Iris Energy Reports 38% Drop in Bitcoin Hashcost; Acquired 19 EH/s for $411M

Iris Energy has reported a 38% reduction in its Bitcoin mining hashcost, becoming the latest public miner to optimize operations in response to Bitcoin’s declining hashprice following the halving.

In its fourth-quarter financial results, Iris Energy reported Bitcoin mining revenue of $113 million, generated from the production of 1,347 BTC, which accounted for 95% of its total business income.

The company’s cash-based expenses for the period revealed an all-in mining cost of $43.7k per BTC including corporate overhead and net financial expenses. This implies a total hashcost of $28.6 per PH/s, which is down 38% from the previous quarter.

According to TheEnergyMag’s analysis, the hashcost reduction was primarily driven by fleet upgrades, which improved Iris Energy’s overall efficiency from 24 J/TH in Q3 to 15.3 J/TH in Q4. The company mined 65% more Bitcoin in Q4 compared to Q3, while keeping site expenses and electricity costs nearly flat at $33 million, up just slightly from $32 million in the previous quarter.

As part of its ongoing fleet upgrade efforts, Iris Energy liquidated 4.1 EH/s of its S19j Pro Antminers in October. In January, it sold an additional 6,300 S19j Pro miners for $1.5 million while acquiring newer generation of equipment.

According to the Q4 earnings report, Iris Energy exercised an option in early January to purchase 11.2 EH/s of Bitmain S21 Pro miners and 8.1 EH/s of S21 XP miners for a total consideration of $411 million. The new miners are scheduled for phased delivery in monthly batches from January to May.

Additionally, the company entered into agreements with Bitmain to upgrade part of its existing fleet with 9,025 S21 XP miners, representing a total hashrate of 2.4 EH/s.