Riot Platforms, Inc. Q1 FY2024 Earnings Call

Greetings, and welcome to the Riot Platforms First Quarter 2024 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Philip McPherson. Thank you, Phil. You may begin. Thank you, Devine. Good morning, and welcome to Riot Platforms First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. My name is Phil McPherson, and joining me on today's call are Jason Les, CEO; Colin Yee, CFO; and Jason Chung, Executive Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy. On the Riot Investor Relations website, you can find our first quarter 2024 earnings press release and earnings presentation, which are intended to supplement today's prepared remarks and which include a discussion of certain non-GAAP items. Non-GAAP financial measures provided should not be considered as a substitute for or superior to the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP and are included as additional clarifying items to aid investors in further understanding the company's first quarter performance. During today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements regarding potential future events. These statements are based on management's current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could materially differ due to factors discussed in today's earnings press release and comments and responses made during today's call and in the Risk Factors section of our Form 10-K, Form 10-Q included for the quarter ended March 31, 2024, which will be filed today after market close and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jason Les, CEO of Riot Platforms.

Thank you, Phil, and good morning, everyone. Riot filed our first quarter 2024 press release and earnings presentation this morning, both of which are available on the Investor Relations section of Riot's website. Riot's primary strategic focus has been on developing a leading vertically integrated Bitcoin mining company, built on the three key pillars of developing and owning operations of significant scale, being a low-cost producer of Bitcoin, and building a balance sheet of strength. By focusing on a vertically integrated strategy, we are best able to build these pillars. Over the past three years, we have been focused on developing this strategy at scale. This began with the acquisition of our Rockdale facility, its development and operations teams, and low-cost fixed power contracts. The strategy continued with the acquisition of ESS Metron and the introduction of our engineering segment, which helps control the key supply bottleneck for electrical equipment and building out Bitcoin mining infrastructure. And finally, the development of our Corsicana facility has broadened our portfolio of access to power capacity and purpose-built Bitcoin mining facilities. The benefits of this strategy are on display today. And as a result, we see other miners in the space moving towards a similar strategy. Since Riot has developed this strategy most fully and at scale, we are able to build out facilities like Corsicana further, while others who have not already ordered key pieces of electrical equipment, face 18-plus months of supply chain constraints. The energization of Corsicana this month means that Riot has a clear, fully funded growth plan. This landmark achievement is the result of our team's dedication to our long-term strategy. The first phase of this facility puts us well on track to increase our self-mining hash rate to 31 EH/s by the end of 2024. The Corsicana facility utilizes immersion cooling for all of its buildings, a technology in which Riot is the industry leader in deploying at scale. We are very excited about the incredible pipeline for growth the Corsicana facility provides for the next several years, and we look forward to further executing on this plan. Through owning and operating our own sites and an unmatched portfolio of 345 megawatts of fixed-price long-term power agreements, we have the unique ability to execute on our power strategy, which demonstrates the benefits of Bitcoin mining for grid stability and significantly drives down our cost of power. Power is the primary variable input for Bitcoin mining, and that is why we have built our reputation as a leader in this key part of our business. Making large acquisitions, developing pipelines for growth, and maintaining fixed-price power contracts at scale requires a strong financial and liquidity position. Our unmatched balance sheet strength makes all of this possible and is responsible for our success. With this strong position, we are funding our near and intermediate-term growth plans to expand Corsicana and increase our hash rate through purchasing leading-edge miners on a long-term fixed-price basis from MicroBT. In conclusion, we remain focused on the growth and enhancement of our self-mining business. In 2023, we terminated the two remaining legacy hosting contracts at the Rockdale facility because of both customers' failure to perform under those agreements. As a result of the reduction in hosting revenue, we have eliminated the data center hosting business as a separate reporting segment starting in the first quarter of 2024 and are consolidating results into the Bitcoin mining business segment. Riot's focus is maximizing Bitcoin mining results, and our strategy is enabling us to execute on this at an unprecedented scale. With that, I would like to now turn the call over to Colin Yee, CFO of Riot Platforms.

