BTBT Bit Digital Inc

NEW YORK, April 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Bit Digital, Inc. (Nasdaq: BTBT) (the "Company"), a digital asset mining company headquartered in New York City, announced that it filed its annual report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") on April 27, 2023.

Financial Highlights for Fiscal Year 2022

• Total revenue was $32.3 million for the fiscal year 2022.
• For the year ended December 31, 2022, we recognized revenue of $31.4 million and $0.9 million from bitcoin mining services and ETH mining services, respectively.
• The Company had cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash of $34.0 million, and total liquidity (defined as cash equivalents and restricted cash, USDC and digital assets) of approximately $62.2 million, as of December 31, 2022.
• Net loss was $(105.3) million, or $(1.34) per share for the twelve-month period ended December 31, 2022. Net loss includes a $(50.0) million impairment of fixed assets charge and a $(24.7) million impairment of digital assets charge.

Operational Highlights for Fiscal Year 2022

• The Company earned 1,247.5 bitcoins during the year.
• The Company generated 294.3 ETH during the year from mining activities. Bit Digital suspended the ETH mining operations by September 2022 due to Ethereum blockchain switching from proof-of-work ("PoW") consensus mechanism to proof-of-stake ("PoS") validation.
• Treasury holdings of BTC and ETH were 946.3 and 8,799.9, with a fair market value of approximately $15.7 million and $10.5 million on December 31, 2022, respectively.
• The BTC equivalent^[1] of our digital asset holdings as of December 31, 2022 (defined as if all ETH, sETH-H, and USDC holdings were converted into BTC as of that date and added to our BTC holdings) was approximately 1,765.6 BTC, with a fair market value of approximately $29.2 million as of that date.
• The Company owned 37,676 bitcoin miners and 730 Ethereum miners as of December 31, 2022, with an estimated maximum total hash rate of 2.6 EH/s and 0.3 TH/s, respectively.
• The Company's active hash rate of its bitcoin mining fleet was approximately 1.23 EH/s as of December 31, 2022.
• Approximately 85% of our fleet's run-rate electricity consumption was generated from carbon-free energy sources as of December 31, 2022, compared to 67% as of December 31, 2021. These figures are based on data provided by our hosts, publicly available sources, and internal estimates, demonstrating our commitment to sustainable practices in the digital asset mining industry.
• As of June 30, 2022, the Company had received the entirety of its previously announced 10,000-unit miner purchase from Bitmain Technologies Limited. The Company currently has no outstanding payment obligations for miner purchases.
• During the second quarter of 2022, the Company signed a new 20 MW hosting agreement with Coinmint LLC ("Coinmint"). All of this capacity has been delivered as of the date of this Report.
• During the third quarter of 2022, the Company finalized an agreement with Blockbreakers Inc. for 5 megawatts of incremental hosting capacity to power its miners. The facility is located in Canada and primarily utilizes hydroelectric energy.
• The Company sold 1,106 MicroBT Whatsminer M21S miners and 9 MicroBT Whatsminer M20S miners and wrote off 1 Innosilicon A10 series ETH miner during fiscal year 2022.

Subsequent Events

• On March 22, 2023, Bit Digital announced a strategic realignment of its executive leadership team. Effective March 31, 2023, Bryan Bullett, the Company's Chief Executive Officer, concluded his term as CEO and assumed the role of Senior Advisor, in which he will lead strategic growth initiatives for the Company. Sam Tabar, previously the Company's Chief Strategy Officer, was appointed CEO on this date.
• On April 5, 2023, the Company entered into an amended hosting agreement, pursuant to which Coinmint agreed to provide to the Company an additional ten MW of mining capacity.

Strategic Priorities for Fiscal Year 2023

• Maintain a best-in-class balance sheet: Continued focus on prudent balance sheet management through 2023 and beyond.
• Strategically deploy capital: Bit Digital targets doubling its operating fleet, to approximately 2.6 EH/s, during 2023. Additionally, the Company intends to continue evaluating and opportunistically deploy capital in the form of debt and/or alternative credit products in mining-related opportunities.
• Expand into PoS: The Company targets staking approximately half of its total digital asset position. Bit Digital is also exploring incubating additional PoS related businesses.
• Enhance treasury management solutions: Existing and prospective strategic partnerships that can activate structured solutions that may enhance yield on treasury assets and provide downside protection.
• Continued focus on sustainability: Advancing the Company's goal of becoming entirely carbon-free.

