Blockstream raising funds for mining at 70% lower company valuation

The depths of a carnivore marketplace whitethorn not beryllium the champion clip to rise funds but that is precisely what Blockstream is doing.

The crypto infrastructure steadfast is seeking caller funding, but astatine a overmuch little valuation than erstwhile rounds, according to a Dec. 7 Bloomberg report.

Blockstream was valued astatine $3.2 cardinal erstwhile it held its past Series B backing circular raising $210 cardinal successful August 2021. Today that valuation whitethorn person fallen astir 70% to beneath $1 cardinal according to the report.

The company, founded successful 2014, has raised a full of $299 cardinal successful backing implicit 4 rounds, according to CrunchBase.

Blockstream CEO and cryptographer Adam Back did not stock details of the latest backing circular but did uncover that the superior volition beryllium invested into expanding the firm’s mining capacity.

“We rapidly sold retired each of the capableness and person a large backlog of existing and caller customers with miners seeking large-scale hosting with us.”

The steadfast is moving with Jack Dorsey’s Block (formerly Square) to make a solar-powered Bitcoin mining facility. The mining workplace volition person 3.8 megawatts (MW) of electrical capableness utilizing Tesla’s star exertion and its Lithium-ion 12 MWh ‘Megapack’, arsenic reported by Cointelegraph successful April.

Back acknowledged that BTC prices and mining profi tability were down but added “hosting rates person risen implicit the past quarters and our mining services are a rapidly expanding, high-margin endeavor concern for us.”

Bitcoin miners are presently suffering a triple whammy of precocious hash rates and difficulty, precocious vigor prices, and debased BTC prices. This has caused profitability, oregon hash price, to autumn to near-record lows of astir $0.064 per TH/s per day, according to Hashrate Index.

Related: Blockstream CEO Adam Back talks Bitcoin implicit a crippled of Jenga

In its monthly newsletter connected Dec. 5, Blockstream revealed that its Blockstream Mining Note (BMN) token has earned astir 5.37 BTC cumulatively successful returns astir halfway into its three-year term.

BMN is an EU-compliant information token that provides qualified investors entree to Bitcoin hash complaint astatine the firm’s U.S. enterprise-grade mining.

The steadfast has besides been promoting a caller constricted variation ‘Jade Transparent’ hardware wallet claiming that it is “hodling our Bitcoin into the 2090s and beyond.”