Thank you, Jason. I'm excited to present Riot's financial results for the first quarter of 2024, during which Riot achieved a number of key milestones. For ease of reference, Slide 5 presents a snapshot of key metrics for the first quarter of 2024, but let's go over some highlights on the following pages. We own and operate one of the largest Bitcoin mining operations in North America, and during this past quarter, we continued to deploy miners in Rockdale. We have also pushed ahead with development activities at our new Corsicana facility, which has since been energized and operations have begun. At the end of the first quarter of 2024, our Bitcoin mining business segment had a total deployed hash rate of 12.4 EH/s, which represents an 18% increase year-over-year. And as Jason previously mentioned, we anticipate achieving a total self-mining hash rate capacity of 31 EH/s by the end of 2024. During the first quarter of 2024, we mined 1,364 Bitcoin, which represents a decrease of 36% from the 2,115 Bitcoin we mined during the first quarter of 2023. This was primarily due to the significant increase in the Bitcoin network difficulty, which has more than doubled since January 2023. However, with the significant increase in growth in our hash rate capacity expected by the end of this year, we anticipate producing more Bitcoin per day by the end of the year than we did in the first quarter of 2024, even in spite of the recent halving that occurred a few weeks ago on April 20, 2024. Riot ended the first quarter of 2024 with 8,490 Bitcoin, up significantly relative to the 794 Bitcoin that we held at the end of the first quarter of 2023. In the first quarter of 2024, Riot reported total revenue of $79.3 million as compared to $73.2 million for the first quarter of 2023, an 18% increase year-over-year. This increase was primarily driven by a 131% increase in average Bitcoin prices year-over-year, offset by lower Bitcoin production, which decreased by 36% year-over-year, again, due primarily to the significant increase in Bitcoin network difficulty, which has more than doubled since January 2023. In footnote #1, you should note that power curtailment credits received totaled approximately $5.1 million for the quarter as compared to $3.1 million during the first quarter of 2023. This equates to approximately 98 Bitcoin as computed by using average daily closing Bitcoin prices on a monthly basis. If these power credits received were applied to our total cost of revenues, our non-GAAP gross profit margin would have equaled $37.3 million, or a 47% margin. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $245.7 million as compared to the non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA of $81.7 million in the first quarter of 2023. Based on FASB's final standard on crypto assets issued in December 2023, under which Riot now recognizes its Bitcoin at fair value, with changes in fair value now recognized in income. Riot elected to early adopt this guidance in 2023. Net income for the quarter was $211.8 million, or $0.82 per share, compared to net income of $18.5 million, or $0.11 per share for the same period in 2023. As a reminder, our net income for the quarter included a change in the fair value of Bitcoin equal to $234.1 million, non-cash stock-based compensation expense of $32 million, and depreciation and amortization of $32.3 million. Beginning in the first quarter of 2024, we adjusted our depreciation schedule for mining hardware from a two-year to a three-year schedule based on our evaluation of market practice and our own operational history. In 2023, Riot terminated its two legacy data center hosting agreements. During the first quarter of 2024, revenue from the final data center hosting agreement was no longer material, both in revenue and profit. And so commencing this quarter, we will no longer report data center hosting as a separate reportable segment. We also have no plans to offer data center hosting services to new customers. For the first quarter of 2024, Bitcoin mining revenue totaled $74.6 million, which included $32 million in hosting revenue, an increase of $26.6 million year-over-year. This increase was primarily due to higher Bitcoin prices in the first quarter of 2024, which averaged $52,343 compared to $22,706 in the first quarter of 2023. However, this increase is partially offset by a decrease in Bitcoin mined in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the first quarter of 2023, again, due to the significant increase in the Bitcoin network difficulty. Bitcoin mining cost of revenue primarily consists of direct production costs, including electricity, labor, and insurance, and excludes depreciation and amortization. Bitcoin mining revenue in excess of Bitcoin mining cost of revenue for the quarter was $33.5 million, which is a margin of 45% compared to $26.1 million or a margin of 54% from the first quarter of 2023. This increase was primarily driven by the increase in revenues from the expansion of Bitcoin mining capacity at our Rockdale facility. If power credits were directly allocated to Bitcoin mining cost of revenue, Bitcoin mining cost of revenue would have decreased by $5.1 million, increasing our Bitcoin mining margin to $38.6 million, or 52% on a non-GAAP basis. Bitcoin mining costs also included $4.5 million of power cost for the remaining hosting contracts. Slide 9 breaks down Riot's cost to mine. The first quarter of 2024 for Riot had changes to our reporting segments. In 2023, Riot terminated the 2 remaining agreements under the legacy data center hosting business due to the failure of both customers to meet their obligations under the agreements. As such, costs that had previously been captured and reported in the data center hosting segment have been absorbed by our self-mining operations and presented within the Bitcoin mining segment in our first quarter 2024 financial statements. The direct cost of mine in the first quarter of 2024 was $23,034 per Bitcoin, of which power costs were $16,764, or 73% of the total. Other costs of $6,270 represent the remaining 27%. The increase in the global network hash rate and accompanying increase in network difficulty was the primary driver behind an increase in Riot's average direct cost to mine Bitcoin. Other costs include direct labor, miner insurance, miner and miner-related equipment repairs, land lease and related property taxes, network costs, and other utility expenses. We have already ordered new MicroBT machines to be deployed at our Rockdale facility, of which deployment will begin in the second quarter of 2024. As additional hash rate is deployed and operational uptimes increase, we expect increased production of Bitcoin at the Rockdale facility. So as production increases, these fixed costs will be spread across the greater number of Bitcoin produced, thereby lowering our cost of mining each Bitcoin. Riot's engineering business carried on through Riot's wholly owned subsidiary of ESS Metron reported revenue of $4.7 million in the first quarter of 2024, as compared to $16.1 million for the same three-month period in 2023. The decrease of $11.4 million was primarily attributable to global supply chain constraints resulting in decreased receipts of materials. This delayed the completion of certain custom products for two large projects potentially worth $13.2 million, which ended up not being delivered in the quarter, and therefore, we were not able to recognize this revenue. These supply chain shortages also impacted projects in our backlog due to the lack of manufacturing capacity. However, we anticipate that the supply chain issues currently impacting our engineering results will be resolved towards the end of the third quarter of this year. Engineering gross margin for the quarter was similarly impacted by these issues, resulting in a gross loss of $1.3 million, as compared to a gross profit of $0.5 million for the first quarter of 2023. I will now turn the call back over to Jason Les.

