Hut 8 Gears up for a Mining Power Surge With 31K New Bitmain Antminers

Hut 8 Moves to Boost Mining Efficiency With ASIC Fleet Upgrade

As part of this effort, Hut 8 (Nasdaq: HUT) is acquiring 31,145 Bitmain Antminer S21+ bitcoin mining units, kicking off the first phase of its ASIC fleet upgrade at a rate of $15 per terahash. The anticipated upgrades are expected to increase Hut 8’s self-mining hashrate by 66%, lifting it from 5.6 to about 9.3 exahash per second (EH/s) when fully operational in early 2025.

Alongside this, the company said it foresees a significant uptick in fleet efficiency, predicting a drop in energy consumption from 31.7 to 19.9 joules per terahash (J/TH). This move, Hut 8 said, is designed to lay the groundwork for further growth in mining capacity. Hut 8 noted that thanks to an existing option agreement with Bitmain, Hut 8 has the potential to deploy up to 15 EH/s of hosted miners at its Vega facility, potentially boosting total self-mining capacity to 24 EH/s, with an average efficiency of 15.7 J/TH.

Hut 8 stated that this scale-up, expected to wrap up by Q2 2025, highlights Hut 8’s drive to optimize its infrastructure to meet the expected rise in digital asset demand. Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot noted that the selection of the Antminer S21+ units was driven by their lower upfront costs and a faster-anticipated payback period compared to higher-efficiency models.

“After extensive modeling, we selected the BITMAIN Antminer S21+ for our initial fleet upgrade due to its strong return profile relative to higher-efficiency models that require larger capital outlays,” Genoot remarked. “The S21+ offers a faster payback period than more efficient models across a wide band of future hashprice scenarios, enabling us to optimize investment returns and accelerate value creation.”