Riot Acquires Whinstone With Intent On Operating North America’s Largest Bitcoin Mining Facility

North American bitcoin mining company Riot will acquire Whinstone and add 300 MW of capacity to its operations.

Bitcoin mining is a business that requires lots of power to be put toward computing. Now, in a new acquisition that significantly changes the face of the practice in North America, bitcoin mining company Riot Blockchain has announced a contract to acquire Whinstone US, the owner of a major hosting facility.

The total transaction value is to be $651 million, per the release, with $80 million to be paid in cash with the remainder in the form of 11.8 million shares of Riot common stock. Whinstone’ facility offers 300 megawatts (MW) in developed bitcoin mining capacity, and Riot believes this can be scaled to 450 MW.

Riot framed this as its bid to become the biggest Bitcoin mining company in North America.

“Riot views Whinstone as a foundational element in its strategy to become an industry-leading Bitcoin mining platform, on a global scale,” per the release. “Upon the closing of this acquisition, Riot is expected to be the largest publicly-traded Bitcoin mining and hosting company in North America, as measured by total developed capacity.”

Riot has shared hosting facilities in New York already, but with this planned acquisition of Whinstone, it would be able to significantly grow its capacity.

According to Jason Les, the CEO of Riot, the acquisition of Whinstone would help to create “a very clear path for the company’s future growth,” the release states. “Riot will wholly own the largest Bitcoin mining facility in North America, with very low power costs, and one of the most talented development teams in the industry.”

He added that “Whinstone will serve as the foundation of Riot’s Bitcoin mining operations, upon which we will drive our goal of increasing the American footprint in the global Bitcoin mining landscape.”