Thank you, Colin. Pictured on this slide is an aerial shot of our new Corsicana facility. We purchased the land for this facility in 2022 due to its strategic location next to the Navarro switch where 1 gigawatt of power capacity was available. Over the past two years, we have worked to develop this site's support reaching 1 gigawatt in total capacity, beginning with the first phase consisting of 400 megawatts of 100% immersion-cooled Bitcoin Mining infrastructure, which spans four total buildings. The 400-megawatt substation for the first phase of Corsicana's development was energized last month, and mining operations have already commenced. Construction remains underway to complete the rest of the first phase by the end of 2024, and in 2025, we intend to continue development of this site to eventually reach 1 gigawatt in total capacity, which would cement the Corsicana's facility status as the largest dedicated Bitcoin Mining facility in North America and potentially globally. Riot's infrastructure pipeline and long-term miner purchase agreement with MicroBT provides us with a clear and direct path to reaching 100 EH/s in self-mining hash rate. Based on our current purchase agreements and development plans, Riot plans to exit 2024 with a total hash rate of 31 EH/s. This includes 2.7 EH/s of growth at our Rockdale facility and 16 EH/s of new growth at our Corsicana facility. Altogether, when fully developed, this would represent a 154% increase in self-mining hash rate over 2024. Fully developing the Corsicana facility through the remaining 600 megawatts of remaining capacity following the completion of the first phase of development and executing a part of our purchase option on MicroBT M56S miners would allow Riot to reach nearly 60 EH/s in total hashing capacity. In other words, Corsicana provides a substantial amount of the infrastructure needed for Riot to utilize its purchase options with MicroBT and reach our 100 EH/s goal. These components give Riot the most directly visible and predictable pipeline for Riot Platforms in the Bitcoin Mining sector. In order to fully utilize our pipeline of infrastructure, over the past 12 months, we have entered into a series of agreements with MicroBT to a total of 32 EH/s of next-generation miners. The decision to enter these large-scale purchase agreements came after several months of testing various latest generation MicroBT miners in both immersion and air-cooled environments and observing strong operating performance. As a result of this investment, full deployment of our purchase orders is expected to improve our overall fleet efficiency by 21.3% to 21.8 J/TH. As part of our long-term agreement with MicroBT, we have purchase options for an additional 75 EH/s of miners on terms substantially similar to our original order. This option provides for a fixed price ceiling of $16.50 per TH on next-generation miners in order to support Riot further growing its fleet and improving overall efficiency. Assuming full exercise of our purchase options and deployment of those miners, our fleet efficiency would improve even further to 19.7 J/TH. Riot prioritizes maintaining a strong balance sheet with significant cash and Bitcoin holdings in order to drive long-term value creation for our shareholders. As a result, we can act decisively and continuously scale our business to meet the growing opportunities in the Bitcoin mining space. Our print growth plans to reach over 40 EH/s in 2025 call for $619 million in capital expenditures, which you can see broken down on this slide. We have sufficient financial resources to fund these growth plans entirely, and we expect to end 2025 with total liquidity exceeding that of the end of the first quarter of 2024. Riot's vision is to be the world's leading Bitcoin-driven infrastructure platform. The strategy we have been executing on over the past several years has now begun bearing the results, which position us to realize this vision. Through our vertically integrated strategy, we have created an unmatched infrastructure growth pipeline to increase our hash rate by 154% this year to 31 EH/s and to ultimately lead us to our goal of reaching 100 EH/s in total self-mining hash rate. Riot's balance sheet strength underpins our ability to achieve these targets. And as a result, our 2024 and 2025 growth plans are fully funded. We are incredibly excited about what Riot is accomplishing this year, and we look forward to executing on our stated goals on our path to achieving 100 EH/s. Thank you all for listening to our presentation. We would now like to open the call for questions. Operator?

