500.com acquires years-old machines for block reward mining venture

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Sports lottery company 500.com (NYSE: WBAI) has announced the purchase of additional mining machines as part of its pivot to block reward mining. The company estimates the machines will give it an additional 918.5 PH/s hash rate once fully deployed.

In its press release, the company confirmed it had acquired the machines from “certain non-U.S. persons in exchange for an aggregate of 11,882,860 newly-issued Class A ordinary shares valued at US$1.21 per share.”

500.com’s new fleet of mining machines include Antminer S17, which dates back to March 2019; Antminer S19, from 2020; and the Antminer S9, which dates back to 2016.

“The theoretical maximum total hash rate capacity of the Bitcoin Mining Machines is estimated to be approximately 918.5 PH/s. Once fully deployed, the Company estimates that all of its bitcoin mining machines, including the Bitcoin Mining Machines, will have a total hash rate capacity of up to approximately 1000 PH/s in aggregate,” according to the company.

500.com’s acquisition of some of the outdated models is reflective of the current market conditions in which prices of most digital currencies are soaring. As such, even the less-efficient miners, like the S9, can still rake in profits for their owners.

The company has added on to yet another purchase of mining machines it purchased a month ago. As CoinGeek reported, 500.com bought 5,900 ASIC machines, worth $8.5 million. At the time, the NYSE-listed firm didn’t disclose the brand and models of the machines. Under the agreement, the company will purchase 10,000 more ASIC miners this year.

500.com first announced its pivot from online sports lottery, where it was struggling, to block reward mining in December. The pivot was preceded by bribery allegations in Japan, their auditors had quit and some of their longest serving executives had quit.

Three weeks ago, the company made its biggest move yet, purchasing BTC.com mining pool from Jihan Wu, the former Bitmain CEO and founder. The pool is among the largest in the world in the BTC mining sector.

See also: TAAL’s Jerry Chan presentation at CoinGeek Live, The Shift from Bitcoin “Miners” to “Transaction Processors”