Greenidge to go public via merger with Support.com

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Block reward miner Greenidge Generation Holdings, the parent company of upstate New York-based BTC mining firm Greenidge, announced it intends to go public on the Nasdaq exchange through a merger deal.

The firm recently released details around its planned merger plan, stating it has signed a definitive agreement to merge in a stock-for-stock deal with Nasdaq-listed customer and technical support provider Support.com (Nasdaq: SPRT). The deal is still subject to the latter’s shareholder approving the transaction and other closing conditions.

Greenidge operates a digital currency mining farm in the United States powered by their proprietary nature gas-based power plant. The plant allocates 19 megawatts out of its 106 megawatt capacity for BTC mining. Greenidge expected to more than double the allocation to 41 megawatts by the end of Q2 2021, then 85 megawatts by the end of 2022. 

Greenidge stated it would be the only publicly-listed U.S. company operating a vertically integrated power generation facility and digital currency mining operation. It plans to replicate this business model at other power plants to achieve an expected 500 megawatts of mining capacity by 2025. 

The firm expects it will produce a hashrate of 1.1 exahash per second (“EH/s”) by the end of Q2 2021, then scale to 2.6EH/s in hashrate by year-end 2022. Greenidge also reported it mined 1,186 BTC tokens during the past 12 months at the cost of about $2,869 per BTC. It projects more than $50 million in EBITDA for 2021, then ramping up to $160 million in EBITDA by Q4 2022. 

Greenidge CEO Jeff Kirt stated, “This merger is an important next step for Greenidge as we build upon our existing, integrated, and proven platform for bitcoin mining and generation of lower-carbon affordable power.” 

Lance Rosenzweig, president and CEO of Support.com, added, “As Greenidge looks to scale and seize new opportunities for growth, we are their ideal partner. In addition, the transaction represents a significant value proposition for our shareholders by providing them with enhanced liquidity and the opportunity to participate in the growth of what we believe will be a successful competitor in the rapidly evolving domestic bitcoin mining space.”

Once the deal closes, Support.com will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Greenidge. Current stockholders and option holders of Support.com will collectively own roughly 8% of Greenidge’s outstanding Class A common stock.

The merger agreement shows that Greenidge will pay approximately 5% of its common stock to Support.com shareholders in consideration for the Support.com operations and other assets. It will pay roughly another 3% concerning the estimated $33 million of cash expected to be on Support.com’s balance sheet at closing, expected to occur in Q3 this year. They expect the merged company to have combined net cash of at least $70 million.

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