Phil, you can now take over for the Q&A session.

Thank you, Devine. We'll take our first call from Kevin Dede at H.C. Wainwright. Kevin?

It looks like he dropped off. We'll move to the next one. Our next question will come from Greg Lewis of BTIG.

Yes. Jason, as we observe the strategy surrounding Bitcoin inventory management, it appears that we've experienced fluctuations in funding certain operations with Bitcoin. Recently, particularly in February and March, we began to focus on building our Bitcoin inventory. I believe we only saw a small amount of Bitcoin generated. Now that we are past the halving, looking ahead to May and beyond, how are you planning to balance the decisions regarding the Bitcoin produced to offset some expenses while also building that inventory? Any thoughts on this?

Sure. Thanks, Greg. So our strategy is to always maintain a strong balance sheet. I think by now, we've all seen how business played out as a key strength for Riot. This includes both cash and Bitcoin. We are here because we're a Bitcoin company. We believe in the long-term value of Bitcoin. So we try to hold as much Bitcoin as possible. As you noted, at the beginning of this year in January, we stopped selling Bitcoin. In February and March through our monthly updates, we reported we have not sold any Bitcoin. So currently, we are not selling any Bitcoin. However, we are continuing to always monitor our balance sheet in light of what we need from capital expenses and what we need for operational growth. By maintaining such a strong balance sheet with a cash position that we're reporting today, we have sufficient cash reserves and further access to cash through our ATM program to continue to fund all of our growth plans and our operating expenditures. So it's a decision that we're making on a month-by-month basis of evaluating the market value, evaluating the financing options, evaluating our cost of capital, and with the parallel goal of trying to hold as much Bitcoin as possible.

