Bitcoin Price Decline Pushes Argo Blockchain’s H1 Revenue Down by 14%

London-listed Argo Blockchain (LON: ARB; NASDAQ: ARBK), a commercial cryptocurrency mining company, generated £26.7 million ($32.5 million) in revenue in the first six months of 2022. It was a 14 percent decline year-over-year, primarily due to the decrease in Bitcoin prices.

However, the company mined 939 “Bitcoin or Bitcoin Equivalent” in H1 2022, which is 6 percent higher than the same period in the previous year. It held 1,953 Bitcoins by the end of June, which is a jump of 54 percent year-over-year.

In addition, the company reported an adjusted EBITDA of £17.1 million ($20.9 million), which is a decline of 28 percent. Moreover, the mining margin dropped to 71 percent from 81 percent, pushed by Bitcoin’s price plummet and increasing network difficulty.

Argo’s pre-tax losses at the end of the year-half came in at £36.9 million ($44.9 million). This figure, according to the company, was primarily driven by a non-cash reduction in the fair value of digital currencies held on the balance sheet.

Strengthening Mining Infrastructure

Meanwhile, Argo continues to strengthen its crypto mining infrastructure. In the first half of 2022, the company increased its hashrate capacity by 38 percent to 2.2 EH/s from 1.6 EH/s at the end of 2021. It also obtained financing of up to $70.6 million (£56.3 million) from NYDIG for securing BTC mining equipment.

“The delivery and installation of the approximately 20,000 S19J Pro machines from Bitmain continues to progress on schedule, and we still expect to have all of these machines installed by October 2022,” said the CEO of Argo, Peter Wall.

Furthermore, the company is reducing its near-term capital intensity and updating its guidance for hashrate capacity due to volatile market conditions.

Wall added: “The revision to our hashrate guidance reflects our current expectations for delivery and deployment of the custom machines we are developing with ePIC Blockchain Technologies ("ePIC") that utilize the Intel® Blockscale™ ASIC chips. We have worked closely with ePIC and Intel to modify the machine design to increase total mining efficiency, which has delayed our expected deployment schedule.”