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UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM
(Mark One)
ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 |
For the fiscal year ended
OR
TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934 FOR THE TRANSITION PERIOD FROM TO |
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Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act: None
Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act. Yes ☐
Indicate by check mark if the Registrant is nt required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of the Act.
Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant: (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.
Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T (§232.405 of this chapter) during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the Registrant was required to submit such files).
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, smaller reporting company, or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company,” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
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If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act.
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management’s assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report.
Indicate by check mark whether the Registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act). Yes ☐ No
As of June 30, 2021, the last business day of our most recently completed second fiscal quarter, our common stock was
As of March 25, 2022, the Registrant had
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
None.
Table of Contents
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PART I |
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Item 1. |
5 |
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Item 1A. |
18 |
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Item 1B. |
46 |
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Item 2. |
46 |
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Item 3. |
47 |
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Item 4. |
47 |
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PART II |
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Item 5. |
48 |
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Item 6. |
48 |
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Item 7. |
Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations |
49 |
Item 7A. |
63 |
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Item 8. |
63 |
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Item 9. |
Changes in and Disagreements With Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure |
63 |
Item 9A. |
64 |
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Item 9B. |
64 |
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Item 9C. |
Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections |
64 |
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PART III |
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Item 10. |
65 |
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Item 11. |
71 |
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Item 12. |
Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters |
75 |
Item 13. |
Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence |
77 |
Item 14. |
79 |
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PART IV |
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Item 15. |
80 |
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Item 16. |
82 |
i
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
AND SUMMARY OF RISK FACTORS
This report includes certain statements that may constitute “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the “Securities Act”) and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”). All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements for purposes of federal and state securities laws. These forward-looking statements involve uncertainties that could significantly affect our financial or operating results. These forward-looking statements may be identified by terms such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “foresee,” “expect,” “intend,” “plan,” “may,” “will,” "would," “could” and “should” and the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on current beliefs and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties and are not guarantees of future performance. Forward-looking statements in this document include, among other things, statements regarding our business plan, business strategy and operations in the future. In addition, all statements that address operating performance and future performance, events or developments that are expected or anticipated to occur in the future, including statements relating to creating value for stockholders and benefits of the Merger (as defined below) to our customers, vendors, employees, stockholders and other constituents, are forward-looking statements. As used herein, “we,” “us,” “our” and “Greenidge” refer to Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc. together with its consolidated subsidiaries.
Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Matters and factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the matters and factors described in Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, as well as statements about or relating to or otherwise affected by:
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Consequently, all of the forward-looking statements made in this report are qualified by the information contained herein, including the information contained under this caption and the information in Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” of this report. No assurance can be given that these are all of the factors that could cause actual results to vary materially from the forward-looking statements.
You should not put undue reliance on forward-looking statements. No assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do occur, what impact they will have on the results of our operations, financial condition or cash flows. Actual results may differ materially from those discussed in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this report and we do not assume any duty to update or revise forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, uncertainties or otherwise, as of any future date.
Risk Factor Summary
Our business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which illuminate challenges that we face in connection with the successful implementation of our strategy and the growth of our business. The following considerations, among others, may offset our competitive strengths or have a negative effect on our business strategy, which could impact our results of operations, financial condition or cash flows or cause a decline in the price of our class A common stock:
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The risks described above should be read together with the text of the full risk factors described in Part I, Item 1A. “Risk Factors” and the other information set forth in this report, including our consolidated financial statements and the related notes, as well as in other documents that we file with the SEC. Our business, prospects, results of operations or financial condition could be harmed by any of these risks, as well as other risks not currently known to us or that we currently consider immaterial. Certain statements in “Risk Factors” are forward-looking statements. See “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” above.
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PART I
ITEM 1. BUSINESS.
Overview
Cryptocurrency Datacenter and Power Generation Segment Overview
We are a vertically integrated cryptocurrency datacenter and power generation company. We own and operate facilities at two locations: the Town of Torrey, New York and Spartanburg, South Carolina. Our historical operations within this segment comprise two primary revenue sources:
Owning power generation assets and designing and operating our own datacenters and miners have allowed us to operate without relying on variable third-party power purchase agreements or hosting agreements that may be subject to renegotiation, counter-party risk or other cost volatility. Our datacenter operations in New York are powered by electricity generated directly by our power plant, which is referred to as “behind-the-meter” power as it is not subject to transmission and distribution charges from local utilities. As of December 31, 2021, our owned ASICs had the capacity to consume approximately 51 MW of electricity.
We believe that this behind-the-meter power generation capability provides a stable, cost-effective source of power for datacenter activities. Our primary business objective is to grow revenue by (i) executing our plan to increase cryptocurrency datacenter capacity at our current facilities in New York and South Carolina and (ii) acquiring additional locations, both with or without captive power sources, including locations supplied by low-carbon and zero-carbon electricity.
On June 1, 2021, we commenced a program of offsetting the carbon footprint associated with our cryptocurrency datacenter operations by purchasing certified, domestic carbon offset credits in an amount sufficient to the carbon emissions associated with our datacenter operations. The offsets we purchased in 2021 have been certified by either the American Carbon Registry or the Climate Action Reserve, and we intend to continue to pursue this strategy going forward.
Support Services Segment Overview
On September 14, 2021, GGH Merger Sub, Inc. (“Merger Sub”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Greenidge, merged with and into Support.com, Inc. (“Support.com”), with Support.com continuing as the surviving corporation (the “Merger”) and a wholly owned subsidiary of Greenidge, pursuant to the Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated March 19, 2021 (the “Merger Agreement”), among Greenidge, Support and Merger Sub.
Our Support Services segment consists of the Support.com business and provides customer and technical support solutions delivered by home-based employees. Support.com’s homesourcing model, which enables outsourced work to be delivered by people working from home, has been specifically designed for remote work, with attention to security, recruiting, training, delivery, and employee engagement. See “—Support Services Segment” for additional information regarding our Support Services segment.
Corporate History and Structure
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In 2014, Atlas Holdings LLC and its affiliates ("Atlas") formed Greenidge Generation Holdings LLC (“GGH”) and purchased all of the equity interests in Greenidge Generation LLC (“Greenidge Generation”), which owned an idled power plant in the Town of Torrey, New York.
Following the purchase and prior to commencing revenue generating operations, Greenidge Generation began the process of converting the power plant from being fueled by coal to being fueled by natural gas. This project required procuring and installing new equipment to convert its boiler and securing the right of way to construct an approximately 4.6-mile natural gas pipeline which we now own and operate. In addition, the project required a series of approvals and permits from various New York State and federal government agencies which took approximately 2.5 years to complete.
In May 2017, the transformed power plant commenced operations with a total generation capacity of approximately 106 MW.
In 2018, our management began exploring additional opportunities to utilize the unique attributes of our asset base to strengthen the company and to create a more valuable economic driver for the region.
In May 2019, after identifying cryptocurrency datacenter operations as a potential business opportunity, we constructed a pilot cryptocurrency datacenter and began operating approximately 1 MW of bitcoin mining capacity.
After the success of our pilot project, we constructed, within the existing plant, a larger scale data center and commenced operations in January 2020 with approximately 287 Petahash, or 287 X 1015 hash, per second ("PH/s") of capacity.
In January 2021, GGH completed a corporate restructuring. Pursuant to this restructuring, Greenidge was incorporated in the State of Delaware on January 27, 2021 and on January 29, 2021, we entered into an asset contribution and exchange agreement with the owners of GGH, pursuant to which we acquired all of the ownership interests in GGH in exchange for 7,000,000 shares of our common stock. As a result of this transaction, GGH became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Greenidge.
On September 14, 2021, we acquired Support.com pursuant to the Merger and it now operates as our wholly-owned subsidiary. Subsequent to the Merger, our shares of Class A Common Stock are listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol “GREE.”
Throughout 2021, we increased our datacenter capacity from 0.4 EH/s to approximately 1.4 EH/s.
Our Cryptocurrency Datacenter and Power Generation Segment
Cryptocurrency Datacenter Revenue
We generate revenue from the sale of our cryptocurrency hashrate, which is the processing speed of a bitcoin miner normally measured by its “hash rate” or “hashes per second,” to multiple mining pools and are paid in the form of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency datacenter revenue is variable and depends on several factors including but not limited to the price of cryptocurrency, our proportion of global hash rate, transaction volume and the prevailing rewards payouts per new block added to the bitcoin blockchain. For the year ended December 31, 2021, based on our existing fleet, we generated bitcoin revenue at an average rate of approximately$302/MWh.
We have historically converted between 95% and 100% of the cryptocurrency we receive to cash on a daily basis using third-party platforms and are subject to the platforms' user agreements. For security purposes, we utilize a proprietary auto-liquidation script to automatically complete the conversion and transfer the cash to our operating bank accounts upon receiving cryptocurrency rewards in our wallets. This process was implemented as a risk mitigation tool to limit the amount of time cryptocurrency and cash are stored on third-party platforms. Fees incurred to convert cryptocurrency to cash are subject to standard rates charged by the third parties’ published tiered pricing tables and represent 0.18% of each transaction as of December 31, 2021. Additionally, we hold a nominal amount of bitcoin on our balance sheet, the majority of which is held in electronic storage not connected to the internet (also known as “cold storage”) with a third-party custodian.
Wholesale Power Revenue
We sell capacity, energy, and ancillary services to the wholesale power grid managed by the NYISO. Through these sales, we generate revenue in three streams:
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Revenue generated from the wholesale power market is variable and depends on several factors including but not limited to the supply and demand for electricity, generation capacity in the market and the prevailing price of natural gas.
The Cryptocurrency Datacenter and Power Generation Industries
Cryptocurrency Datacenter Industry
Introduction to Bitcoin, the Bitcoin Network and Bitcoin Mining
Bitcoin is a digital asset that is created and transmitted through the operations of a peer-to-peer network of computers, known as the bitcoin network. The bitcoin network is decentralized, meaning that no single entity owns or operates the bitcoin network, and that no governmental authority, financial institution, or financial intermediary is required to create, transmit or determine the value of bitcoin. Instead, the infrastructure of the bitcoin network is owned and maintained by a decentralized user base. The bitcoin network allows people to exchange digital tokens of value, called bitcoins, which are recorded on a publicly distributed transaction ledger known as a blockchain. The bitcoin blockchain is a digital, publicly distributed bookkeeping ledger that holds the record of every bitcoin transaction.
The bitcoin blockchain is a ledger that holds a record of every bitcoin transaction since the inception of bitcoin, with each block containing information relating to a group of bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin is created and allocated by the bitcoin network protocol as a reward for validating and verifying bitcoin transactions, securing transaction blocks and adding those transaction blocks to the bitcoin blockchain using computer processing power to solve complex algorithms based on cryptographic protocols. The aforementioned actions are often referred to as “mining” as those performing the actions are paid in newly created bitcoin. The persons or machines that are rewarded in newly created bitcoin are often referred to as “miners.” Each unique block in the bitcoin blockchain can be solved and added to the bitcoin blockchain by only one miner. Once a miner solves a block, the rest of the miners in the network verify the solution and confirm the block to the blockchain.
As an incentive to incur the time and computational costs of mining, the miner who correctly solves the algorithm resulting in a block being added to the bitcoin blockchain is rewarded in newly created bitcoin (known as a block reward) and will also receive any transaction fees paid by transferors whose transactions are recorded in the block. An infinite amount of blocks can be solved; however, the amount of block rewards paid to miners is on a managed distribution schedule which will result in the last block reward payout occurring approximately in 2140. At that time, time miners will be incentivized to maintain the network solely based on transaction fees.
Performance Metrics—Network Hash Rate and Difficulty
In bitcoin mining, the processing speed of a bitcoin miner is measured by its “hash rate” or “hashes per second.” “Hash rate” is the speed at which a miner can take any set of information and process it via the algorithm used on the bitcoin network, also known as a “hash.” Therefore, a miner’s hash rate refers to how many algorithmic computations the miner can perform per second on the bitcoin network. As of December 31, 2021, the aggregate hash rate of the entire bitcoin network is estimated to be approximately 174 exahash per second ("EH/s"), or 174 x 1018 hashes per second.