Okay. Great. My other question is about the engineering business. I realize it's not a major driver for the company, which is clearly Bitcoin Mining, but I have a two-part question regarding engineering. First, is there any seasonality we should consider over the next 3 to 4 quarters? Secondly, when you acquired Metron, there seemed to be an opportunity to engage in infrastructure equipment, knowing that Riot's main role as a miner won't focus on AI data centers. Is Metron's business set up to benefit from the ongoing AI infrastructure trend that we find ourselves in?

Yes. Let me address your last question first. There is significant demand for this type of electrical agreement right now. While Riot owned ESS Metron, we were one of the smallest customers. They have substantial business and strong demand from various data centers, especially AI data centers that are rapidly expanding to meet this service need. They are indeed overwhelmed with business opportunities. The limitations they face are related to manufacturing, warehouse capacity, and access to the necessary components from the global supply chain. They are benefiting greatly from this situation, and we aim to help increase their capacity so they can cater to the demands of these data centers and AI facilities. However, as you mentioned, our primary reason for acquiring ESS Metron was strategic. It has reduced our capital expenditure for purchasing electrical equipment by about $10 million over the last two years since the acquisition. More importantly, it has been essential for managing our supply chain, enabling us to avoid relying on external sources for procuring electrical equipment or custom engineering. We can manage this in-house, giving us supply chain visibility and flexibility to make adjustments. This has been very beneficial as we expand in both Rockdale and Corsicana. Regarding the seasonality of our results, we anticipate noticeable seasonality this year. The first quarter was influenced by global supply chain challenges, delaying two major orders. These delays not only prevent revenue recognition but also occupy space needed for other projects. We expect to resolve these issues in the second half of 2024. We have secured additional warehouse space and are actively working on the supply chain matters, which will allow those two key contracts to proceed. Once they do, we can recognize the revenue and maintain the flow of backlog from other demands, which are predominantly driven by data center and AI infrastructure needs.

Our next question is from Mike Colonnese from H.C. Wainwright. Mike?

First one is really more of a high-level question for me. Just curious how you guys are thinking about the operating environment here with cash prices at all-time lows post halving, the implications for your growth trajectory at Riot, and how you expect the M&A landscape to play out as less efficient miners are forced to power down here?

Sure. Thanks for the question, Mike. Let me answer the first part, and then the other question, I'll turn it over to Jason Chung, our Head of Corporate Development, to talk about M&A here. I think the halving is always a tough time for miners. Immediately after this one, it seems not as bad because a huge influx of transaction fees that we saw, right? There were blocks with 30 Bitcoins in transaction fees, and they scaled up from there, but that really offset the decrease in the block reward halving. But that has subsided and, recently, the price has gone down. I think by focusing on being a low-cost producer, Riot is very well positioned for these types of trough periods in Bitcoin Mining economics. Culminating with the summer here, especially with our power strategy, we are able to be very responsive to the price of power, using that to lower our direct cost of mining, which allows Riot to be a low-cost producer when others have to fall off the network. And when those higher-cost producers fall off, as you know, difficulty adjusts, and then that widens the margin again as we're mining more Bitcoin. So we believe this is the type of environment where Riot's strategic pillars are on full display. Obviously, we're long-term bullish on Bitcoin. I just talked about we're holding Bitcoin because we believe in the upside of the system long-term. But to reach that long term, to be a leading Bitcoin Mining company, we have to focus on having this low cost of power and maintain a low cost of production through more difficult points in the market.

Thank you, Jason. Mike, I appreciate your question. From our perspective, historically, several factors have influenced deals in the sector. We've observed volatility in public miner stocks and Bitcoin prices, as well as varying expectations concerning Bitcoin prices among buyers and sellers. These elements have resulted in a significant gap between buyer and seller valuation expectations in the past. However, we believe this gap has begun to close, especially leading up to the halving, and we expect this trend to persist now that we are post-halving. Additionally, we have experienced strong deal flow prior to the halving, and we anticipate that this will increase further after the halving. Considering both of these factors, we see an exciting opportunity for deals in the sector. On our part, we have dedicated a considerable amount of time to developing what we consider the most advanced corporate development team in our industry, specifically to seize this emerging opportunity.

