Bitcoin miner core scientific gets $100M equity financing despite bear market

The miner has the right but no obligation to sell the shares to investment bank B Riley.

The largest bitcoin miner by hashrate, Core Scientific (CORZ), has signed an agreement with investment bank B Riley to issue up to $100 million of shares to the bank over two years to enhance liquidity.

Core Scientific has the right but no obligation to issue these new shares, subject to some limitations and conditions, according to a statement. The company plans to use this additional funding to bolster its balance sheet and help the miner expand, Core CEO Mike Levitt said in the statement.

The deal comes as a crypto bear market hammers shares of the publicly traded miners. Stocks of some of these publicly traded miners, including Core, have fallen anywhere between 50% to 80% this year.

The miner has also issued B. Riley 573,381 shares of common stock as consideration for B Riley’s commitment to purchase Core Scientific shares.

Core has been raising cash by selling some of the bitcoins it has been mining. Last month, it sold 7,202 bitcoins at an average price of $23,000 to raise about $167 million. The miner said it intends to use the proceeds from the sales mainly for payments toward ASIC servers, capital investments in additional data-center capacity and debt repayments.