IREN Surpasses 20 EH/s in Bitcoin Mining Hashrate Race

IREN, previously known as Iris Energy, has become the fifth publicly traded bitcoin mining firm to surpass the 20 EH/s threshold in the competitive race to gain market share despite bitcoin’s sluggish hashprice.

On Monday, IREN announced it had increased its installed hashrate capacity to 20 EH/s with an efficiency of 16 J/TH. Through optimization of its existing mining infrastructure, the company expects to reach 21 EH/s “in the coming days.”

Should this target be achieved, IREN could overtake Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ)’s position as the fourth-largest public mining company in installed hashrate capacity, following MARA, Riot, and CleanSpark.

IREN appears to have significantly boosted its proprietary hashrate in September. It already reported a notable jump in bitcoin production for August compared to July after reaching 16 EH/s as of Aug. 30. By Sep. 16, IREN said its hashrate had increased to 18.8 EH/s. With further energization since mid-September, IREN is expected to report another bitcoin production growth for this month.

Among the top public mining companies by installed hashrate, MARA is currently the only one to have surpassed the 30 EH/s threshold, although others are also racing toward that goal.

IREN stated that its pre-ordered Antminer S21XPs are scheduled for shipping over the next two months. The corresponding 150 megawatts of infrastructure buildout is also “well underway” as part of the expansion from 21 EH/s to 31 EH/s. Meanwhile, following recent acquisitions of turnkey mining sites, CleanSpark expects to reach 37 EH/s by year-end.

In addition, IREN is doubling down on its bet on high-performance computing capacities with a recent purchase of 1,080 of the latest-generation NVIDIA H200 GPUs for $43.9 million, with delivery and commissioning expected during Q4.