An individual mining company like ours has a hash rate measured across the total number of the miners it deploys in its datacenter operations. Generally, an individual miner’s expected success rate in solving blocks and realizing bitcoin rewards over time is correlated with its proportion of the total network hash rate over the same period.
“Difficulty” is a measure of the relative complexity of the algorithmic solution required to create a block and receive a bitcoin award. The bitcoin network protocol adjusts the network difficulty periodically based on the aggregate amount of hashing power deployed by the network with a goal of it requiring 10 minutes, on average, to create a new bitcoin block. At each interval of 2,016 blocks (which takes roughly two weeks), the network re-analyzes the interval and revises the difficulty index, if needed. If the block formation time for the preceding 2,016 blocks exceeds the 10-minute average goal, the network automatically reduces the degree of difficulty and vice versa.
Mining Pools
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A significant portion of the global hash rate on the bitcoin network has been contributed to a number of “mining pools”. In a typical bitcoin mining pool, groups of miners combine their resources, or hash rate, and earn bitcoin together. Mining pools help to smooth the variability of the revenue stream of individual miners by combining the hash rate from multiple miners and then paying each miner a pro rata share of the aggregate bitcoin rewards generated by the combined pool.
The mining pool operator is typically paid a fee for maintaining the pool. As discussed below, we participate in mining pools as an integral part of our business. Miners who participate in mining pools are expected to earn their pro rata share of the global bitcoin rewards received by all miners on the bitcoin network, less any fees paid to the mining pool operator.
Bitcoin Mining Power Requirements
When the bitcoin network was created, initially, individuals interested in bitcoin mining were able to do so using personal computers. However, as bitcoin’s value and popularity have increased over time, so too has the aggregate hashing power deployed in the bitcoin network. The bitcoin network has grown to the point where it is generally no longer economical to mine bitcoin without ASIC computers with strong computing abilities and energy efficiency. Operating a fleet of ASIC bitcoin miners on a commercial scale currently requires a significant amount of electricity.
The amount of electricity required is dependent on the number and types of miners online and the energy demand for each type of miner, as each type of miner has a specific electricity efficiency measured by comparing its hash rate output to its electrical consumption.
Bitcoin Mining Economics
The bitcoin network is designed in such a way that the reward for adding new blocks to the blockchain decreases over time. The number of bitcoin awarded for solving a new block is automatically halved after every 210,000 blocks. Each block takes approximately 10 minutes to be solved and as a result, rewards are halved approximately every four years. Currently, the fixed reward for solving a new block is 6.25 bitcoin per block and this number is expected to decrease by half to become 3.125 bitcoin sometime in 2024.
The profitability of a bitcoin mining operation largely depends on:
The Power Generation Industry in New York State
Wholesale markets for energy, capacity and ancillary services in New York State are administered by the NYISO. With respect to wholesale sales of electricity, generators bid into the market the quantity of electricity that they are prepared to produce for each hour of the following day and the corresponding price. Generators’ bids are subject to bid caps and mitigation rules administered by the NYISO, both of which are designed to ensure that the total bid submitted to the NYISO properly reflects market conditions. Distribution utilities and other load serving entities decide how much electricity they wish to purchase for each hour of the following day and how much they are willing to pay for that electricity. The NYISO then selects the proper mix of generators to supply the hourly demand at the least cost while meeting applicable requirements to maintain a reliable electric system. Prices for capacity and ancillary services are also set by the interplay between supply and demand in bid-based markets administered by the NYISO, except in the case of certain ancillary services for which the NYISO’s Market Administration and Control Area Services Tariff establishes cost-based rates.
Products and Services
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Cryptocurrency Datacenter and Power Generation Segment
Cryptocurrency Datacenter Operations
We began mining bitcoin in 2019 with the construction of a pilot datacenter to operate approximately 9 PH/s of bitcoin mining capacity located at our power generation facility in the Town of Torrey, New York. We launched a commercial data center for bitcoin mining and blockchain services in January 2020, and as of December 31, 2021, we had approximately 17,300 miners deployed on our sites (including approximately 6,600 Bitmain Antminer S17s, 7,700 Bitmain Antminer S19 series, 50 Bitmain Antminer T17s, approximately 2,500 MicroBT Whatsminer M30 series and approximately 430 MicroBT Whatsminer M31 series) capable of producing an estimated aggregate hash rate capacity of approximately 1.4 EH/s. Although the number of miners deployed provides a sense of scale of cryptocurrency datacenter operations as compared to our peers, management believes that hash rate, or the number of hashes a miner can perform in each second, typically expressed in EH/s or terahash per second (“TH/s”) and used as a measure of computational power or mining capacity used to mine and process transactions on a blockchain such as bitcoin, provides a more comparable measure of our fleet’s ability to process cryptocurrency transactions as compared to other bitcoin mining operations.
During 2021, we deployed approximately 10,300 additional miners comprised primarily of Bitmain Antiminer S19 series as well as MicroBT Whatsminer M30 series machines, bringing our estimated maximum hash rate to 1.4 EH/s consuming approximately 51 MW of power. At December 31, 2021, we also had outstanding orders pending for approximately, 31,700 miners, which are primarily Antminer S19j Pros, but also include Bitmain's newly announced Antminer S19 XP series machines. The S19 XP technology is expected to require approximately 27% less electricity per terahash than the most efficient bitcoin mining equipment currently available in the market. If these orders are fulfilled on the anticipated timeline, they will bring Greenidge's current and committed mining capacity to approximately 49,000 miners and 4.7 EH/s by the end of 2022. It is possible that certain factors including the global supply chain constraints may impact the ability of our suppliers to timely fulfill our open orders. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—Risks Related to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency.”
Hash rate
As of December 31, 2021, our inventory of approximately 17,300 miners produced a combined estimated hash rate (based on manufacturer ratings) of approximately 1.4 EH/s. The above information regarding approximate nameplate hash rates is an estimation only and the actual outputs of these miners may differ from our estimates due to several factors.
Electricity Cost Structure
Our power plant is strategically located in the Town of Torrey, New York and is connected to the Empire Pipeline. The Empire Pipeline provides our power plant with ready access to the Millennium Pipeline price hub which provides relatively low market rates for natural gas. As a result of our strategic geographic location, we have access to a regular supply of low-cost natural gas to power our electricity generation. We entered into a contract for firm gas transportation on the Empire Pipeline, ensuring we have uninterrupted access to fuel. Further, the Millennium Pipeline price hub is a liquid market that allows us to hedge our purchases of this natural gas fuel opportunistically, mitigating the risk to our business from price fluctuations.
Our data center in South Carolina is set on a 175-acre site, including over 750,000 square feet of industrial buildings. We believe the site will have at least 100 MW of mining capacity when fully developed. Our electricity at the site is from a provider whose power is sourced from over 60% zero carbon sources including nuclear power. We have committed to offsetting the operation's remaining carbon footprint, consistent with our longstanding commitment to environmental leadership in power generation and cryptocurrency operations.
Future Expansion Plans
There can be no assurances that the financing necessary to fund such expansion will be obtained on terms favorable to us, or at all, that the miners required to achieve such expansion may be ordered and delivered, and that all necessary regulatory approvals will be received. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Business.”
We have an active development pipeline of potential new locations we believe are suitable to develop additional cryptocurrency datacenters. We intend to use our significant power plant and bitcoin technical know-how to achieve at least 500 MW of mining capacity by 2025 across multiple locations in North America. We expect to achieve this through a combination of the available capacity of our existing sites in New York and South Carolina and through additional capacity at future expansion locations. In September 2021, we entered into exclusive agreements that expire in 2022 regarding the potential construction of new cryptocurrency data centers in Texas that includes at least six sites in the pipeline. In total, these sites have over 2,000MW of electrical capacity and
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include several locations surrounded by abundant wind and solar power generation. Furthermore, in October 2021, we entered into an agreement giving us an exclusive right of first refusal at multiple power generation sites comprising over 1,000MW of power generation assets in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas ("ERCOT") market. The agreement gives us the exclusive right of first refusal to develop cryptocurrency datacenters at any current or future power generation sites controlled by the counterparty in the ERCOT market until January 2023.
Mining Pool Participation
As part of our mining operations, we currently contribute our hash rate to certain mining pools, subject to their terms of service. Such participation is generally terminable at any time by either party, and our risk is limited by our ability to switch pools at any time or simply not to participate in any pools and mine independently. In exchange for providing computing power, we receive a share of the theoretical global mining rewards based on our percent contribution to the bitcoin mining network, less fees payable to the pool. The mining pools in which we currently participate allocate their bitcoin to us on a daily basis. This bitcoin revenue is delivered to us electronically and we either liquidate it into U.S. dollars or store the bitcoin at a third-party custody provider using electronic storage not connected to the internet. or "cold storage."
Blockchain Services for Third Parties
For the year ended December 31, 2021, we received approximately $1.5 million in revenue pursuant to one-year hosting contracts from customers for which we provide hosting space for their mining computers at our Town of Torrey, New York facility. All of our one-year hosting contracts expired during 2021.
Power Generation Operations
We sell capacity, energy and ancillary services from our approximately 106 MW power generation facility and sell power that we generate, at wholesale, to the NYISO when dispatched, based on the NYISO’s daily supply and demand needs. We began our energy sales in 2017 when our power generation facility came back online after converting from a coal-fired to a natural gas-fired facility. We sell electricity to NYISO at all times our facility in the Town of Torrey, New York is operating.
We purchase the natural gas to run our power plant through a third-party gas provider and we contract directly with Empire Pipeline Inc. for the delivery of the gas that we purchase. The natural gas is transported to our captive lateral pipeline through which this gas is transported 4.6 miles to our power plant.
We have a contract with Empire Pipeline Inc., which provides for the firm transportation to our pipeline of up to 15,000 dekatherms of natural gas per day. We also have contracts with Emera Energy covering both the purchase of natural gas and the bidding and sale of electricity through the NYISO.
All of the energy produced by us that is not utilized onsite for cryptocurrency datacenter activities is sold through the NYISO. These sales accounted for 9% and 35% of our total revenue for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively.
Support Services Segment
Our Support Services segment operates under our wholly-owned subsidiary Support.com, Inc. (“Support.com”), following the Merger and provides customer and technical support solutions delivered by home-based employees. Support.com’s homesourcing model, which enables outsourced work to be delivered by people working from home, has been specifically designed for remote work, with attention to security, recruiting, training, delivery, and employee engagement. The operations within this segment comprise three primary revenue sources:
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Support.com also licenses its technology platform and/or applications separately from its outsourced customer support services. In such an arrangement, customers receive the right to use Support.com’s cloud-based software in their own support organization, using a SaaS model under which customers pay us on a per-user or a per-session basis during the term of the arrangement. Support.com also provides implementation services to customers, typically covering integration of its software with other customers’ systems.
The service delivery management tools used by Support.com’s customer service professionals for technology support services include Support.com’s own cloud-based software capabilities and other contact center applications, such as customer relationship management (“CRM”), ticketing, ordering, methods of payment, and telephony, which are all integrated into applications for its contact center specialists. The tools support all omnichannel services to include voice, email, chat, SMS and self-service.
For business analytics and reporting, Support.com builds and maintains a data warehouse that aggregates and restructures data from all of its applications to create a comprehensive view of the service delivery lifecycle, as well as data about the disposition of support interactions. This data set provides visibility into sales conversion effectiveness, service delivery efficiency, service level performance, subscription utilization, partner program performance and many other aspects of running and optimizing our Support Services segment. Support.com’s partners also receive reports and analytic information from the warehouse for their programs on a regular basis via secure data feeds. Open application interfaces of the Support.com.com Cloud enable integration with CRM, ticketing systems, and other contact center applications.
