Hydro-powered bitcoin miner lures institutional investors ahead of IPO
Hydro-powered bitcoin miner lures institutional investors ahead of IPO
Iris Energy's use of Canadian dams makes it attractive to ESG investors
Growing momentum to clean up the energy-intensive practice of mining cryptocurrencies is starting to attract institutional investment. A hydro-powered Canadian mining operation is about to get a big injection from Australian investors to fund an ambitious expansion that would repatriate a piece of the bitcoin network’s computing power to rural British Columbia.
Australian “sustainable” bitcoin miner Iris Energy has raised AU$110 million, cornerstoned by institutional investor Platinum Asset Management with an investment of AU$13 million.
Iris operates a 9 MW Bitcoin mining data centre project in British Columbia, Canada, with construction underway for an expansion to 30 MW that is due online later this year.
The company is using the proceeds to secure new data centre development sites and computing hardware which, with further funding, will expand Iris’ capacity to 180 MW across multiple sites in 2022.
The exp…