Crypto Miner Hut 8 Bucks Trend by ‘Hodling’ Its Mined Bitcoins

Canadian crypto miner Hut 8 (HUT) continued to hold on to all of its mined bitcoins (BTC) even as peers are starting to sell their mined digital assets to pay for some of the operating expenses during the market rout.

• Hut 8 mined 309 bitcoins or 10 per day during May, unchanged from the previous month. The entirety of the self-mined bitcoins were deposited into custody, “consistent with Hut 8's long-standing HODL strategy,” according to a statement.
• The company’s action is notable given that many of its mining peers are starting to sell some of their mined bitcoins as prices tumble and funding in capital markets becomes more difficult and expensive. Riot Blockchain (RIOT) – one of the largest publicly traded miners and also a previously confirmed hodler – recently announced a third consecutive month of bitcoin sales.
• Hut 8 also concluded its bitcoin yield program in which it had loaned out 1,000 BTC to Genesis at an interest rate of 2%, and 1,000 BTC to Galaxy at 2.25%. This brings those 2,000 bitcoin back into the custody of Hut 8.
• As of May 31, the company held 7,078 bitcoins in its reserves. At a price of $30,000 per coin, this has a value of $212.3 million vs. Hut 8’s market cap of $400 million (press time price of BTC is $31,500).
• Also as of May 31, Hut 8’s installed operating capacity was 2.64 exahash per second (EH/s). Operations began at the company’s third mine in North Bay, Ontario on June 2, adding about 400 petahash per second (PH/s) to capacity (or 0.4 EH/s).
• Shares of the miner were flat Monday morning despite a modest bounce in the price of bitcoin. Hut 8 is off about 71% year-to-date, in line with most of its mining peers.