Competition
Competition in Datacenter Operations and Power Generation Segment
Datacenter Operations
Operators of bitcoin miners can range from individual enthusiasts to commercial mining operations with dedicated datacenters. Miners often organize themselves in mining pools. While there are several public companies that we may compete with, we also compete or may in the future compete with other companies that focus all or a portion of their activities on owning or operating bitcoin exchanges, developing programming for the blockchain, and bitcoin mining activities. At present, the information concerning the activities of many of these enterprises is not readily available, as the vast majority of the participants in this sector do not publish information publicly or the information may be unreliable. Published sources of information include “bitcoin.org” and “blockchain.info”; however, the reliability of that information and its continued availability cannot be assured.
The cryptocurrency industry is a highly competitive and evolving industry and new competitors or emerging technologies could enter the market and affect our competitiveness in the future.
Power Generation in New York
The NYISO operates bid-based wholesale markets for electric energy, capacity and other generation-related services such as reactive power support and frequency control. We are authorized to participate in all of these markets, where our bids are evaluated along with bids from numerous other generating facilities in or near New York State. In each of these markets, the NYISO sets the market price, which is paid to all bidders, based on the highest priced bid accepted to meet demand.
We compete against all other NYISO generation resources, which as of Summer 2021 included approximately 41,000 MW of installed capacity consisting of gas and oil-fired thermal generation, as well as nuclear, hydro, wind, and other renewable generation. Our competitiveness is based on our variable cost compared to the marginal price in the energy markets as set by the bid of the highest- price resource required to satisfy load requirements. The primary determinants of our variable cost are its efficiency (e.g. how much gas is required to produce a given unit of power) and fuel cost.
Our variable cost relative to the marginal energy price determines how much power we sell. The marginal energy price increases as demand for power increases and as more expensive generation resources are required to satisfy load requirements. We benefit from retirements of less expensive generation resources in the NYISO and conversely, becomes less competitive as more efficient generation capacity is added.
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A similar dynamic exists in the capacity markets where we are a price-taker. An administratively-determined sloping demand curve ensures that the price paid to suppliers of capacity declines as capacity exceeds reliability requirements. Thus, as other generation capacity retires, we will benefit from higher prices and conversely, as other generation capacity is added, we will realize lower capacity revenues. The capacity market is designed to incentivize generation additions when reserve margins (excess capacity relative to peak demand) are low and to reduce capacity payments made to generators when reserve margins are high and there is excess capacity.
Competitive Advantages
Electricity is the largest input cost for most cryptocurrency datacenter operations, and we believe owning a power generation facility provides us with a competitive advantage in our cryptocurrency datacenter operations. We believe we our business benefits from the following additional competitive advantages:
Competition in the Support Services Segment
Support.com is active in markets that are highly competitive and subject to rapid change. Although we do not believe there is one principal competitor for all aspects of Support.com’s offerings, Support.com does compete with a number of other vendors. Competition within each revenue stream of the Support Services segment are as follows:
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The competitors in our markets for services and software can have some or all of the following competitive advantages: longer operating histories, greater economies of scale, greater financial resources, greater engineering and technical resources, greater sales and marketing resources, stronger strategic alliances and distribution channels, larger user bases, products with different functions and feature sets and greater brand recognition than we have.
We expect new competitors to continue to enter the markets in which we operate.
Intellectual Property
We own the internet domain name www.greenidge.com. The information contained in our website is not incorporated by reference into this Annual Report.
Our subsidiary Support.com owns the trademarks SUPPORT.COM®, GUIDED PATHS®, and NEXUS® in the United States for specified support services and software, and Support.com has registrations and common law rights for several related trademarks in the U.S. and certain other countries. Support.com owns the domain name Support.com and additional other domain names. Support.com has a pending trademark registration for HomesourcingTM. Support.com also retains exclusive rights to our proprietary services technology, and its end user software products. In addition, Support.com holds non-exclusive rights to sell and distribute certain other software products.
Support.com owns two U.S. patents related to its business and has a number of pending patent applications covering certain advanced technology. Its issued patents include U.S. Patent No. 8,020,190 (“Enhanced Browser Security”) and U.S. Patent No. 6,754,707 (“Secure Computer Support System”). However, we do not know if Support.com’s current patent applications or any future patent application will result in a patent being issued with the scope of the claims it seeks, if at all. Also, we do not know whether any patents Support.com has or may receive will be challenged or invalidated. It is difficult to monitor unauthorized use of technology, particularly in foreign countries where the laws may not protect its proprietary rights as fully as they do in the United States, and Support.com’s competitors may develop technology that competes with its but nevertheless does not infringe its intellectual property rights.
Support.com relies on a combination of copyright, trade secret, trademark and contractual protection to establish and protect its proprietary rights that are not protected by patents. Support.com also enters into confidentiality agreements with its employees and consultants involved in product development. Support.com generally requires its employees, customers and potential business partners to enter into confidentiality agreements before it will disclose any sensitive aspects of its business. Also, Support.com generally requires employees and contractors to agree to assign and surrender to Support.com any proprietary information, inventions or other intellectual property they generate while working for Support.com in the scope of employment. These precautions, and Support.com’s efforts to register and protect its intellectual property, may not prevent misappropriation or infringement of its intellectual property. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to our Support Services Segment.”
Environmental, Social, Governance
In May 2021, we announced that effective June 1, 2021, we will operate an entirely carbon neutral cryptocurrency datacenter operation at our facility in the Town of Torrey, New York. We will purchase voluntary carbon offsets from a portfolio of U.S. greenhouse gas reduction projects. Each project has been reviewed and certified by one of three well-recognized Offset Project Registries, the American Carbon Registry (ACR), the Climate Action Reserve (CAR) and Verra, such that any projects funded by us reduce emissions or increase sequestration of greenhouse gas in a manner that is real, permanent, and verifiable. In addition to offsetting 100% of our carbon emissions from our cryptocurrency datacenter operations, we also intend to invest a portion of our mining profits in renewable energy projects.
We also participate in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a market-based program in which participating states sell CO2 allowances through auctions and invest proceeds in energy efficiency, renewable energy, and other consumer benefit programs to spur
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innovation in the clean energy economy and create local green jobs. We purchase RGGI allowances each year to cover 100% of our CO2 emitted from power generation and have done so since we began gas-fired operations in 2017.
Emissions Expense and Credits
We participate in the RGGI, which requires, by law, that we remit credits to offset 50% of our annual emission expense in the following year, for each of the years in the three year control period (January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2020). In February 2021, we settled the emissions allowance for the control period. We continue to remit credits in accordance with RGGI. We recognize expense on a per ton basis, where one ton is equal to one RGGI credit. The RGGI credits are recorded on a first in, first out (“FIFO”) basis. We incurred emissions expense of $2.6 million and $1.7 million for the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively, which is included in power and capacity cost of revenue in the accompanying consolidated statements of operations.
Carbon Offset Credits
We purchase voluntary carbon offsets from a portfolio of U.S. greenhouse gas reduction projects as one method to achieve carbon neutrality. During the year ended December 31, 2021, we purchased $0.7 million of voluntary carbon offset credits.
Human Capital Management
As of December 31, 2021, we had 467 employees based in the United States, 419 of whom are employed by Support.com, and 214 employees based outside of the United States, all of whom are employed by Support.com. None of our employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. We believe our relationship with our employees is satisfactory.
Workplace Health and Safety
The safety and health of our employees is a top priority for us. We are committed to maintaining an effective safety culture and to stressing the importance of our employees’ role in identifying, mitigating and communicating safety risks. We believe that the achievement of superior safety performance is both an important short-term and long-term strategic initiative in managing our operations. In this regard, our policies and operational practices promote a culture where all levels of employees are responsible for safety.
In response to COVID-19, we implemented new procedures and protocols recommended by the Centers for Disease Control, federal and state governments, and other major health authorities. This includes, but is not limited to, instructing our employees to practice social distancing on our premises, frequent sanitation of our work environments, supplying personal protective equipment to our workforce and allowing certain employees to work from home.
Government Regulation
Greenidge Generation holds a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity issued by the NYS Public Service Commission (the “PSC”) under section 68 of the Public Service Law. In addition, it has been granted Market Based Rate Authority by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission authorizing it to enter into sales of power in interstate commerce at market-based rates. It is connected to the NYSEG transmission system by virtue of the Large Generation Interconnection Agreement among Greenidge Generation, the NYSEG and the NYISO. All environmental permits are set forth below.
We are a Public Utility Holding Company under the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 2005, or PUHCA, and have applied for and received exemption from the record keeping and records inspection regulations of PUHCA.
One of our subsidiaries, Greenidge Pipeline LLC (“Greenidge Pipeline”), operates pursuant to a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need issued by the PSC under Article VII of the Public Service Law. It is exempt from regulation by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (the “FERC”), under the National Gas Act (“NGA”) pursuant to NGA section 1(c), due to the fact that all of the gas transmitted through the pipeline is delivered within the State of New York and the rates for delivery are regulated by the PSC. There are no environmental permits associated with the operation of the pipeline.
Below is a summary of the material regulations that currently apply to our business. Regulations may substantially change in the future, and it is presently not possible to know how regulations will apply to our businesses, or when they will be effective. As the regulatory and legal environment evolves, we may become subject to new laws, further regulation by the SEC, and other federal or state agencies, which may affect our cryptocurrency datacenter, power generation and other related activities. For additional
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discussion regarding about the potential risks existing and future regulation pose to our business, see “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business” herein.
Regulations Applicable to Cryptocurrency Datacenter Business
Government regulation of blockchain and bitcoin is being actively considered by the State of New York and the United States federal government via a number of agencies and regulatory bodies, as well as similar entities in other countries. Additional state government regulations also may apply to our cryptocurrency datacenter activities and other related activities in which we participate or may participate in the future. Certain regulatory bodies have shown an interest in regulating or investigating companies engaged in the blockchain or bitcoin business.
Regulations may substantially change in the future and it is presently not possible to know how regulations will apply to our businesses, or when they will be effective. As the regulatory and legal environment evolves, we may become subject to new laws, further regulation by the SEC and other federal or state agencies, which may affect our cryptocurrency datacenter and other related activities. For additional discussion regarding our belief about the potential risks existing and future regulation pose to our business, see “Risk Factors” herein.
Regulations Applicable to Power Generation Business
We operate our electricity generating business subject to the following regulatory regimes:
The New York State Public Service Commission
Greenidge, GGH and Greenidge Generation are each defined as “electric corporations” subject to regulation by the PSC under New York’s Public Service Law. The PSC regulates both the issuance by electric corporations of “stocks, bonds and other evidence of indebtedness” and the purchase and sale of either the assets of or the ownership interests in electric corporations.
Greenidge Pipeline and Greenidge Pipeline Properties Corporation operate their approximately 4.6 mile gas pipeline under the terms of a certificate of environmental compatibility and public need issued by the PSC. The terms of that certificate govern the safe operation of the facility and minimization of the impacts of that facility on the environment.
Greenidge Generation currently has permission from the PSC to issue up to $50 million in “indebtedness,” which may include non-voting stock. To the extent that Greenidge Generation seeks to issue more than $50 million in such instruments (net of the amount of any instruments already issued), approval must be obtained from the PSC. Issuances of any such instruments by Greenidge Generation do not require the PSC’s prior approval, as long as the assets held by Greenidge Generation are not pledged as security under those instruments.
The PSC has established a rebuttable presumption that a third party that is not itself an electric or gas corporation may purchase up to 10% of the ownership interests in an electric corporation without: (1) requiring PSC approval; or (2) becoming an electric corporation itself. This presumption may be rebutted if the facts demonstrate that an entity holding less than 10% of the ownership interests in an electric corporation is nonetheless controlling the day-to-day operations of that electric corporation. Acquisition of more than 50% of the ownership interests in an electric corporation will require PSC approval and will make the acquiring entity an electric corporation itself. Acquisitions between 10% and 50% are reviewed by the PSC on a case-by-case basis.
