Canaan in Best Single Quarter, Kickstarts Joint Mining Operations in Kazakhstan

Following its reported revenue increase in Q3, Canaan says it has completed the successful delivery of over 2,000 Avalon miner units in Kazakhstan to kickstart its joint mining operations with its top three customers authorized by the Central Asia country’s Ministry of Energy.

The supercomputing solutions provider company says it is expecting more mining machines to arrive in Kazakhstan for deployment for a 850,000 Thash/s total computing power in the near term as it currently operates mining machines with approximately 32,000 Thash/s.

With them now being fully-compliant with local requirements, its CEO, Nangeng Zhang says they are on the way to signing up to 1 million TH/s of computing power by the end of January 2022 even as the company is negotiating for a total power capacity of approximately 200 MW.

Last week, Canaan reported a revenue increase of up to 708.2% (RMB1,317.6 million or US$204.5 million) from RMB163.0 million in the same period of 2020, and up 21.8% compared to RMB1,081.8 million in Q2 of 2021. 

The company cites “continuous increase in total computing power sold and average selling price per Thash/s” for the risen revenue which sets a new record for total computing power sold – 6.7 million Thash/s up by 128.4% from 2.9 million Thash/s in the same period of 2020 and up 12.9% from 5.9 million Thash/s in Q2 of 2021.

“Our total computing power sold set another record high to 6.7 million Thash/s in the quarter, while we are increasingly diversifying our global presence,” Zhang said last week, adding that they remain steadfast in expanding cooperation with IC suppliers and stabilizing their supply chain despite the ongoing disruptions.

It could be recalled that Canaan tapped into the mining business among other things recently as a means to mitigate potential operational risks including price pressure, Bitcoin price fluctuation and regulatory changes in different countries.

The company joined in on crypto mining in June following the setting up of its base in Kazakhstan as a form of diversification even as it continued to sell mining rigs. In its latest financials, it says that the carrying value of its held cryptocurrencies as of September 30, 2021 was RMB6.1 million (US$0.9 million). The company says it does not rule out the possibility of trading the Bitcoin it holds in the future.

Meanwhile, in its outlook for Q4 2021, based on the current and preliminary views on the market and operational conditions which are subject to change, Canaan expects total revenues to have a sequential increase of 35% to 50%.

The release of its Q3 financial report which has been seen as its best single quarter so far with a total revenue of over $200 mln comes as a spinoff from a Canaan rival, Bitmain, signs a business combination agreement.

Jihan Wu-led cryptocurrency mining tech company, Bitdeer, is planning to list on the NASDAQ through a merger, a recent statement has shown.

The company, which currently operates five proprietary mining datacenters in the US and Norway and  continuously provides crypto mining solutions, is merging with Blue Safari special purpose acquisition company for the stock market listing.

Like Bitmain, the Chinese bitcoin mining chip manufacturing company co-founded by Wu in 2013, Bitdeer also handles mining processes like miner procurement, transport logistics, mining datacenter design and construction, mining machine management and daily operations.

Its proposed transaction agreement with the British Virgin Islands company formed for business combination with one or more businesses or entities is expected to be completed in Q1 2022 subject to regulatory approvals among other things.