Bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain has sold its Quebec site for $6.1 million due to declining BTC production.
Bitcoin miner Argo Blockchain sold one of its sites last month to repay debt amid declining BTC production.
Argo sells site to pay off debt
In a March 5 statement, the miner explained that it had sold its Mirabel facility in Quebec for $6.1 million.
Following the sale, Argo allocated $4 million to pay off Galaxy Digital’s debt, effectively reducing its debt to approximately $14 million as of February 29. This is a significant 60% reduction from Galaxy’s initial debt of $35 million.
Argo clarified that the remainder of the sale proceeds were used to pay off the Mirabel Facility’s outstanding mortgages. The company also plans to relocate miners from the Mirabel site to its Baie Comeau facility in Quebec.
At the Mirabel facility, which boasts a power capacity of 5 MW, miners will be relocated to the Baie Comeau site and older miners representing 140 PH/s will be liquidated.
Argo CEO Thomas Chippas said:
“We are able to terminate the Mirabel facility at a high multiple of power capacity, while also realizing a premium for this real estate asset while maintaining a strong hashrate capacity of 2.7 EH/s.”
In 2021, Argo did not sell its BTC holdings but instead borrowed to expand its mining activities. However, the 2022 market downturn prompted Argo to sell its Texas Helios mine site to Galaxy Digital for $65 million and secure a new $35 million from Galaxy to pay off other outstanding loans.
BTC production decline
The miner said BTC production fell 21% in February to 92 BTC, or 3.2 BTC per day, due to a maintenance-related outage at the third-party owned Cottonwood substation.
Additionally, Argo explained that production has been negatively impacted by the increased mining difficulty of the BTC network. last month, CryptoSlate It was reported that BTC mining difficulty has reached an all-time high of over 81 trillion.
As a result of these issues, the company’s mining revenue for the month fell 15% from the previous month to $4.5 million. Argo holds approximately 14 BTC as of February 29th.