One exception to these requirements is that an electric corporation that is under common ownership with one or more other entities may be merged with such other entities without requiring PSC approval, provided that such transaction does not result in any change in the ultimate ownership of the public utility in question.
Greenidge’s Pipeline Properties are defined by the PSC as “gas corporations” subject to PSC regulation. The PSC’s regulation of gas corporations is substantially identical to its regulation of electric corporations discussed above.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Greenidge Generation is a public utility subject to regulation by the FERC under the Federal Power Act (the “FPA”). Like the PSC, FERC regulates both the issuance of securities and the purchase and sale of assets and ownership interests in public utilities. The FPA generally:
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The FPA also requires reporting of certain asset sales which do not otherwise require FERC authorization. FERC approval would also be required in advance of a disposition or change of control over Greenidge through the sale of shares.
The FERC has granted Greenidge Generation blanket authorization to issue securities and assume obligations or liabilities as guarantor, endorser, surety, or otherwise in respect of any security of another person; provided that such issue or assumption is for some lawful object within the corporate purposes of Greenidge Generation, compatible with the public interest, and reasonably necessary or appropriate for such purposes. The FERC also administers the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 2005, which imposes certain record keeping and records access requirements on public utility holding companies. We are a public utility holding company but have received an exemption from these record keeping and records access requirements. Any entity acquiring more than 10% of the voting securities of either us or Greenidge Generation is likely to be regarded by FERC as a public utility holding company. Such entities can obtain an exemption from these record keeping and records access requirements if they are able to demonstrate that they are not affiliated with any jurisdictional utility that has captive customers, and that they do not own commission-jurisdictional transmission facilities or provide commission-jurisdictional transmission services and that they are not affiliated with persons that own such facilities or provide such services.
Although the gas pipeline owned and operated by Greenidge Pipeline transports gas supplies flowing in interstate commerce, it is regulated by the PSC rather than by FERC because all of the pipeline’s facilities are located in, and all of the gas it delivers is consumed in, New York State and its rates are regulated by the PSC. Accordingly, no FERC approvals are required for any financing or transfers of ownership interests in Greenidge Pipeline.
Because Greenidge Pipeline operates exclusively as a provider of delivery services for gas supplies owned by others, it is not a “gas utility company” under the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 2005 which expands the authority of FERC to oversee transactions and other financial activities of public utility holding companies through grants of access to those companies’ books and records. As a result, purchasers directly or indirectly acquiring 10% or more of the voting securities of Greenidge Pipeline would not become subject to the FERC records keeping and records access requirements of that law. Any such acquisition should be reviewed under FPA Section 203 and the NYPSL Section 70 to determine if an authorization is needed in advance of the transaction.
In addition, we, GGH, and Atlas and certain of its affiliates are all holding companies under the PUHCA, which is also administered by FERC. Each of these entities has filed a Notice with FERC of their exemption from the books and record-keeping requirements of PUHCA 2005 and are therefore not subject to those requirements.
A failure to comply with FERC regulatory requirements can result in penalties and in extreme cases, action to unwind a transaction or to impose criminal sanctions. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—Risks Related to our Power Generation Operations.”
The New York State Independent System Operator
So long as Greenidge Generation remains the owner of the Town of Torrey, New York power plant facility, no approvals from the NYISO should be required for any restructuring of the ownership of us or Greenidge Generation. In the event of a transfer of ownership of its facility to a new owner, the interconnection agreement with the NYISO and New York State Electric & Gas
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Corporation currently held by Greenidge Generation can be assigned to the new owner, so long as the assignee in such a transaction directly assumes in writing all rights, duties and obligations arising under that agreement and agrees to comply with all of the NYISO’s applicable market rules.
Yates County Industrial Development Agency
Both Greenidge Generation and Greenidge Pipeline have lease/leaseback relationships in place with the Yates County Industrial Development Agency, which relationships also include a payment in lieu of tax agreement. Consent of the Yates County Industrial Development Agency would be required for both Greenidge Generation and Greenidge Pipeline for any type of merger, consolidation or change of control, which consent must be obtained prior to completion of such transaction.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation
The operation of both Greenidge Generation and the landfill owned by another subsidiary of Greenidge, Lockwood Hills LLC (“Lockwood Hills”), are subject to numerous New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (“NYSDEC”) and EPA regulations and requirements. Lockwood Hills operates a landfill and leachate management facility (the “Landfill”). Most of the EPA requirements that Greenidge Generation and Lockwood Hills are subject to are delegated to the NYSDEC and are regulated through permits issued by NYSDEC. Future laws or regulations may require the addition of environmental controls or impose restrictions on Greenidge Generation and Lockwood Hills operations, which could affect our operations.
Complying with environmental laws often involves significant capital and operating expenses. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—Risks Related to our Power Generation Operations.”
Permits
Greenidge Generation’s operations are subject to the following NYSDEC-issued permits: Clean Air Act Title IV and Title V permits, Clean Water Act State Pollution Discharge System Elimination System (“SPDES”), and New York State Water Withdrawal Permit. Greenidge Generation also holds a Petroleum Bulk Storage registration issued by NYSDEC, which includes requirements applicable to the petroleum storage tanks located at the facility. The Landfill is subject to the following NYSDEC-issued permits: SPDES Permit and Part 360 Solid Waste Management Permit. Greenidge Generation and Lockwood Hills are currently in compliance with these permits and approvals.
Air
The Clean Air Act Title IV and Title V permits authorize Greenidge Generation to fire natural gas (with up to 19% biomass co-firing) to produce electricity in accordance with the requirements of these permits. These permits regulate air emissions associated with our operations and include all applicable Clean Air Act and New York State requirements. Greenidge Generation is also subject to the RGGI, which is a multi-state cap and trade program for carbon dioxide emissions that requires Greenidge Generation to purchase one RGGI allowance for every ton of CO2 emitted from the facility. RGGI allowances are offered in quarterly auctions and are available from third parties. In 2019, New York State passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (“CLCPA”), which requires the NYSDEC and PSC to promulgate regulations and programs for the state to meet greenhouse gas emission reduction requirements and targets. NYSDEC and PSC have not fully implemented the CLCPA.
Water
The Greenidge Generation facility is subject to SPDES and Water Withdrawal permits issued by NYSDEC for five-year time terms, which include state and federal requirements applicable to the cooling water intake structure and discharges from the facility to the Keuka Lake Outlet and Seneca Lake. These permits require that the Best Technology Available for cooling water intake structures to be installed by October 2022. These permits also require monthly and yearly monitoring and reporting associated with the water withdrawals and the discharges.
The Landfill, which is located approximately 0.4 miles from the Greenidge Generation facility, discharges stormwater and treated leachate to the Keuka Lake Outlet subject to a SPDES permit issued by NYSDEC. A SPDES permit renewal application was recently submitted to NYSDEC, and NYSDEC is currently processing this permit application. The permit requires monthly and yearly monitoring and reporting associated with the water discharges.
Waste
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The Landfill is also subject to a Part 360 Solid Waste Management Facility permit issued by NYSDEC. An application to renew and modify the Part 360 permit was recently submitted to NYSDEC, and NYSDEC is currently processing the application. Due to the operations of the previous owners of the Lockwood Hills landfill, in 2015 NYSDEC alleged that the then-existing Leachate Pond was causing exceedances of New York State groundwater standards. Lockwood Hills entered into a Consent Order with the NYSDEC in 2015, which required remediation of the leachate pond, and installation of a liner and treatment system. The work required by the Consent Order was completed in 2019 as required, and NYSDEC approved of the construction report on July 6, 2020. Applications for modification of the SPDES and Part 360 permits to reflect the implementation of the consent order, which are the final requirements of the consent order, were timely submitted to NYSDEC. Lockwood Hills is subject to EPA’s Coal Combustion Residuals Rule (the “CCR Rule”), as a CCR landfill. In accordance with the requirements of the CCR Rule, Lockwood has drafted required plans and documents and hosts a publicly available website that makes certain documents available to the public.
Greenidge Generation is also subject to the CCR Rule, which requires that the onsite CCR surface impoundment associated with previous coal-fired operation of the facility, be closed. Greenidge Generation has also drafted the CCR Rule documents associated with closure, and has a publicly available website that makes certain documents available to the public as required by the rule. We have evaluated the impact of the CCR Rule on our consolidated financial position, results of operations, or cash flows and has accrued our environmental and asset retirement obligations under the rule based on current estimates.
Environmental Liability
As required by the NYSDEC, landfills are required to establish and maintain financial assurance mechanism to cover closure, post-closure care, and related expenses. The purpose of the financial assurance mechanism is to ensure the amount of funds assured is sufficient to cover the costs of landfill closure, post-closure care, custodial care, and, if necessary, corrective measures for known releases when needed. The financial assurance amount is based on written estimates, in current dollars, of the cost of hiring a third party to perform the work. The NYSDEC has allowed Atlas and its affiliates to satisfy this financial assurance obligation by maintaining a letter of credit guaranteeing the payment of the landfill liability. As of December 31, 2021, the letter of credit amount was approximately $5.0 million.
CCRs are subject to federal and state regulations. Most of our obligations associated with CCR are for the closure of a coal ash pond. The Landfill is in compliance with the CCR requirements applicable to CCR landfills and is not required to close. With regards to our coal ash pond, in accordance with federal law and ASC 410-20, Asset Retirement Obligations, we recorded an asset retirement obligation of $2.7 million as of December 31, 2021. There were no changes to cash flow estimates related to the coal ash pond asset retirement obligation during the first nine months of 2021. Estimates are based on various assumptions including, but not limited to, closure and post-closure cost estimates, timing of expenditures, escalation factors, discount rates and methods for complying with CCR regulations. Additional adjustments to the asset retirement obligations are expected periodically due to potential changes in estimates and assumptions.
Available Information
Our website is located at www.greenidge.com. Information on our website does not constitute a part of this annual report. Our goal is to maintain our website as a portal through which investors can easily find or navigate to pertinent information about us, including our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, proxy statements, and any other reports, after we file them with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). The public may obtain a copy of our filings, free of charge, through our corporate internet website as soon as reasonably practicable after we have electronically filed such material with, or furnished it to, the SEC. Additionally, these materials, including this annual report and the accompanying exhibits are available from the SEC’s website http://www.sec.gov.
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS.
In evaluating our company and our business, you should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties described below, together with the other information in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including our consolidated financial statements and the related notes and in the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations”. The occurrence of one or more of the events or circumstances described in these risk factors, alone or in combination with other events or circumstances, may have a material adverse effect on our business, reputation, revenue, financial condition, results of operations and future prospects, in which case the market price of our common stock could decline. Unless otherwise indicated, reference in this section and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K to our business being adversely affected, negatively impacted or harmed will include an adverse effect on, or a negative impact or harm to, our business, reputation, financial condition, results of operations, revenue and our future prospects. The material and other risks and uncertainties summarized above in this Annual Report on Form 10-K and described below are not intended to be exhaustive and are not the only ones we face. Additional risks and uncertainties not
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presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. This Annual Report on Form 10-K also contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements as a result of a number of factors, including the risks described below. Certain statements in the Risk Factors below are forward-looking statements. See the section titled “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements”.
Our business is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, which illuminate challenges that we face in connection with the successful
implementation of our strategy and the growth of our business. Our business, prospects, financial condition or operating results could be harmed by any of these risks, as well as other risks not currently known to us or that we currently consider immaterial.
Risks Related to Our Business
Risks Related to Our Business Generally
Our business and operating plan may be altered due to several external factors, including but not limited to market conditions, the ability to procure equipment in a quantity, cost and timeline consistent with our business plan, the ability to identify and acquire additional locations to replicate the operating model in place at our existing cryptocurrency datacenter and power generation facility and the ability to integrate the Support Services segment within our overall business plan.
