HIVE Announces New $34 Million Bitcoin Mining Centre in Sweden

HIVE Blockchain is ramping up their mining operations in Sweden ahead of completing its first cryptocurrency mining centre in the country.

The Vancouver-based blockchain company has announced a new large-scale bitcoin mining facility in Sweden that will house $34 million USD in hardware and a new funding round that could inject $100 million into the company.

“The addition of bitcoin mining capability further establishes HIVE as a leader in digital currency mining and diversifies our revenue with a highly liquid currency,” said HIVE CEO Harry Pokrandt. “Our new bitcoin facility will be among the most energy-efficient and largest bitcoin mining farms in Europe.”

HIVE is expanding its Swedish operations with Genesis Mining, the company’s largest shareholder and one of the leading miners of bitcoin. Genesis will be behind the mining centre’s construction as well as the procurement and assembly of bitcoin mining rigs.

The new build—which HIVE expects to be up and running in September 2018—joins the company’s recently announced data mining centre dedicated to GPU-based cryptocurrencies like Ethereum. Also being constructed by Genesis, the centre is being rolled out in three phases. HIVE has disclosed the centre will be constructed with a combined $66 million in financing, two-thirds of which has already been secured. The centre is expected to be fully operational by April 2018.

The two newly announced mining centres in Sweden add to HIVE’s recently acquired data centre in Iceland. Running mining centres in Nordic countries is both a strategic and cost-cutting move, said Pokrandt.

“Sweden, like Iceland, is an excellent jurisdiction for HIVE with its abundant cheap electricity, good governance, and cool climate,” he said.

Along with unveiling its plans for the Sweden-based mining centres, HIVE is raising capital in private placement financing up to $100 million led by Toronto’s GMP Securities and Eventus Capital Corp. The company noted a lead indication of $50 million has been received, and the private round is expected to close at the end of the month. This funding will fuel the completion of the new Sweden bitcoin mining centre and will support the data centre that is currently underway.

The completion of HIVE’s Swedish mining centres are subject to some key conditions, including approval by the TSX Venture Exchange and the closing of the multi-million round of private financing.