Brandon Bailey, a crypto mining analyst at Galaxy Digital, notes that a strong Bitcoin bull market, “authoritarian” crackdown on cryptocurrency mining in China and “flight to North America” seems to have flipped the international hashrate economy on its head during 2021.
In a recent report, Brandon Bailey and Karim Helmy of Galaxy Digital look at the geographic dispersion of crypto mining in 2021 through “the lens of capital markets and ASIC purchases, followed by a projection for hashrate growth in 2022.”
As noted in an update shared by Compass Mining, Bitcoin miners are “aggressively seeking liquidity through US capital markets in 2022.” Debt and equity capital “spent on ASICs will add 100+ EH to the Bitcoin network,” the update reveals. Meanwhile, network hashrate will “more than double by next year, according to Galaxy Digital.”
Race to public listings
Over the course of 2021, Bitcoin miners “looked to IPO, SPAC or get uplisted to the NASDAQ as demand for mining company stock surged due to the prolonged denial of a spot bitcoin ETF, China’s mining ban, and bitcoin’s rise in price,” Bailey wrote in a blog post.
He added:
“Yet, only two mining companies were listed on the NASDAQ at the beginning of the year: Marathon Digital and Riot Blockchain. Several other firms traded OTC and on Canada’s TSX ventures exchange, but were underrepresented on larger capital markets as a group.”
He also shared that during Q1 2022, analysts expect to “see multiple firms to complete listings on the NASDAQ including Rhodium, Gryphon Digital Mining, Core Scientific, GRIID, Bitdeer, Prime Blockchain, and Genesis Digital Assets.”
Public Bitcoin miners “shop debt, equity”
He further noted that public miners “raised $3.8 billion of equity and debt capital to invest in infrastructure and ASICs over 2021.” Bailey pointed out that the equity capital markets were the largest source of “financing for bitcoin miners with $2.4 billion raised largely through IPO’s and private placements.”
He also mentioned that publicly traded bitcoin miners “raised $1.4 billion of debt with over 90% of the debt raised coming in Q4 of 2021.” The most common issuance of debt was “convertible notes with bitcoin backed loans, senior notes and MiFi being other popular options.”
2021 ASIC purchase volumes
He added:
“On account of almost $4 billion dollars being raised through equity and debt capital markets, a majority of that capital found its way into new machine purchases and deposits. Over 100 EH of hashrate is currently on order from ASIC manufacturers to publicly traded miners with expected delivery in 2022.”
He also noted
“On the manufacturing side, Bitmain reasserted itself as the leading ASIC manufacturer in 2021 with its Antminer S19 Series being a popular choice by public miners. It’s important to note that some of the other ASIC manufacturers struggled with supply chain issues and obtaining capacity at the foundries, all to Bitmain’s benefit.”
Hashrate is coming
He also shared that “barring another geopolitical bombshell such as the China mining ban, Galaxy Digital predicts a significant amount of additional hashrate to join the Bitcoin mining network.”
He concluded:
“It’s likely hashrate will become dislocated from Bitcoin’s price given the number of ASICs on order by public miners alone with expected delivery this year. That said, Galaxy anticipates network hashrate landing somewhere between 300 EH/s and 370 EH/s by year end, with a baseline estimate of 335 EH/s.”