We have developed a business plan that contemplates the anticipated completion of our build out in the Town of Torrey, New York, expansion of the Spartanburg facility, as well as the acquisition of additional power generation assets where we envision replicating our existing business model. The business plan is predicated on certain assumptions regarding many factors, some of which include no disruption to current operations from regulatory changes requirements, and procurement of additional mining equipment of certain performance specifications at certain future dates and prices, as well as the acquisition of additional locations. Our business plan is subject to change to the extent we are not able to achieve the expected outcomes consistent with our current assumptions. There can be no assurance that we will realize the benefits of our growth strategy and business plan, including with respect to our significant capital expenditures relating to orders of mining equipment.
As we continue to integrate the Support Services segment within our business model, we may elect or may be required to alter our business plans or change our business strategy with respect to the segment. Any change to our business plans or strategy will present risks related to Support.com’s ability to execute on these changes and may require us to make additional investments in the Support Services segment, all of which could harm our results of operations and financial performance.
Any disruption in developing our datacenter sites may delay our deployment of miners, which may adversely affect our results of operations and financial performance.
We remain in the process of developing other sites to deploy our mining equipment, and any disruption in developing such sites may delay our deployment efforts. We may face challenges in obtaining suitable land to build new cryptocurrency datacenter facilities, as we require close cooperation with local power suppliers and local governments of the places where our proposed facilities are located. Delays in actions that require the assistance of such third parties, in receiving required permits and approvals or in mediations with local communities, if any, may negatively impact our construction timelines and budget or result in any new datacenters not being completed at all. Any delay in completing the build-out of our New York facility, expansion of the Spartanburg facility or developing other sites, could delay our ability to deploy mining equipment that we receive, and materially adversely affect our results of operation, strategy and financial performance. Our business will be negatively impacted if we are unable to run our datacenter operations in a way that is technologically advanced, economically and energy efficient and temperature controlled. If we are unsuccessful, we may damage our miners and the profitability of our datacenter operations. If we experience significant delays in the supply of power required to support any datacenter expansion or new construction, the progress of such projects could deviate from our original plans, which could cause material and negative effects on our revenue growth, profitability and results of operations. Any material delay in completing these projects, or any substantial cost increases or quality issues in connection with these projects, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We rely on a limited number of suppliers to support our cryptocurrency datacenter operations.
We rely on a limited number of suppliers to provide us with our bitcoin miners, and the failure to manage our relationships with these parties successfully, or disruptions to our suppliers’ businesses caused by COVID-19, supply chain and other factors, could adversely affect our ability to obtain the necessary mining equipment to execute our growth strategies on our desired timeline, or at all. In the year ended December 31, 2021, we purchased 100% of our miners from two suppliers with one supplier, Bitmain, comprising 78% of
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our miner purchases. Any significant change in our relationship with these suppliers could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operation and financial condition, unless and until we are able to find suitable replacements. We make substantially all of our purchases from our suppliers on a purchase order basis. Our suppliers are not required to supply our mining equipment for any specific period or in any specific quantity or price.
It may take significant time, expenditure or effort for us to grow our business, including our cryptocurrency datacenter operations, through acquisitions, and our efforts may not be successful.
The number of bitcoin and other cryptocurrency datacenter companies has greatly increased in recent years. As we and other bitcoin/cryptocurrency datacenter companies seek to grow their mining capacity or access additional sources of electricity to power growing datacenter operations, the acquisition of existing cryptocurrency datacenter companies and standalone electricity production facilities may become an attractive avenue of growth. Currently, we source our electricity for our cryptocurrency datacenter operations from our captive 106 MW power generation facility located in the Town of Torrey, New York. If we determine to expand our operations, we may want to do so through the acquisition of additional bitcoin or other cryptocurrency datacenter businesses or electricity generating power plants. We expect that operations at a new site will commence in 2022; however, there can be no assurance that operations will commence on the timeline indicated, or that the expected benefits and advantages of such expansion will be realized. Further attractive acquisition targets may not be available to us for a number of reasons, such as growing competition for attractive targets, economic or industry sector downturns, geopolitical tensions, regulatory changes, environmental challenges, increases in the cost of additional capital needed to close business combination or operate targets post-business combination. Our inability to identify and consummate acquisitions of attractive targets could have a material and adverse impact on our long-term growth prospects, which could materially adversely affect our results of operations, strategy and financial performance.
Additionally, we may engage in the acquisition of other companies, investments, joint ventures and strategic alliances outside of our Support Services segment’s current line of business to design and develop new technologies and products, to strengthen competitiveness by scaling up and to expand our existing business line into new regions. Such transactions, especially in new lines of business, inherently involve risk due to the difficulties in integrating operations, technologies, products and personnel. Integration issues are complex, time-consuming and expensive and, without proper planning and implementation, may adversely affect the existing business. We may incur significant acquisition, administrative and other costs in connection with these transactions, including costs related to integration or restructuring of acquired businesses. These investments may not provide a return or lead to an increase in our Support Services segment’s operating results, and the benefits of these investments may not be obtained. There can be no assurance that these transactions will be beneficial to our Support Services segment’s results of operations or financial condition. Even assuming these transactions are beneficial, there can be no assurance that we will be able to successfully integrate the new business lines acquired or achieve all or any of the initial objectives of these transactions.
The loss of any of our management team, an inability to execute an effective succession plan, or an inability to attract and retain qualified personnel could adversely affect our results of operations, strategy and financial performance.
Our operations, strategy and business depend to a significant degree on the skills and services of our management, including Jeffrey Kirt, our Chief Executive Officer, Dale Irwin, our President, Robert Loughran, our Chief Financial Officer as of January 1, 2022 and Timothy Rainey, our Treasurer as of January 1, 2022 and former Chief Financial Officer.
At present, our management team is small, and we will need to continue to grow our management in order to alleviate pressure on our existing management team and in order to continue to develop our business and execute on any future identification and expansion into other potential power generation, cryptocurrency datacenter and support services opportunities. If our management, including any new hires that we may make, fails to work together effectively or to execute our plans and strategies on a timely basis, our business could be harmed.
Furthermore, if we fail to execute an effective contingency or succession plan with the loss of any member of management, the loss of such management personnel may significantly disrupt our business.
The loss of key members of management could inhibit our business. Our future success also depends in large part on our ability to attract, retain and motivate key management and operating personnel. As we continue to develop and expand our operations, we may require personnel with different skills and experiences, and who have a sound understanding of our business and the bitcoin industry. The market for highly qualified personnel in the industries in which we operate is very competitive, and we may be unable to attract and retain such personnel. If we are unable to attract and retain such personnel, our business could be harmed.
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We have been, are currently, and may be in the future, the subject of legal proceedings, including governmental investigations, relating to our products or services.
We, or certain of our subsidiaries, have been named as a party to several lawsuits, government inquiries or investigations and other legal proceedings, and may be named in additional ones in the future. Litigation may be time-consuming, expensive, and disruptive to normal business operations, and the outcome of litigation is difficult to predict. The ultimate outcome of litigation could have a material adverse effect on our and the trading price for our securities. Furthermore, litigation, regardless of the outcome, may result in significant expenditures, diversion of our management’s time and attention from the operation of the business and damage to our reputation or relationship with third parties, which could materially and adversely affect our results of operations, strategy and financial performance.
On December 17, 2020, certain parties filed an Article 78 petition with the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Yates County, that challenges the Town of Torrey’s site plan review for the planned expansion of our cryptocurrency datacenter. We were joined in the petition as a necessary party. The petition asserts, among other things, a violation of the State of New York Environmental Quality Review Act for failing to identify all areas of environmental concern or appropriately review the potential environmental impacts of the planned expansion of our data center. This claim could result in litigation, may be time-consuming and costly, divert management resources, require us to change, postpone or halt the construction of our planned cryptocurrency datacenter expansion, or have other adverse effects on our business. In addition, costly and time-consuming litigation could be necessary to enforce our approved building rights.
Our Support Services segment involves direct sale and licensing of services and software to consumers and small and medium sized businesses, and it typically includes customary indemnification provisions in favor of its partners in its agreements for the distribution of its services and software. As a result, we may be subject to consumer litigation and legal proceedings related to our Support Services segment’s services and software, including putative class action claims and similar legal actions, including, but not limited to, consumer litigation and legal proceedings. We may also be subject to employee litigation and legal proceedings related to our employment practices attempted on a class or representative basis. Such litigation can be expensive and time-consuming regardless of the merits of any action and could divert management’s attention from our business.
The cost of defense can be large as can any settlement or judgment in an action. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, strategy and financial performance.
We have a limited operating history, with operating losses as we have grown. If we are unable to sustain greater revenues than our operating costs of cryptocurrency datacenter and power generation operations, as well as expansion plans, we will resume operating losses, which could negatively impact our results of operations, strategy and financial performance.
We began bitcoin mining in May 2019 and have experienced recurring losses from operations in prior years. Our cryptocurrency datacenter operations are in their early stages, and bitcoin and energy pricing and cryptocurrency datacenter economics are volatile and subject to uncertainty. Our current strategy will continue to expose us to the numerous risks and volatility associated with the cryptocurrency datacenter and power generation sectors, including fluctuating bitcoin to U.S. dollar prices, the costs of bitcoin miners, the number of market participants mining bitcoin, the availability of other power generation facilities to expand operations and regulatory changes.
If, among other things, the price of bitcoin declines or mining economics become prohibitive, we could incur future losses. Such losses could be significant as we incur costs and expenses associated with recent investments and potential future acquisitions, as well as legal and administrative related expenses. While we are closely monitoring our cash balances, cash needs and expense levels, significant expense increases may not be offset by a corresponding increase in revenue or a significant decline in bitcoin prices could significantly impact our financial performance.
While we have multiple sources of revenue from our business and operations, our revenues are largely dependent on the single natural gas power generation facility that we operate. Any disruption to our single power plant would have a material adverse effect on our business and operations, as well as our results of operations and financial condition.
We operate a single source natural gas power generation facility in New York that presently comprises and supports the vast majority of our business and operations. While we realize multiple sources of revenue from our business and operations, our revenues are largely dependent on the continuing operation of our natural gas power generation facility in the Town of Torrey, New York. Power plants involve complex operations and equipment, much of which is subject to wear and tear in the normal course of operation. Further, equipment used in the operations of the power plant may also suffer breakdown or malfunction, physical disaster and sabotage. Substantially all of our power plant and cryptocurrency datacenter operations are operated with computer systems that may
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be subject to data security breaches, computer malfunction and viruses, and generally require continual software updates and maintenance. Repairing, replacing or otherwise fixing or addressing any of these or other issues may require the allocation of significant time, capital or other resources, such as technical capability, and during such period of time, we would be unable to operate our power plant and generate revenue. We may not have the adequate capital or other resources to fix or otherwise address these factors or issues in a timely manner or at all, and we may not have access to the necessary parts or equipment that are required to fix or otherwise address such factors or issues.
Some of the parts and equipment necessary to operate the power plant may require long lead-times in order to acquire, either due to availability, production time or cycles, shipping or other factors, thereby making such parts or equipment difficult to acquire in a timely manner or on a cost-effective basis, if available at all. Any disruption to our power generation facility in New York would cause a suspension of revenue generating activity and would have a material adverse effect on our business and operations, as well as our results of operations and financial condition.
Risk Related to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Industry
As the aggregate amount of computing power, or hash rate, in the bitcoin network increases, the amount of bitcoin earned per unit of hash rate decreases; as a result, in order to maintain our market share, we may have to incur significant capital expenditures in order to expand our fleet of miners.
The aggregate computing power of the global bitcoin network has generally grown over time and we expect it to continue to grow in the future. To the extent the global hash rate continues to increase, the market share of and the amount of bitcoin rewards paid to any fixed fleet of miners will decrease. Therefore, in order to maintain our market share, we may be required to expand our mining fleet, which may require significant capital expenditures. Such significant capital expenditures could have an adverse effect on our business operations, strategy and financial performance.