Management Commentary

"2022 was a pivotal year for Bit Digital and the bitcoin mining industry at large. The price of Bitcoin fell over 50% during 2022, declining from over $47,000 to start the year to under $17,000 at year-end. Network difficulty rose 43% over this period, while electricity prices spiked globally, with U.S. natural gas prices increasing 53% year-over-year and reaching the highest levels since 2008. This confluence of challenges created significant distress across the industry that many participants were unable to endure.

Prudent capital allocation and balance sheet management enabled Bit Digital to weather this storm. We finished 2022 with $34.0 million of cash and restricted cash and $29.2 million worth of digital assets as of December 31, 2022. We remain debt-free and have no significant capex obligations, which provides us with appreciable flexibility in the current environment. Maintaining a best-in class balance sheet remains one of our top priorities in 2023. As the year progresses, we aim to deploy capital opportunistically and strategically across different avenues that we believe will enhance our long-term earnings power.

Our goal for 2023 is to double our active hash rate to approximately 2.6 EH/s. To achieve this goal, we intend to opportunistically acquire new-gen ASICs. Our view has been that ASIC market conditions would progressively favor buyers and are ready to capitalize on that trend.

Deteriorating market conditions in 2022 impelled us to take a cautious approach towards our fleet deployment program. A portion of our fleet is comprised of legacy ASICs that we are less inclined to activate on long-term hosting contracts against current bitcoin prices. Our current plan is to high-grade our bitcoin fleet and prioritize activating the most efficient machines, while viewing the legacy component of our fleet as an option to increase our active hash rate should conditions warrant. However, we remain mindful of the upcoming 'halvening' in 2024 and will continue to carefully balance our growth and fleet deployment strategy with our goal of remaining nimble in various market conditions. Our enhanced treasury management solutions, including our recent strategic investment in Auros Global, carry the goal of making our company less susceptible to volatility in digital asset prices.  

The average price for electricity we paid during 4Q 2023 was approximately $0.051/kWh. Our intent is to secure a portfolio of attractive hosting agreements to drive this cost down over time. We encountered certain operational challenges with some of our hosting partners during 2022. These experiences have fortified our belief that a well-diversified hosting portfolio is essential towards mitigating site-specific and regulatory risk. While we maintain our view that our 'infrastructure light' strategy is the optimal path forward for our company, we could see a scenario in which we own infrastructure assets in the future via our nascent lending initiatives.

We commenced our Ethereum staking strategy during 2022 and believe that our PoS initiatives will grow into a more meaningful earnings driver for Bit Digital over time. As of December 31, 2022, the Company held 10,820 ETH and ETH equivalents, primarily acquired through programmatic conversions of BTC mining rewards. Approximately 2,164 ETH was actively staked as of the date, both in native and liquid protocols. Our target is to stake approximately half of our total digital asset position. We believe our core bitcoin mining business and Ethereum staking strategy are synergistic. Our overall strategy is to redeploy ETH validator assets into bitcoin mining equipment, which we believe creates a powerful 'flywheel effect'.

Our diversification into Ethereum has also helped advance our overall sustainability goals, given that Ethereum's transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism reduced the network's energy consumption by over 99%. Our bitcoin mining business increased its carbon-free electricity consumption rate to 85% at the end of 2022 from 67% to start the year. We remain committed to our longer-term goal for our operations to become entirely carbon-free."

About Bit Digital

Bit Digital, Inc. is a sustainability focused generator of digital assets headquartered in New York City. Our mining operations are located in North America. For additional information, please contact ir@bit-digital.com or visit our website at www.bit-digital.com.

Investor Notice

Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. Before making an investment decision, you should carefully consider the risks, uncertainties and forward-looking statements described under "Risk Factors" in Item 3.D of our most recent Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022. If any material risk was to occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations would likely suffer. In that event, the value of our securities could decline and you could lose part or all of your investment. The risks and uncertainties we describe are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. In addition, our past financial performance may not be a reliable indicator of future performance, and historical trends should not be used to anticipate results in the future. Future changes in the network-wide mining difficulty rate or bitcoin hash rate may also materially affect the future performance of Bit Digital's production of bitcoin. Actual operating results will vary depending on many factors including network difficulty rate, total hash rate of the network, the operations of our facilities, the status of our miners, and other factors. See "Safe Harbor Statement" below.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release may contain certain "forward-looking statements" relating to the business of Bit Digital, Inc., and its subsidiary companies. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are "forward-looking statements." These forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "believes," "expects," or similar expressions, involving known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the Company's periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website at http://www.sec.gov. All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume a duty to update these forward-looking statements.

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SOURCE Bit Digital, Inc.