7 EH/s of Bitmain Antminer S19j Pros it bought from Bitmain earlier this month.
  • The Nasdaq-listed shares of Iris Energy were up by more than 10% on Monday morning.
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  • UPDATE (Aug. 8, 15:30 UTC): Adds hashrate doubled in first bullet point.

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    Eliza Gkritsi

    Eliza Gkritsi is a CoinDesk contributor focused on the intersection of crypto and AI.


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