The properties utilized by us in our cryptocurrency datacenter operations may experience damage, including damage not covered by insurance.
Our current cryptocurrency datacenter operations in the Town of Torrey, New York and Spartanburg, South Carolina are, and any future cryptocurrency datacenter operations that we establish will be, subject to a variety of risks relating to physical condition and operation, including:
Any of these could render our cryptocurrency datacenter operations and/or power generation operations inoperable, temporarily or permanently, and the potential impact on our business is currently magnified because we operate the majority of our cryptocurrency datacenter operations from a single location. The security and other measures we take to protect against these risks may be insufficient or unavailable. Our property insurance covers approximately $197 million per occurrence on plant, including business interruption, and $50 million for bitcoin mining equipment in all cases, subject to certain deductibles. Our insurance may not be adequate to cover the losses we suffer as a result of these risks, which could materially adversely impact our results of operations and financial condition.
Our bitcoin may be subject to loss, theft or restriction on access.
We are subject to the risk that some or all of our bitcoin could be lost or stolen. Cryptocurrencies are stored in cryptocurrency sites commonly referred to as “wallets” which may be accessed to exchange a holder’s cryptocurrency assets. The cryptocurrencies held in these wallets are not subject to the protections enjoyed by depositors with Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation or the Securities Investor Protection Corporation member institutions. Access to our bitcoin assets could also be restricted by cybercrime (such as a denial of service attack) against a service at which we maintain a hosted hot wallet. A hot wallet refers to any cryptocurrency wallet that is connected to the Internet. In general, hot wallets are easier to set up and access than wallets in cold storage, but they are also
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more susceptible to hackers and other technical vulnerabilities. Cold storage refers to any cryptocurrency wallet that is not connected to the Internet. Cold storage wallets are generally more secure than hot wallets, but they are not ideal for quick or regular transactions, and we may experience lag time in our ability to respond to market fluctuations in the price of our bitcoin. We currently engage a third-party provider to hold our bitcoin in multi-signature cold storage wallets, and such third party provider maintains secure backups to reduce the risk of malfeasance, but the risk of loss of our bitcoin assets cannot be wholly eliminated. We utilize hot wallets on exchanges to liquidate daily bitcoin mining rewards (and amounts held in hot wallets are limited to one day’s worth of mining revenue, to mitigate risk of loss). Any restrictions on access to our hot wallets due to cybercrime or other reasons could limit our ability to convert bitcoin to cash.
Hackers or malicious actors may attempt to steal bitcoin, such as by attacking the bitcoin network source code, exchange miners, third-party platforms, cold and hot storage locations or software, our general computer systems or networks, or by other means. As we increase in size, we may become a more appealing target of hackers or other malicious actors. In addition, if in the future we hold more of our generated bitcoin long term for investment purposes, the threat of the loss of our bitcoin to hackers would become a more substantial risk and the potential for substantial losses would grow.
Bitcoin are controlled by the possessor of both the unique public and private keys relating to the local or online digital wallet in which they are held, which wallet’s public key or address is reflected in the network’s public blockchain. We publish the public key relating to digital wallets in use when we verify the receipt of transfers and disseminate such information into the network, but we will need to safeguard the private keys relating to such digital wallets. To the extent such private keys are lost, destroyed or otherwise compromised, we will be unable to access our bitcoin and such private keys may not be capable of being restored. Such events could materially adversely impact our results of operations and financial condition.
If a malicious actor or botnet obtains control of more than 50% of the processing power on the bitcoin network, such actor or botnet could manipulate the network to adversely affect us, which could adversely affect our results of operations.
If a malicious actor or botnet, a collection of computers controlled by networked software coordinating the actions of the computers, obtains over 50% of the processing power dedicated to mining bitcoin, such actor may be able to construct fraudulent blocks or prevent certain transactions from completing in a timely manner, or at all. The malicious actor or botnet could control, exclude or modify the order of transactions, though it could not generate new units or transactions using such control. The malicious actor could also “double-spend,” or spend the same bitcoin in more than one transaction, or it could prevent transactions from being validated. In certain instances, reversing any fraudulent or malicious changes made to the bitcoin blockchain may not be possible.
Although there are no known reports of malicious activity or control of blockchains achieved through controlling over 50% of the processing power on the bitcoin network, it is believed that certain mining pools may have exceeded, and could exceed, the 50% threshold on the bitcoin network. This possibility creates a greater risk that a single mining pool could exert authority over the validation of bitcoin transactions. To the extent that the bitcoin ecosystem, and the administrators of mining pools, do not have adequate controls and responses in place, the risk of a malicious actor obtaining control of the processing power may increase. If such an event were to occur, it could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects or operations and potentially the value of any bitcoin we mine or otherwise acquire or hold for our own account.
If bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies are determined to be investment securities, and we hold a significant portion of our assets in such cryptocurrency, investment securities or non-controlling equity interests of other entities, we may inadvertently violate the Investment Company Act or other securities laws. We could incur large losses to modify our operations to avoid the need to register as an investment company or could incur significant expenses to register as an investment company or could terminate operations altogether.
Under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “Investment Company Act”), a company may be deemed an investment company if the value of our investment securities is more than 40% of our total assets (exclusive of government securities and cash items) on an unconsolidated basis. At the present time, the SEC does not deem the bitcoin that we own, acquire or mine as an investment security, and we do not believe any of the bitcoin we own, acquire or mine to be securities. Additionally, we do not currently hold a significant portion of our assets in bitcoin. However, SEC rules and applicable law are subject to change, especially in the evolving world of cryptocurrency, and further, the Investment Company Act analysis may not be uniform across all forms of cryptocurrency that we might mine or hold.
If the SEC or other regulatory body were to determine that bitcoin, or any other cryptocurrency that we may mine or hold in the future, constitutes an investment security subject to the Investment Company Act, and if we were to hold a significant portion of our total
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assets in such bitcoin or other cryptocurrency as a result of our cryptocurrency datacenter activities and/or in investments in which we do not have a controlling interest, the investment securities we hold could exceed 40% of our total assets, exclusive of cash items. Such a situation could be hastened if we choose to hold more of our mined bitcoin or other cryptocurrency rather than converting our mined bitcoin or cryptocurrency in significant part to U.S. dollars.
In such an event, we could determine that we have become an investment company. Limited exclusions are available under the Investment Company Act, including an exclusion granting an inadvertent investment company a one-year grace period from registration as an investment company. In that year, we would be required to take actions to cause the investment securities held by us to be less than 40% of our total assets, which could include acquiring assets with our cash and bitcoin or other cryptocurrency on hand, liquidating our investment securities or bitcoin or seeking a no-action letter from the SEC if we are unable to acquire sufficient assets or liquidate sufficient investment securities in a timely manner. Such actions could require significant cost, disruption to our operations or growth plans and diversion of management time and attention.
If we were unable to qualify for an exemption from registration as an investment company, or fail to take adequate steps within the one-year grace period for inadvertent investment companies, we would need to register with the SEC as an investment company under the Investment Company Act or cease almost all business, and our contracts would become voidable. Investment company registration is time consuming and would require a restructuring of our business. Moreover, the operation of an investment company is very costly and restrictive, as investment companies are subject to substantial regulation concerning management, operations, transactions with affiliated persons and portfolio composition, and Investment Company Act filing requirements. The cost of such compliance would result in us incurring substantial additional expenses, and the failure to register if required would have a materially adverse impact on our operations.
Current regulation regarding the exchange of bitcoins under the CEA by the CFTC is unclear; to the extent we become subject to regulation by the CFTC in connection with our exchange of bitcoin, we may incur additional compliance costs, which may be significant.
The Commodity Exchange Act, as amended (the “CEA”), does not currently impose any direct obligations on us related to the mining or exchange of bitcoins. Generally, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (“CFTC”), the federal agency that administers the CEA, regards bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as commodities. This position has been supported by decisions of federal courts.
However, the CEA imposes requirements relative to certain transactions involving bitcoin and other digital assets that constitute a contract of sale of a commodity for future delivery (or an option on such a contract), a swap, or a transaction involving margin, financing or leverage that does not result in actual delivery of the commodity within 28 days to persons not defined as “eligible contract participants” or “eligible commercial entities” under the CEA (e.g., retail persons). Changes in the CEA or the regulations promulgated by the CFTC thereunder, as well as interpretations thereof and official promulgations by the CFTC, may impact the classification of bitcoins and, therefore, may subject them to additional regulatory oversight by the agency. Although to date the CFTC has not enacted regulations governing non-derivative or non-financed, margined or leveraged transactions in bitcoin, it has authority to commence enforcement actions against persons who violate certain prohibitions under the CEA related to transactions in any contract of sale of any commodity, including bitcoin, in interstate commerce (e.g., manipulation and engaging in certain deceptive practices).
We cannot be certain as to how future regulatory developments will impact the treatment of bitcoins under the law. Any requirements imposed by the CFTC related to our cryptocurrency datacenter activities or our transactions in bitcoin could cause us to incur additional extraordinary, nonrecurring expenses, thereby adversely affecting our results of operations. In addition, changes in the classification of bitcoins could subject us, as a result of our cryptocurrency datacenter operations, to additional regulatory oversight by the agency. Although to date the CFTC has not enacted regulations governing non-derivative or non-financed, margined or leveraged transactions in bitcoin, it has authority to commence enforcement actions against persons who violate certain prohibitions under the CEA related to transactions in any contract of sale of any commodity, including bitcoin, in interstate commerce (e.g., manipulation and engaging in certain deceptive practices).
Moreover, if our cryptocurrency datacenter activities or transactions in bitcoin were deemed by the CFTC to constitute a collective investment in derivatives for our shareholders, we may be required to register as a commodity pool operator with the CFTC through the National Futures Association. Such additional registrations may result in extraordinary, non-recurring expenses, thereby materially and adversely impacting our results of operations. If we determine not to comply with such additional regulatory and registration requirements, we may seek to cease certain of our operations. Any such action may adversely affect our results of operations. While no provision of the CEA, or CFTC rules, orders or rulings (except as noted herein) appears to be currently applicable to our business, this is subject to change.
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There has been limited precedent set for financial accounting of digital assets and so it is unclear how we will be required to account for digital asset transactions.
While we record digital assets as indefinite-lived intangible assets in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification ("ASC") 350, there is currently no authoritative guidance under U.S. GAAP which specifically addresses the accounting for digital assets, including digital currencies.
We recognize bitcoin related revenue when bitcoins are earned. The receipt of bitcoins is generally recorded as revenue, using the spot price of a prominent exchange at the time of daily reward and bitcoins are recorded on the balance sheet at their cost basis and are reviewed for impairment annually.
A change in financial accounting standards or their interpretation could result in changes in accounting treatment applicable to our cryptocurrency datacenter operations, which may have an adverse effect on our results of operations.
If federal or state legislatures or agencies initiate or release tax determinations that change the classification of bitcoins as property for tax purposes (in the context of when such bitcoins are held as an investment), such determination could have a negative tax consequence on us.
Current IRS guidance indicates that digital assets such as bitcoin should be treated and taxed as property, and that transactions involving the payment of bitcoin for goods and services should be treated as barter transactions.
While this treatment creates a potential tax reporting requirement for any circumstance where the ownership of a bitcoin passes from one person to another, usually by means of bitcoin transactions (including off-blockchain transactions), it preserves the right to apply capital gains treatment to those transactions which may adversely affect our results of operations. There can be no assurance that the IRS will not alter its existing position with respect to digital assets in the future or that other state, local and non-U.S. taxing authorities or courts will follow the approach of the IRS with respect to the treatment of digital assets such as bitcoins for income tax and sales tax purposes. Any such alteration of existing guidance or issuance of new or different guidance may have negative consequences including the imposition of a greater tax burden on investors in bitcoin or imposing a greater cost on the acquisition and disposition of bitcoin, generally; in either case potentially having a negative effect on the trading price of bitcoin or otherwise negatively impacting our business. In 2021, significant changes to U.S. federal income tax laws were proposed, including changes related to information reporting requirements with respect to digital assets. Congress may include some or all of these proposals in future legislation, potentially with retroactive effect. Whether these proposals will be enacted, and what effect these proposals, if enacted, will have on our operations is uncertain.
