Big mining company Argo Blockchain made a tough decision and sold its centerpiece – the Helios company data center – to survive the current bear market.
Argo CEO Peter Wall announced today, Dec. 28, that the mining company has agreed to a $65 million acquisition of the Helios Center with crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, led by Mike Novogratz. Previously, Argo had already sold part of the Bitcoin holdings in order to be able to pay off an outstanding loan from Galaxy.
As part of the new deal, Argo is also giving the miner a new $35 million loan to fund new hardware. “We used the proceeds from the sale to Galaxy to pay off our debt to NYDIG and repay money to a smaller lender,” Wall said.
The new transaction will help Argo reduce its total debt by $41 million, increase its liquidity and improve its operating environment.
As Wall therefore concludes, the deal was “the only possible step” to get through the bear market, which is characterized by increased cost pressures and a low Bitcoin price.
The CEO also points out that the sale of Helios was in no way accompanied by the sale of mining devices, but these will continue to be available as abilities in the Helios Center. As a result, Argo has entered into an agreement with Galaxy that the hardware in question can continue to operate in the data center. To which he adds:
“By staying at Helios, we can continue to use the Texas electric grid and benefit from state payment of utility bills.”
The deal comes just under six months after Helios opened the new data center in May 2022. Located in Dickens County, Helios is Argo’s largest mining data center capable of generating up to 200 megawatts (MW). For comparison: the miner’s second largest data center has just under 15 MW.