Mike Novogratz called Helios a “transformative acquisition” for the Galaxy

Galaxy Digital Holdings CEO Mike Novogratz described the Helios mining deal as a “transformational acquisition” for the company as it works to increase its exposure to the bitcoin mining sector.

Crypto investment company The acquisition of 65 million dollars The major Argo Blockchain mining facility was announced on December 28 as part of Argo’s aggressive measure to stave off bankruptcy.

In a tweet about the deal on Dec. 29, Novogratz confirmed that Galaxy is a “strong believer” in Bitcoin’s long-term future (BTCThe company will continue to intensify its mining initiatives:

“Building bear markets. We believe in Bitcoin for the long term and expect lower cost miners to win over time. Helios is a transformative acquisition that will expand our mining capabilities and services as we continue to build for the decentralized future.”

Since we started mining bitcoin in the first quarter of 2021, we have outsourced our miners to hosting service providers. But we always had the idea that we would vertically integrate our mining capabilities.

– Mike Novogratz (@novogratz) December 28, 2022

explain the transaction in more detail, Galaxy CEO He explained that the company has a specific “thesis” on how to approach the mining sector: “low-cost electricity, a very efficient team” and “buy ASIC miners cheap.”

“This is a recipe for mining success, even when the hash rate is high,” he said.

Recent data from the Hashrate Index found that the Bitcoin ASIC miner Prices are hovering at their lowest levels Not seen since at least 2021, the most efficient ASIC miners saw their prices fall 86.8% from their peak in May 2021.

Galaxy has five business lines across trading, asset management, crypto mining, project investments, and investment banking. According to her website, she currently has $1.9 billion in assets under management.

As it is, Galaxy mainly used hosting services for its own mining operations. However, Novogratz notes that owning Helios with a capacity of 200 megawatts would not only allow the company to operate miners at its site, but host others as well.

Helios has quite a bit of capacity to expand to make it one of the largest miners in the market. Argo Blockchain has been previously identified In May this year it had plans to increase electrical capacity to 800 megawatts in the “coming years”.

At the time, the company also said that it expects Helios to reach a BTC mining capacity of 5.5 exahashes per second by the end of the year, with the potential eventually to reach 20 exahash/s.

It looks like Galaxy has some cash to throw amid the 2022 bear market, considering that it also gave Argo Blockchain a $35 million equipment financing loan along with the acquisition.

Related: BTC price maintains $16.5K, but funding rates increase new Bitcoin price downside risks

The move also adds another coup from earlier this month, when the Galaxy I picked up the GK8 cryptocurrency self-guarding platform for an undisclosed fee.

GK8 has been auctioned as part of Celsius’s bankruptcy process, after the company was acquired by a cryptocurrency lender for $115 million in 2021.

Novogratz described the acquisition as “a critical cornerstone in our efforts to create a full-service financial platform for digital assets.”