Regulatory changes or actions may alter the nature of an investment in us or restrict the use of bitcoin in a manner that adversely affects our business, prospects, results of operations and financial condition.
As bitcoin and cryptocurrencies generally have grown in both popularity and market size, governments around the world have reacted differently to them; certain governments have deemed them illegal, and others have allowed their use and trade without restriction. Based on stated efforts to curtail energy usage on mining, to protect investors or to prevent criminal activity, and in part to redirect interest into competing government-created cryptocurrencies, recent regulations have proliferated. In March 2021, a new law was proposed in India to criminalize the mining, transferring or holding of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and current rules require extensive disclosure to the government of cryptocurrency holdings. At the same time, India is rumored to be developing its own centralized national digital currency. Similarly, China has also limited some mining and trading, although not possession, of cryptocurrency, ostensibly to reduce energy usage in a country representing an estimated 65% of bitcoin mining, but reports suggest such regulation is also designed, in part, to drive appetite for China’s own digital yuan. On April 16, 2021, Turkey imposed bans on the use of cryptocurrency as payment and now requires transactions of a certain size to be reported to a government agency in the wake of alleged fraud at one of Turkey’s largest exchanges. In addition, in May 2021, Iran announced a temporary ban on cryptocurrency mining as a way to reduce energy consumption amid power blackouts. Many jurisdictions, such as the United States, subject bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to extensive, and in some cases overlapping, unclear and evolving regulatory requirements.
Further, in January 2021, Russia adopted legislation to identify cryptocurrency as a digital asset and legitimize its trading, but also prohibit its use as a payment method; mining operations have also grown significantly in Russia since this time. Such varying government regulations and pronouncements are likely to continue for the near future.
In the U.S., the Federal Reserve Board, U.S. Congress and certain U.S. agencies (e.g., the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the SEC, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Treasury Department (“FinCEN”), and the Federal Bureau of
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Investigation) have begun to examine the operations of the bitcoin network, bitcoin users and the bitcoin exchange market. Increasing regulation and regulatory scrutiny may result in new costs for us and our management having to devote increased time and attention to regulatory matters, change aspects of our business or result in limits on the use cases of bitcoin. In addition, regulatory developments and/or our business activities may require us to comply with certain regulatory regimes. For example, to the extent that our activities cause us to be deemed a money service business under the regulations promulgated by FinCEN under the authority of the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act, we may be required to comply with FinCEN regulations, including those that would mandate us to implement certain anti-money laundering programs, make certain reports to FinCEN and maintain certain records.
Ongoing and future regulation and regulatory actions could significantly restrict or eliminate the market for or uses of bitcoin and/or materially and adversely impact our results of operation and financial condition.
We are subject to risks related to Internet disruptions, which could have an adverse effect on our ability to mine bitcoin.
In general, bitcoin and our business of mining bitcoin is dependent upon the Internet. A significant disruption in Internet connectivity could disrupt a currency’s network operations and have an adverse effect on the price of bitcoin and our ability to mine bitcoin, which could, depending on the duration of the disruption, materially and adversely impact our results of operations.
Our future success will depend significantly on the price of bitcoin, which is subject to risk and has historically been subject to wide swings and significant volatility.
Our operating results will depend significantly on the price of bitcoin. Specifically, our revenues from our cryptocurrency datacenter operations are based principally on two factors: (1) our mining payouts from our third-party mining pools; and (2) the price of bitcoin. Accordingly, a decrease in the price of bitcoin will result in a decrease in our revenues. Moreover, the price of bitcoin has historically been subject to wide swings and significant volatility. This means that our operating results may be subject to significant volatility.
Bitcoin prices have historically been volatile and impacted by a variety of factors, including market perception, the degree to which bitcoin is accepted as a means of payment, the volume of purchases and sales of bitcoin by market participants, real or perceived competition from alternative cryptocurrencies as well as other risks and uncertainties described in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
While some retail and commercial outlets accept bitcoin as a means of payment, consumers’ payment by bitcoin to such retail and commercial outlets remains limited. Conversely, a significant portion of bitcoin demand is generated by speculators and investors seeking to profit from the short- or long-term holding of bitcoin. Many industry commentators believe that bitcoin’s best use case is as a store of wealth, rather than as a currency for transactions, and that other cryptocurrencies having better scalability and faster settlement times will better serve as currency. This could limit bitcoin’s acceptance as transactional currency. A lack of expansion by bitcoin into retail and commercial markets, or a contraction of such use, may result in increased volatility or a reduction in the price of bitcoin, either of which could adversely affect our results of operations.
Latency in confirming transactions on a network could result in a loss of confidence in the network, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Latency in confirming transactions on a network can be caused by a number of factors, such as bitcoin miners, also called transaction processors, ceasing to support the network and/or supporting a different network. To the extent that any transaction processors cease to record transactions on a network, such transactions will not be recorded on the blockchain of the network until a block is solved by a transaction processor that does not require the payment of transaction fees or other incentives. Currently, there are no known incentives for transaction processors to elect to exclude the recording of transactions in solved blocks. However, to the extent that any such incentives arise (for example, with respect to bitcoin, a collective movement among transaction processors or one or more mining pools forcing bitcoin users to pay transaction fees as a substitute for, or in addition to, the award of new bitcoin upon the solving of a block), transaction processors could delay the recording and verification of a significant number of transactions on a network’s blockchain. If such latency became systemic, and sustained, it could result in greater exposure to double-spending transactions and a loss of confidence in the applicable network, which could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, increasing growth and popularity of digital assets, as well as non-digital asset-related applications that utilize blockchain technology on certain networks, can cause congestion and backlog, and as result, increase latency on such networks. An increase in congestion and backlogs could result in longer transaction confirmation times, an increase in unconfirmed transactions (that is, transactions that have yet to be included in a block on a network and therefore are not yet completed transactions), higher transaction fees and an overall decrease in confidence in a particular network, which could ultimately affect our ability to transact on that particular network and, in turn, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
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We may not be able to compete effectively against other companies, some of whom have greater resources and experience.
We may not be able to compete effectively against present or future competitors. The bitcoin industry has attracted various high-profile and well-established competitors, some of whom have substantially greater liquidity and financial resources than us. With the limited resources we have available, we may experience great difficulties in expanding and improving our network of computers to remain competitive. In addition, new ways for investors and market participants to invest in bitcoin and cryptocurrencies continue to develop, and we may be adversely affected by competition from other methods of investing in bitcoin. Competition from existing and future competitors, particularly those that have access to competitively priced energy, could result in our inability to secure acquisitions and partnerships and to successfully execute our business plan. If we are unable compete effectively, our business could be negatively affected.
The impact of geopolitical and economic events on the supply and demand for bitcoin is uncertain.
Geopolitical crises may motivate large-scale purchases of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which could increase the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies rapidly. This may increase the likelihood of a subsequent price decrease as crisis-driven purchasing behavior dissipates. Such risks are similar to the risks of purchasing commodities in uncertain times, such as the risk of purchasing, holding or selling gold. Alternatively, as cryptocurrencies are an emerging asset class, global crises and general economic downturns may discourage investment in bitcoin as investors could focus their investment on less volatile asset classes as a means of hedging their investment risk.
Bitcoin is subject to supply and demand forces. How such supply and demand will be impacted by geopolitical events is largely uncertain but could be harmful to us and our shareholders.
We may lose some or all of the deposits we make when purchasing bitcoin mining equipment or be unable to enforce our contracts with the suppliers of miners, which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.
We currently purchase the majority of our bitcoin miners from suppliers based in Malaysia, based on an industry standard practice of remitting payment on miner deposits prior to entering into formal contractual arrangements with such suppliers. Once deposits are received, our suppliers then notify us if we have been chosen to enter into contractual arrangements with them for the purchase of such mining equipment, based on a number of factors, many of which are out of our control. Until a formal contractual arrangement is in place, we are at greater risk of losing some, or all, of our deposits, and our recourse against such suppliers may be limited. We also may have difficulty enforcing our contracts with such suppliers in foreign countries and our recourse may be limited. If we were to lose a substantial portion of our deposits on mining equipment or are unable to enforce our contracts, our results of operations could be adversely affected.
Bitcoin miners and other necessary hardware are subject to malfunction, technological obsolescence, the global supply chain and difficulty and cost in obtaining new hardware.
Our bitcoin miners are subject to malfunctions and normal wear and tear, and, at any point in time, a certain number of our bitcoin miners are typically off-line for maintenance or repair. The physical degradation of our miners will require us to replace miners that are no longer functional. Because we utilize many units of the same bitcoin miner models, if there is a model wide component malfunction whether in the hardware or the software that powers these miners, the percentage of offline miners could increase substantially, disrupting our operations. Any major bitcoin miner malfunction out of the typical range of downtime for normal maintenance and repair could cause significant economic damage to us.
Additionally, as technology evolves, we may need to acquire newer models of miners to remain competitive in the market. New miners can be costly and may be in short supply. Given the long production period to manufacture and assemble bitcoin miners and the current global semiconductor chip shortage, there can be no assurance that we can acquire enough bitcoin mining computers or replacement parts on a cost-effective basis – or at all – for the maintenance and expansion of our cryptocurrency datacenter operations. We rely on third parties, principally located in China, to supply us with bitcoin miners and shortages of bitcoin miners or their component parts, material increases in bitcoin miner costs, or delays in delivery of our orders, including due to trade restrictions, COVID-19 and other global events that may create supply chain disruptions, could significantly interrupt our plans for expanding our bitcoin mining capacity in the near term and future. Many of our competitors in our industry have also been purchasing mining equipment at scale, which has contributed to a shortage of mining equipment and extended corresponding delivery schedules for new miner purchases. There are no assurances that manufacturers of bitcoin miners will be able to keep pace with the surge in demand for mining equipment across our industry, and whether such manufacturers will be able to deliver on schedules promised or at all. If our
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ordered miners are not shipped, we may have difficulty enforcing our contracts with such suppliers and our recourse may be limited. In such instances our results of operations could be adversely affected.
Most manufacturers of bitcoin miners adjust their prices based on bitcoin mining economics, making the cost of new machines variable, unpredictable and potentially high. As a result, at times, we may obtain bitcoin miners and other hardware from third parties at premium prices, to the extent they are available. Due to high demand and the limited number of suppliers, we must identify miners on terms we find attractive, negotiate to lock in the purchase and price and wait for delivery. As we wait for such miner delivery, we bear the risk of bitcoin price decreases and mining difficulty increases. Meanwhile, our competitors may be receiving and installing miners purchased at lower cost.
This upgrading and replacement process requires substantial capital investment and we may face challenges in doing so on a timely and cost-effective basis. Shortages of bitcoin mining computers could result in reduced bitcoin mining capacity and increased operating costs, which could materially delay the completion of our planned cryptocurrency datacenter capacity expansion and put us at a competitive disadvantage.
Changes in tariffs or import restrictions could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Equipment necessary for digital asset mining is almost entirely manufactured outside of the United States. There is currently significant uncertainty about the future relationship between the United States and various other countries, including China, the European Union, Canada, and Mexico, with respect to trade policies, treaties, tariffs and customs duties, and taxes. For example, since 2019, the U.S. government has implemented significant changes to U.S. trade policy with respect to China. These tariffs have subjected certain digital asset mining equipment manufactured overseas to additional import duties of up to 25%. The amount of the additional tariffs and the number of products subject to them has changed numerous times based on action by the U.S. government. These tariffs have increased costs of certain digital asset mining equipment, and new or additional tariffs or other restrictions on the import of equipment necessary for digital asset mining could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We face risks and disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues, including in semiconductors and other necessary mining components, which could significantly impact our operations and financial results.
