Canadian Crypto Mining Company Hut 8 Listed on Nasdaq
This article comes fromDecrypt, original author: Ekin Genç
Odaily Translator | Nian Yin Si Tang
Summary:
This article comes from
, original author: Ekin Genç
Odaily Translator | Nian Yin Si Tang
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Summary:
- Hut 8 becomes the first Canadian crypto mining company to list on Nasdaq.
- The company will start mining Ethereum this week.
- Due to policy reasons, Chinese miners are looking for other mining locations, and Hut 8 is also negotiating with some of them to provide related services.
Hut 8 stock offers traditional Nasdaq investors exposure to the cryptocurrency market without needing to own cryptocurrencies. But that doesn't mean it doesn't face similar risks. Not only is the company at the forefront of the crypto market, it also holds 3,500 bitcoins, or about $138 million, on its balance sheet.
Hut 8 has only mined bitcoin since its founding in 2011, but Sue Ennis, its head of corporate development and investor relations, told Decrypt that the company will begin mining ethereum this week. This makes Hut 8 the first publicly traded mining company in North America with a diversified portfolio – so far Nasdaq-listed miners Riot Blockchain and Marathon Digital Holdings have only mined Bitcoin.
In March, Hut 8 bought $30 million worth of Nvidia encryption chips to mine ethereum, and the company will install them all this week.
However, Ethereum will phase out mining as it transitions from PoW to PoS with Ethereum 2.0. In this regard, Ennis stated that when this happens, Hut 8 will switch to ETC mining.
She went on to say that Hut 8 wants to continue to diversify its mining operations, but not too much — not mining “doge or meme” cryptocurrencies like Dogecoin, for example.
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Hut 8 listed on NASDAQ
The company was previously listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, trading at $4.99 per share.
Shares of Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange listed on Nasdaq on April 14, continued to fall. The company went public at $381 a share before peaking at $424 before plummeting all the way to $310 before closing yesterday at $239.
But Hut 8 isn't worried about Coinbase's performance. “This is not a barometer of the potential for success or investment interest in NASDAQ-listed crypto companies,” Ennis said.
“Right now, the real barometers are bitcoin and ethereum prices, as there is a fairly direct correlation between the bitcoin sell-off and the mining stock sell-off.”
However, the prices of these two crypto assets have been extremely volatile recently.
Crypto markets slumped in mid-May (primarily) due to concerns over bitcoin mining. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk fueled concerns about their environmental impact and the Chinese government's crackdown on crypto mining in tweets.
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switch to green energy
"(Elon Musk's tweet) made everyone realize that it's time to cooperate and speak together," Ennis said. Hut 8 is a member of the Bitcoin Mining Council. The Bitcoin Mining Council, made up of energy-conscious North American mining companies, was convened by MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor for Elon Musk in late May with the goal of increasing transparency about energy use and accelerating global sustainability initiatives. It is worth mentioning that Musk does not hold any position on the Bitcoin Mining Council.
Ennis said ESG (environmental, social and governance) issues became one of the company's priorities when current chief executive Jaime Leverton took over last year. She also added that Musk's tweets definitely accelerated the process.
Hut 8 recently hired a head of energy and sustainability with the sole goal of making the company carbon neutral within a year.
Currently, Hut 8’s mining machines are powered by natural gas (70%) and wind energy (30%), both of which are plentiful in the company’s home province of Alberta.
