Bitcoin Miner Cipher Mining Going Public In SPAC Merger
Cipher Mining, a subsidiary of the Bitfury Group, has filed an application to go public via a merger with Good Works Acquisition, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
Cipher Mining is a relatively new mining company launched by Bitfury, a company which has been into blockchain and mining since launching in 2011.
The newly combined entity is believed to have a value of around $2 billion and is expected to be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol CIFR.
As news of the merger deal was announced, shares of Good Works Acquisition rose 15.9% to $11.59 after markets opened for trading on Friday.
More Western Mining Companies Going Public As Institutional Money Floods The Bitcoin Mining Space
News of the latest Bitcoin miner to go public follows other firms such as Marathon and Riot Blockchain in the US, and Argo Blockchain in the UK as more institutional money enters the space.
All three firms have had incredible growth since going public, but Cypher Mining’s SPAC route is the first such way.
Speaking of the reasoning behind the SPAC route, Cypher Mining CEO Tyler Page said the company had chosen that path as it was the quickest route to going public.
‘We wanted to get to market quickly and efficiently and after evaluating different paths, the SPAC market allowed us to get to market the quickest,’ explained Page.
The news of Cypher Mining’s merger with the SPAC follows Bitcoin futures exchange Bakkt’s announcement in January that it had agreed to go public through a merger with a blank-check firm VPC Impact Acquisition Holdings, giving the cryptocurrency platform an enterprise value of $2.1 billion.
Bitfury Looking To Grow Its US Presence
Based in The Netherlands, the Bitfury Group is one of the longest running Bitcoin companies, and provides Bitcoin mining hardware and blockchain software and services.
According to the filing, since launching almost a decade ago, the company has mined over 600,000 Bitcoin and deployed more than 500+ MW of computing power.
Bitfury’s Bitcoin mining subsidiary is aiming to expand its North American presence as it grows a US-centric Bitcoin Mining facility to compete with the biggest.
With ambitious plans laid out over the next 4 years the company aims to offer 745 MW of mining capacity, making it the largest scale mining platform in the US.
Cipher Mining CEO Tyler Page said with the funds now available to the company, added with its mining experience and technological expertise, he expected Cypher to become ‘a true leader in the Bitcoin mining industry.’
‘Historically, the Bitcoin mining industry featured smaller, poorly capitalized, less experienced companies that were not fully equipped to manage the underlying price swings associated with bitcoin,’ said the Cipher Mining CEO.
‘With this transaction, we will be able to combine the formidable skill sets and technologies developed by Bitfury Group over the past 10 years with what we believe will be a leadership position on the global cost curve, and thereby create a true leader in the Bitcoin mining industry.’
Once the merger is finalised, Cipher Mining will become the wholly-owned subsidiary of Good Works and the SPAC will be renamed Cipher Mining Inc.
Good Works’ Co-Chairman, Doug Wurth, said his company was attracted to the Bitcoin mining space because they believe it ‘represents a compelling way to gain risk-adjusted exposure to the growing crypto ecosystem’ and said the company was ‘excited to help [Cypher] become the leading Bitcoin mining company in the United States.’
Pablo is a writer at Bitcoin Maximalist. Originally from Spain, Pablo grew up in the UK, and loves clubbing and gaming. Pablo is a keen Bitcoiner and loves to share his wisdom to help spread the good news of Bitcoin.
