Hut 8 (HUT) said it’s purchased $30 million of Nvidia’s new crypto mining-specific graphics processing units (GPU) to help the company expand into mining for other cryptocurrencies besides bitcoin.
Called a Cryptocurrency Mining Processor (CMP), the new GPU was launched earlier this year to target professional cryptocurrency miners. Nvidia introduced the GPU, in part, to steer those miners away from its other GPUs following complaints by the company’s core gaming customers frustrated by shortages caused by miner demand.
In the company’s Q4 earnings call, Nvidia CEO Colette Kress said she expected about $50 million in total CMP sales during the new product’s first quarter this year, per CoinDesk’s prior reporting. Hut 8 filled 60% of that target in one order.
The machines “open up new opportunities” for Hut 8’s plans for diversified revenue streams, said CEO Jamie Leverton in a statement. The new CMPs will add roughly 1,600 GH of power to the firm’s mining capacity, which it will use to mine alternate blockchains. Hut 8 expects full delivery and deployment of the CMPs this summer.
Allocating mining capacity to alternate blockchains like Ethereum “has been rewarded handsomely by public market investors as seen by the stock price of Hive compared to their Canadian-traded counterparts who have focused on Bitcoin to date,” said Ethan Vera, co-founder of Seattle-based mining company Luxor Technology, in a direct message with CoinDesk. Now Hut 8 wants some of the profit.
Shares of the Toronto-based company have gained 130% year to date to just above $7. Bitcoin has climbed 77% over the same period.