Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms drops 'blockchain’ in rebrand

Riot Blockchain, one of the largest bitcoin miners in the industry, is rebranding its name to Riot Platforms to reflect the company's diversified business operations, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

"The scope and scale of our businesses continues to expand, and this rebranding better reflects our position as strategic allocators of capital to increasingly broaden the scope of our Bitcoin-focused operations," said Riot Platforms CEO Jason Les.

Hosting provider Applied Digital, formerly known as Applied Blockchain, similarly dropped the word "blockchain" from its title to reflect its shift away from being completely crypto-focused.

Miners have struggled in the past year with shrinking margins, and Stronghold Digital Mining even switched the core of its business this summer to selling power from mining. 

Riot Platforms and its flagship facility in Texas, Whinstone U.S., will be under the umbrella of Riot Platforms Inc., while its electrical equipment manufacturing business will operate as ESS Metron, it said.

The company recently broke ground on an additional site in Texas, which it says will be expandable up to 1 gigawatt.