That's great color. Appreciate that. And going back to the engineering business for just a moment, how should we think about engineering revenues once the supply chain issues are resolved later this year, especially given the growing backlog you guys are experiencing? Should we expect the run rate to go back in line with what we saw last year? Or should we experience more of an elevated level, especially given the growing demand for that business?

Mike, I would say you can think about it just following the historical performance for now. I think the main thing that we need to work on to scale this business is increasing the capacity of that engineering segment. That will really be the driver of improved financial performance there. The demand is enormous. That has not been an issue for us. It's really expanding our manufacturing warehouse capacity. So we're working on that, but I wouldn't guide towards expecting a higher increase for that at that time. But it's something I think we could touch on at our next earnings call.

Great. We'll take our next call from Darren Aftahi from ROTH MKM. Darren?

Two questions, if I may. The machines you're going to replace in Rockdale. I think in the release, you said those are going to start in the second quarter. Could you just kind of speak to the cadence of how those are going to be added? And then secondly, on the hosting capacity, any kind of sense on resolution there, at least what you can publicly say in terms of how you kind of shift some of that to self-mining in the future?

Yes, Darren. Regarding the hash rate replacement and growth at Rockdale, we have acquired the latest generation M60 series MicroBT miners and are set to receive them this month. We’re preparing for their deployment, which we expect to initiate at the end of May and continue through June and July, with most of the installations taking place in June. Over the next eight weeks, we plan to carry out these deployments, which will replace the problematic machines and enhance our current facilities' performance. This will increase Rockdale's hash rate from 12.4 EH/s to just over 50 EH/s once all miners are in place. We’re very enthusiastic about this improvement and expansion. We conducted extensive testing on these M60 miners and other MicroBT models before making the decision to purchase, and we were very impressed with their performance and their ability to operate under challenging conditions. We are looking forward to seeing the results as we deploy them in the coming months. Concerning the hosting-related litigation, it is always unpredictable, and I cannot provide guidance on that. We are allocating significant effort and resources to it, and we will have to wait and see how it unfolds.

Our next question comes from Martin Toner at ATB Capital. Martin?

Congrats on the great progress here, particularly, let's say, data center hosting. Can you talk to the drivers of sequentially higher SG&A in the quarter? And maybe what we should be thinking about for a run rate going forward?

Sure. We've experienced a higher level of legal expenses as we navigate the litigation process with our hosting customers. This expense is not expected to persist in the long term, but it is ongoing for now. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, we've removed the data center hosting segment. Consequently, some costs that were previously categorized under cost of revenues for that segment are now reflected in SG&A. It's important to note that we are building a substantial business. We have scaled our operations to a capacity of 30 EH/s and beyond. With the developments at Corsicana and the results we are starting to see, we are evolving into this new phase. Regarding future SG&A estimates, you can anticipate quarterly cash expenses in the range of $22 million to $25 million. This is a reasonable estimate at this point. As the non-recurrent legal and litigation expenses decrease, we hope to enhance that figure.

Can you discuss the curtailment revenue for the quarter? Are there any significant factors to note? Also, have there been any updates to the power strategy since Analyst Day less than a month ago?

So most of the power strategy results are really Q3 weighted. We see some every quarter, but most of them really come in the third quarter in the summer months. And of course, at the end of the second quarter, we get some of that in June. So the approximately $5 million you see from the first quarter is us really taking advantage of just limited opportunities that have come up during that quarter and the ancillary services revenue that we always participate in. So how it plays out in this summer and mainly Q3 coming up here? It is hard to predict. It's going to be based on external factors like weather and generation performance that we cannot control. However, because we have this 345 megawatts of fixed-price power, because we have these blocks 24/7, and because of what we've learned on the power strategy that we've developed, we are in a really good position to act on the opportunities when they occur here. So that 345 megawatts, that is Rockdale. So we'll be executing our power strategy at Rockdale, selling power when the spot price of power is exceeding Bitcoin mining revenue. And then over at Corsicana, we are beginning unhedged, and we'll just be responding to the spot prices of power as they occur there, which also gives us the benefit of capturing those very low-priced or negative-priced hours when they occur as well.

