Cipher Mining pursuing sale as bitcoin miners continue to look for alternatives: report

Cipher Mining is the latest crypto miner rumored to be looking for a deal.

The Bitcoin miner is exploring a potential sale after receiving takeover interest, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Deliberations are in the early stages and it’s not certain Cipher Mining will decide to pursue a sale, the people said.

The Block reached out to Cipher Mining for comment but has yet to receive a response. 

The artificial intelligence boom has led to strong demand for data centers at a time when the Bitcoin halving event in April cut miners’ revenue in half, leading many to explore strategic alternatives.

​​"With immediate power access in relatively short supply, Hyperscalers and AI firms are exploring alternatives, including leasing power/datacenter capacity from (or outright acquiring) bitcoin miners," JPMorgan analysts wrote in a June 5 note.

North American bitcoin miner Core Scientific (CORZ) in June signed a series of 12-year contracts with AI Hyperscaler CoreWeave, a cloud computing firm. Crypto miner CleanSpark purchased GRIID Infrastructure in a deal valued at $155 million. Meanwhile, Riot has staged a hostile takeover of Bitfarms following its failed attempt to acquire the latter for $950 million.

"Competition abroad will only continue to intensify and it strains credulity that US-listed companies…will be long-term lowcost producers and therefore market share winners in this extremely commodity industry,” short-seller Kerrisdale Captial wrote in a report last month.

Cipher produced 176 bitcoin in June, a 6% increase from 166 bitcoin in May. It sold 103 bitcoin and ended the month with a balance of approximately 2,209 bitcoin.

Cipher Minig’s stock was down 2.8% to $6.59 per share at publication time. However, shares have surged more than 40% over the past five trading days and are up about 60% since the start of the year.