Bitcoin Miner Riot Blockchain’s Revenue Misses Estimates

David Pan, Bloomberg News

Cryptocurrency mining machines at a Canada Computational Unlimited Inc. computation center in Joliette, Quebec, Canada, on Friday, Sept. 10, 2021. CCU.ai, a Bitcoin mining center powered by hydroelectricity, has been conditionally approved for trading on the TSX Venture Exchange in Toronto under the stock symbol SATO. Photographer: Christinne Muschi/Bloomberg , Bloomberg

(Bloomberg) -- Riot Blockchain Inc.’s third-quarter loss widened and revenue was lower than estimated.

The net loss widened to $36.6 million, or 24 cents a share, from $15.3 million, or 16 cents, in the year-earlier period, the Castle Rock, Colorado-based company said in a statement Monday. Revenue dropped 28% to $46.3 million, below the $54.2 million estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

Low Bitcoin prices, soaring energy costs and fierce competition among miners have battered Bitcoin miners this year. Other miners, such as Core Scientific Inc., Argo Blockchain PLC and Iris Energy have struggled to repay debt. Riot has $255 million cash and 6,766 Bitcoin, which is a relatively strong balance sheet compared to other miners that are in distressed with little liquidity on hand. That is in part due to its long-term fixed rate power contract to generate significant power credits.

Riot earned $13.1 million in power curtailment credits for the third quarter. The firm was able to sell power back to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas at a market-driven spot price and make a profit.

Riot expects the 400-megawatt expansion at its Rockdale, Texas, facility to be fully completed in the first quarter in 2023 and started building out another facility in the state with one-gigawatt capacity.

Share of Riot fell 2.3% in trading after regular exchange hours. They’ve dropped 74% this year.