Riot Blockchain receives initial order of Bitmain Pro Antminers

Riot Blockchain, Inc. (NASDAQ: RIOT) ("Riot" or the "Company"), announces receipt of approximately 3,000 S17 Pro Antminers from BitmainTech PTE. LTD. ("Bitmain"). The Riot team has commenced deploying the new S17 Pro generation miners. This initial purchase was previously announced on December 4, 2019.  The deployment of the new miners is advancing rapidly, and Riot has secured additional temporary labor to accelerate the upgrade process. 

Riot anticipates receipt of the second order of 1,000 S17 Pro Antminers from Bitmain during January 2020, as previously announced by the Company on December 12, 2019. Assuming a late January 2020 receipt of the second Bitmain order of 1,000 S17 Pro Antminers, as scheduled, the full upgrade of its Oklahoma City mining facility to the new S17 Pro generation of miners could be completed over approximately the next four weeks.

Riot estimates the aggregate operating hashrate at the Oklahoma City mining facility, assuming full utilization of the facility's current total 12 megawatt ("MW") available electric supply and full deployment of the total 4,000 next generation miners, to be approximately 248 petahash per second. This would represent an estimated 240% increase over Riot's present average mining hashrate. Riot anticipates that total deployment of the 4,000 S17 Pro new miners will represent approximately 90% of the Oklahoma City's mining facility's total current capacity.

Riot Blockchain, one of the few Nasdaq listed public cryptocurrency mining companies in the United States, announced in December 2019 the purchase of 4,000 next generation Bitmain S17 Pro Antminers for approximately USD $6.35 million from Bitmain. Over the coming weeks Riot will be evaluating possible next steps for its approximate 7,500 S9 miners, a majority of which are being taken off-line to make room for the new generation miners. The Company plans to provide further updates as it progresses.