Great. Our next question comes from Reggie Smith at JPMorgan. Reggie?

I appreciate the disclosure on Slide 9. I'm still not all the way clear on, I guess, the drivers of the sequential increase in your cost to mine. I am looking at the network difficulty component. And it seems rather large in relation to the 4Q number. Maybe a little color on those two components of that and the other costs? And how much of that you think is kind of recurring versus one-time-ish? Any color you could provide there and just kind of bridge that increase in cost of mind would be helpful? And then I have one follow-up question.

Thanks, Reggie. There has been about a 20% rise in network difficulty from the previous quarter, which led to an increase of around $4,300 to $4,400 in our cost per coin. Additionally, other costs have gone up by approximately $5,000 per coin for the quarter. This increase is largely due to the elimination of our data center hosting business, which means that some expenses previously classified under that segment are now reflected in our Bitcoin Mining segment. For instance, miner repair costs are currently higher than usual, but we expect these costs to decrease as we replace problematic miners. On Slide 9, you’ll see our cost per coin, which includes $6,300 in other costs. At this point, we expect this trend to persist, although the halving will influence that. We aim to reduce these costs moving forward, especially by minimizing miner repairs.

Got it. And you say miner repairs. You're not repairing the equipment from your hosting partners now, are you?

Sorry, let me clarify this.

I guess the comments were blended there. I'm trying to figure out like how much of it was kind of the, I guess, the overhead drag from the hosting business versus some of the other things?

Let me clarify. Miner repair costs have always been included in the cost of goods for self-mining, so this is not a new expense. I would note that miner repair costs were elevated in both the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, and we anticipate these costs will decrease moving forward. These costs are associated with third-party vendors that we pay to repair our miners. Additionally, there has been an increase of about $5,000 per coin on a quarter-over-quarter basis, primarily due to expenses that were previously accounted for in data center hosting costs, now categorized under Bitcoin Mining costs. Examples of these expenses include direct labor costs, land lease and property taxes, as well as network and utility expenses that we have incurred.

Yes, that makes sense. And then I guess, one big picture question for you. I appreciate the disclosure on kind of the 100 EH/s. As you think about growth beyond Corsicana, does that look different in terms of the size of facility, like, is Corsicana like the last final big facility? Do you think there'll be smaller ones going forward? And I ask that just in light of all of the AI interest and power assets and things like that. How are you thinking about like that next 40 EH/s of capacity kind of beyond Corsicana? What could that look like?

Yes. I think what we have at Corsicana is very valuable because it is probably the last 1 gigawatt site, probably the only 1 gigawatt site that exists, and probably the last one that will ever be approved. Access to power is going to be a critical constraint for Bitcoin miners and these other industries scaling up going forward. So I think what you should expect to see from us is capturing smaller-sized opportunities. We're not opposed to doing smaller sites. We've merely been acting on the most frictionless growth path that's been in front of us, which has been these two sites of large capacity. We're open to new sites and new opportunities of all sizes, and we're working on that quite a bit right now. So we look forward to sharing more results as those ideas become more actionable going forward.

And I guess that could be outside of Texas or maybe even the United States? Or are you still trying to think about staying in Texas?

No, we are open to operating, I would say, in the United States and North America. We've operated in Texas because that has been the easiest pathway to growth, and we really like the power market here. We're able to really achieve this industry-leading low cost of power here, which is just so critical in Bitcoin mining. That doesn't mean those opportunities don't exist elsewhere, though. So we look at opportunities all over the country all the time. International opportunities, I think, to be determined. We're seeing some interesting things in South America and elsewhere. But there are other considerations always besides power costs. So we look at a lot of things, but I think you could expect to see our growth in North America in the foreseeable future.

