Canaan expands U.S. mining operations with purchase of Cipher’s Texas JV stake

Canaan Inc. (CAN), a manufacturer of bitcoin mining hardware and an operator of crypto mining infrastructure, said it bought a 49% equity interest in a joint venture tied to several mining projects in West Texas from Cipher Mining (CIFR) for $39.75 million in stock.

The transaction covers Cipher’s stake in the ABC Projects, which include Alborz LLC, Bear LLC and Chief Mountain LLC. The rest of the venture is owned by WindHQ, according to a Monday statement.

The purchase was funded through the issuance of 806.4 million Class A ordinary shares, equivalent to 53.8 million American depositary shares, and makes Cipher, a U.S.-based bitcoin mining company that develops and operates large-scale data centers, a major shareholder in Singapore-based Canaan. The shares are subject to a six-month lock-up.

Canaan shares fell 6% on Monday, while Cipher shares rose 4%. Cipher is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings before the market opens on Feb. 24.

The sites collectively operate 120 megawatts of energized power capacity and support approximately 4.4 exahashes per second (EH/s) of hashrate. Fleet efficiency stands at roughly 25.7 joules per terahash (J/TH).

As part of the agreement, Canaan also purchased 6,840 Avalon A15Pro mining rigs that were previously deployed at Cipher’s Black Pearl facility, which is being converted into an AI and high-performance computing data center.