Ecoark Holdings, Inc. (“Ecoark”) (NASDAQ: ZEST), announced that its indirect wholly owned subsidiary Bitstream Mining LLC (“Bitstream”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Trend Discovery Holdings LLC (“Trend”) entered into an agreement on September 3, 2021, to secure 12 MW (“megawatts”) of available electric capacity for Bitstream’s mining operation. Specific terms of the agreement will be disclosed at a future date. Bitstream and its strategic power consultant are working with the utility to upgrade the utility’s substation in order to expand the available capacity up to 50 MW.
Ecoark previously announced that Bitstream would be developing a 6 MW cryptocurrency mining operation in Texas. Brad Hoagland, CFA, Chief Financial Officer of Ecoark commented, “We are proud to have upheld and outperformed our commitment by securing power capacity within 30-days, while also doubling the target capacity of our mining operation from 6 MW to 12 MW and initiating an expansion to 50 MW. We remain confident that Bitstream’s projected high margin business model will fulfill one of the key business lines within Trend for its recently announced and upcoming spin-off transaction into a pure play FinTech company.”
Bitstream has also secured mining equipment with delivery anticipated within the targeted operational timeline. Bitstream expects to participate in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas’ (ERCOT) responsive reserve market as part of our Environmental, Social, and Governance (“ESG”) strategy by relinquishing its power back to the Texas grid as warranted. “We plan to utilize our operational load flexibility to participate in the ERCOT market and provide ERCOT with more tools to help stabilize the grid when needed”, stated M. Britt Swann, President of Bitstream.
Bitstream is expecting the 12 MW mining site to be fully operational and yielding significant coin generation by January 2022 with anticipated monthly revenues of $4.4 million1 including payments for participation in ERCOT Demand Response programs. The fully developed 50 MW site is expected to be completed by December 2022. Brad Hoagland, CFA added, “we plan to mine a diversified basket of large-cap cryptocurrencies with the highest miner reward-to-price ratio. We will sell sufficient coins to cover Bitstream’s monthly operating costs, while utilizing the remaining crypto for fiat transactions within our future planned and branded FinTech app and decentralized finance (“DeFi”) platform.”
https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2021/09/08/2293288/0/en/Ecoark-Secures-Power-Capacity-for-Cryptocurrency-Mining-Beta-Site-Development-in-Texas.html