Our next call comes from Lucas Pipes of B. Riley Securities. Lucas?

So my first question is back on the hosting side. And if we were to be on site today, would there still be machines from your former hosted customers? Or have they been removed?

Yes, Lucas. Although we ended our last two hosting agreements towards the end of 2023, one of those customers is still operating on site. In the first quarter, this accounted for roughly $3.2 million in revenue, which is included in our Bitcoin mining revenue. Their power costs amounted to about $4.5 million, and this was part of our cost of revenues for Bitcoin mining. So you will see that one remaining customer operating as we navigate through the legal process and work towards a resolution.

And the other one is fully out of your facilities at this point?

That's correct. That's correct.

And kind of taking a step back, would you consider going back into the hosting business? Or is the lesson learned here, never again?

Yes. I think that's the lesson learned here. Maybe I'll say a little more strongly than I would say. I think we have seen the best use of this infrastructure and building new infrastructure is for growing our self-mining operations. We want to get maximum exposure to Bitcoin. We want to leverage our efficient cost of production over the wider scale possible. And I think expanding the hosting business really just takes away that valuable infrastructure pipeline, which I think generates the results and better grows our businesses, more of what our shareholders are looking for. So we are not looking to grow the hosting business any further.

Very helpful. And then just to round this out, when you look at M&A, you mentioned earlier you are inquisitive if you built out a sophisticated corporate development team. Would you rule out any targets that have hosting agreements to date? And more generally, what would the ideal target look like?

Sure. Let me turn that back to Jason Chung, our Head of Corporate Development. In the M&A world, we see a wide variety of opportunities. And it's rare to see a target that 100% encapsulates everything you're looking for. So sometimes there are situations where there's an opportunity to make a deal, but it might come with some amount of hosting, for example, or other factors which may not completely tie to our overall strategy. And that's something that we have to take into account when we evaluate some of these opportunities in the market. So I'd say as long as an opportunity is able to check most of the financial and strategic and operational boxes, the criteria that we have, then we'll consider it. That being said, at the same time, we are incredibly blessed at Riot to have an organic growth opportunity unlike others in the space. And so ultimately, we have to evaluate all these opportunities relative to our ability to control our own destiny at Corsicana and develop our pipeline with full control over what that looks like.

Okay. We've got time for one more question. Our last question is going to come from Owen Rickert at Northland Securities. Owen?

I'm on for Mike Grondahl today. So just quickly, I guess, what's your confidence level on getting to the 31 EH/s by the end of the year? And what are some of the challenges you might face or you're currently facing to get there?

Thanks for the question. I think we feel pretty confident about our ability to execute on that growth target. We're taking things step by step here. I would say a lesson that we learned from Rockdale was rushing too fast to get every miner online as quickly as possible, kind of oftentimes miss some steps that you have to come back and address later. So we're very incrementally approaching the development year. The big milestone was energizing that substation. That was huge. We're very proud of that. And now it's a matter of just incrementally putting up these buildings, deploying the immersion equipment, and putting the miners in and going from there. So we're making these deployments step by step, and you can expect us to see this continue over the rest of the year. The challenges are really just kind of the small things that will come up in any large development. As you build and scale out more, you'll incur different problems like, hey, this electrical switch needs something, this networking thing needs resolution here, or this immersion system needs to be altered quite a bit. None of them are critical or big roadblocks. They are just the kind of punches that you roll with in this business. And through our experience in building this infrastructure at scale, we've become quite good at identifying small issues, resolving and then just continuing to move forward. So to wrap that up, we're very confident about our 31 EH/s goal, and we are just marching forward on that for the next seven months of the year.

That concludes our Q&A. Thank you, everyone, for listening to our presentation and for the questions from our analysts. Very excited about what we have executed on Corsicana. We'll be providing updates as we always do on a monthly basis going forward. And look forward to speaking with everyone and sharing more results after the end of Q2 and Q2 results in August. So with that, thank you, everyone. Have a good day.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.