Riot Blockchain announces plans to relocate NY miners to Lone Star State

07-Jul-2022 By: Simran Mishra

Riot Blockchain announces plans to relocate NY miners to Lone Star State

Riot Blockchain, a cryptocurrency mining company, said that it has started moving mining machines out of its New York data center, with the bulk going to central Texas.

According to a statement released by Riot on Wednesday, the company has moved some of its mining equipment from the Coinmint facility in Massena, New York in an effort to save operational costs by eliminating "all third-party hosting fees" and decrease power costs. In July, the company announced that it will "transport the balance of its S19 miner fleet" from Coinmint to Riot's Whinstone plant in Rockdale, Texas.

The decision was made when temperatures in several areas of Texas soared beyond 100 degrees Fahrenheit and energy needs for air conditioners to keep people cool increased. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, the state's main energy supplier, predicted that rates for its southern hub, which would include Riot's project in Rockdale, would peak at $95.94 per MW-hour in the next 24 hours. However, other studies claim that despite rising power needs, the cost of producing energy from solar and wind sources has decreased.

As part of an ERCOT effort to reduce demand on Texas' power system, CEO Jason Les said that the company will reduce its energy use this summer. According to a February report, Riot shut down 99 percent of its operations in the state in order to prepare for a potential severe winter storm with high energy demands.

According to the crypto mining company, it mined 421 Bitcoins (BTC) in June but sold 300 of them for $6.2 million, leaving Riot with about 6,654 coins as of Wednesday. According to the company, its fleet of 42,455 miners produced 4.4 exahashes per second (EH/s), but it aimed to have a capacity of 12.5 EH/s after deploying 115,450 Antminer rigs by January 2023.

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