500.com has acquired an additional 15,900 Bitcoin mining machines with a combined hash rate of around 1,000 petahashes a second.
500.com Acquires Additional 15,900 Bitcoin Mining Machines
Chinese online gambling operator 500.com has announced an additional expansion of its Bitcoin mining operations. The announcement comes less than a month after the company’s previous mining ramp-up.
The company will purchase an additional 15,900 Bitcoin mining machines through two separate agreements. The supplier expects all machines to be delivered within the second quarter of the year.
Through the first deal, 500.com will acquire 5,900 brand new mining machines for a consideration of around ¥55.2 million (approximately $8.5 million). The remaining 10,000 mining units will be purchased through a second deal at ¥2,000 per machine for the first 5,000 machines.
Combined, the 15,900 mining units would boost 500.com’s hash rate by around 1,000 petahashes per second. Hash rate refers to the number of operations a machine can perform every second in order to mine cryptocurrencies.
Heavy Focus on Cryptocurrencies and Blockchain
The company has been incredibly active this year and has made substantial and decisive steps in expanding its cryptocurrency business.
This is the company’s second big Bitcoin miner purchase. Less than a full month ago, 500.com acquired mining units valued at approximately ¥93.04 million ($14.4 million). The machines’ operational speed is estimated around 918.5 petahashes.
This means that the supplier’s 2021 Bitcoin miner acquisitions would boost its total mining speed by almost 2,000 petahashes or 1.9 exahashes per second.
Again in January, the lottery provider became a majority shareholder of Loto Interactive by purchasing an additional 169 million shares in the company. This boosted its stake to 54.2% up from 33.7%. Among other things, Loto Interactive offers supervision and management of cryptocurrency mining.
It is clear that the supplier wants to recentre its business around cryptocurrencies. To that end, 500.com appointed Xianfeng Yang as its new Chief Executive Officer in early January this year. Yang has years of experience in the blockchain and cryptocurrency sector and has affirmed the company’s decision to explore new business ventures.