Our business was adversely impacted by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular as a result of a decline in energy prices and the availability of bitcoin miners, and may continue to be adversely impacted in the future.
The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has and may continue to adversely affect the economies of many countries, resulting in an economic downturn that may have an adverse effect on financial markets, energy and bitcoin prices, the demand for bitcoin and other factors that could impact our operating results.
China has also limited the shipment of certain products in and out of its borders, which could negatively impact our ability to receive bitcoin mining equipment from our China-based suppliers. Our third-party manufacturers, suppliers, sub-contractors and customers have been disrupted by worker absenteeism, quarantines, restrictions on employees’ ability to work, office and factory closures, disruptions to ports and other shipping infrastructure, border closures, or other travel or health-related restrictions. Depending on the magnitude of such effects on our supply chain, shipments of parts for our existing miners, as well as any new miners we purchase, may be delayed. As our miners require repair or become obsolete and require replacement, our ability to obtain adequate replacements or repair parts from our manufacturer may therefore be hampered. Supply chain disruptions could therefore negatively impact our operations.
In addition, multiple factors including some related to the COVID-19 pandemic have created a global semiconductor shortage. Since the inception of the pandemic, factory shutdowns and limitations due to employee illness or public health requirements have significantly slowed output, while global demand for products requiring chips increased. These 2020-2021 challenges worsened a pre-existing semiconductor and other supply shortage. Semiconductor supply has not yet rebounded, and manufacturers across all industries are waiting and driving up demand and costs. While we have already ordered the bitcoin miners for our 2022 plans, any delay or disruption in delivery of these purchased miners, or future miners necessary for our success and growth, may have a material and negative impact on our results of operations.
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We may not adequately respond to rapidly changing technology.
Competitive conditions within the bitcoin industry require that we use sophisticated technology in the operation of our business. The industry for blockchain technology is characterized by rapid technological changes, new product developments and evolving industry standards. New technologies, techniques or products could emerge that offer better performance than the software and other technologies that we utilize, and we may have to transition to these new technologies to remain competitive. We may not be successful in implementing new technology or doing so in a cost-effective manner. During the course of implementing any such new technology into our operations, we may experience system interruptions. Furthermore, there can be no assurances that we will realize, in a timely manner or at all, the benefits that we may expect as a result of our implementing new technology into our operations. As a result, our results of operations may suffer.
A failure to properly monitor and upgrade the bitcoin network protocol could damage the bitcoin network which could, in turn, have an adverse effect on our business.
The open-source structure of the bitcoin network protocol means that the contributors to the protocol are generally not directly compensated for their contributions in maintaining and developing the protocol. As the bitcoin network protocol is not sold and its use does not generate revenues for contributors, contributors are generally not compensated for maintaining and updating the bitcoin network protocol. The lack of guaranteed financial incentive for contributors to maintain or develop the bitcoin network and the lack of guaranteed resources to adequately address emerging issues with the bitcoin network may reduce incentives to address issues adequately or in a timely manner. Because our cryptocurrency datacenter activities rely on the bitcoin network, negative developments with respect to that network may have an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.
Over time, incentives for bitcoin miners to continue to contribute processing power to the bitcoin network may transition from a set reward to transaction fees. If the incentives for bitcoin mining are not sufficiently high, we may not have an adequate incentive to continue to mine.
In general, as the number of bitcoin rewards awarded for solving a block in a blockchain decreases, our ability to achieve profitability also decreases. Decreased use and demand for bitcoin rewards may adversely affect our incentive to expend processing power to solve blocks. If the bitcoin rewards for solving blocks and transaction fees are not sufficiently high, fewer bitcoin miners will mine. At insufficiently attractive rewards, our costs of operations in total may exceed our revenues from cryptocurrency datacenter activities.
To incentivize bitcoin miners to continue to contribute processing power to the bitcoin network, such network may either formally or informally transition from a set reward to transaction fees earned upon solving for a block. This transition could be accomplished either by bitcoin miners independently electing to record in the blocks they solve only those transactions that include payment of a transaction fee or by the bitcoin network adopting software upgrades that require the payment of a minimum transaction fee for all transactions. If as a result transaction fees paid for bitcoin transactions become too high, bitcoin users may be reluctant to transfer bitcoin or accept bitcoin as a means of payment, and existing users may be motivated to hold existing bitcoin and switch from bitcoin to another digital asset or back to fiat currency for transactions, diminishing the aggregate amount of available transaction fees for bitcoin miners. Such reduction would adversely impact our results of operations and financial condition.
Incorrect or fraudulent cryptocurrency transactions may be irreversible.
It is possible that, through computer or human error, theft or criminal action, our cryptocurrency could be transferred in incorrect amounts or to unauthorized third parties or accounts. In general, cryptocurrency transactions are irrevocable, and stolen or incorrectly transferred cryptocurrencies may be irretrievable, and we may have extremely limited or no effective means of recovering such cryptocurrencies. As a result, any incorrectly executed or fraudulent bitcoin transactions could adversely affect our business.
The bitcoin reward for successfully uncovering a block will halve several times in the future, and bitcoin value may not adjust to compensate us for the reduction in the rewards we receive from our bitcoin mining efforts.
Halving is a process designed to control the overall supply and reduce the risk of inflation in cryptocurrencies using a proof of work consensus algorithm. At a predetermined block, the bitcoin mining reward is cut in half, hence the term “halving.” For bitcoin, the reward was initially set at 50 bitcoin currency rewards per block and this was cut in half to 25 on November 28, 2012 at block 210,000, then again to 12.5 on July 9, 2016 at block 420,000. The most recent halving for bitcoin occurred on May 11, 2020 at block 630,000 and the reward was reduced to 6.25. It is expected that the next halving will likely occur in 2024. This process will reoccur until the total amount of bitcoin currency rewards issued reaches 21 million, which is expected around the year 2140.
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Bitcoin has had a history of price fluctuations around the halving of its rewards, and there can be no assurance that any price change will be favorable or would compensate for the reduction in bitcoin mining reward in connection with a halving. If the award of bitcoin or a proportionate decrease in bitcoin mining difficulty does not follow these anticipated halving events, the revenue we earn from our cryptocurrency datacenter operations would see a corresponding decrease, and we may not have an adequate incentive to continue bitcoin mining.
We may not be able to realize the benefits of forks, and forks in a digital asset network may occur in the future which may affect the value of bitcoin held by us.
To the extent that a significant majority of users and miners on a cryptocurrency network install software that changes the cryptocurrency network or properties of a cryptocurrency, including the irreversibility of transactions and limitations on the mining of new cryptocurrency, the cryptocurrency network would be subject to new protocols and software. However, if less than a significant majority of users and miners on the cryptocurrency network consent to the proposed modification, and the modification is not compatible with the software prior to its modification, a “fork” of the network would occur, with one prong of the network running the pre-modified software and the other running the modified software. The effect of such a fork would be the existence of two versions of the cryptocurrency running in parallel, yet lacking interchangeability and necessitating exchange-type transaction to convert currencies between the two forks. After a fork, it may be unclear which fork represents the original asset and which is the new asset.
If we hold bitcoin at the time of a hard fork into two cryptocurrencies, industry standards would dictate that we would be expected to hold an equivalent amount of the old and new assets following the fork. However, we may not be able to secure or realize the economic benefit of the new asset. Our business may be adversely impacted by forks in the bitcoin network.
The further development and acceptance of digital asset networks and other digital assets, which represent a new and rapidly changing industry, are subject to a variety of factors that are difficult to evaluate. The slowing or stopping of the development or acceptance of digital asset systems may adversely affect an investment in us.
The use of cryptocurrencies to, among other things, buy and sell goods and services and complete transactions, is part of a new and rapidly evolving industry that employs cryptocurrency assets, including bitcoin, based upon a computer-generated mathematical and/or cryptographic protocol. Large-scale acceptance of bitcoin as a means of payment has not, and may never, occur. The growth of this industry in general, and the use of bitcoin in particular, is subject to a high degree of uncertainty, and the slowing or stopping of the development or acceptance of developing protocols may occur unpredictably. The factors include, but are not limited to:
The outcome of any of these factors could have negative effects on our results of operations and financial condition.
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It is possible that cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin could have features that make them more desirable to a material portion of the cryptocurrency user base and this could result in a reduction in demand for bitcoin, which could have a negative impact on the price of bitcoin and adversely affect us.
Bitcoin holds a “first-to-market” advantage over other cryptocurrencies. This first-to-market advantage is driven in large part by having the largest user base and, more importantly, the largest combined mining power in use to secure their respective blockchains and transaction verification systems. More users and miners makes a cryptocurrency more secure, which makes it more attractive to new users and miners, resulting in a network effect that strengthens this first-to-market advantage.
Despite the first-to-market advantage of the bitcoin network over other cryptocurrency networks, it is possible that another cryptocurrency could become comparatively more popular. If an alternative cryptocurrency obtains significant market share—either in market capitalization, mining power or use as a payment technology—this could reduce bitcoin’s market share and value. Substantially all of our cryptocurrency datacenter revenue is derived from mining bitcoin and, while we may mine other cryptocurrencies in the future, we have no plans to do so currently and may incur significant costs if we choose to do so. For example, our current application-specific integrated circuit machines (i.e., our “miners”) are principally utilized for mining bitcoin and cannot mine other cryptocurrencies that are not mined utilizing the SHA-256 algorithm. As a result, the emergence of a cryptocurrency that erodes bitcoin’s market share and value could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.
We may be adversely affected by competition from other methods of investing in bitcoin.
We compete with other users and/or companies that are mining bitcoin or providing investors exposure to bitcoin without direct purchases of bitcoin and with other potential financial vehicles linked to cryptocurrency, including securities backed by or linked to bitcoin through entities similar to it. Market and financial conditions, and other conditions beyond our control, may make it more attractive to invest in such other entities, or to invest in bitcoin or other cryptocurrency directly, as opposed to investing in us. Conversely, given the nascence of cryptocurrency market within the broader investment market, investors may associate entities involved in cryptocurrency mining, trading or related services with each other, and thus, public reports of challenges at any of such other entities may have a negative impact on our business. Finally, the emergence of other financial vehicles and exchange-traded funds have been scrutinized by regulators and such scrutiny and any negative impressions or conclusions resulting from such scrutiny could be applicable to us and impact our business. Such circumstances could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.
Digital assets, such as bitcoin, face significant scaling obstacles that can lead to high fees or slow transaction settlement times and any mechanisms of increasing the scale of digital asset settlement may significantly alter the competitive dynamics in the market.
Digital assets may face significant scaling obstacles that can lead to high fees or slow transaction settlement times, and attempts to increase the volume of transactions may not be effective. Scaling digital assets, and particularly bitcoin, is essential to the widespread acceptance of digital assets as a means of payment, which is necessary to the growth and development of our business.
Many digital asset networks face significant scaling challenges. For example, digital assets are limited with respect to how many transactions can occur per second. In this respect, bitcoin may be particularly affected as it relies on the “proof of work” validation, which due to its inherent characteristics may be particularly hard to scale to allow simultaneous processing of multiple daily transactions by users. Participants in the digital asset ecosystem debate potential approaches to increasing the average number of transactions per second that the network can handle and have implemented mechanisms or are researching ways to increase scale, such as “sharding,” which is a term for a horizontal partition of data in a database or search engine, which would not require every single transaction to be included in every single miner’s or validator’s block. There is no guarantee that any of the mechanisms in place or being explored for increasing the scale of settlement of digital asset transactions will be effective, how long they will take to become effective or whether such mechanisms will be effective for all digital assets. There is also a risk that any mechanisms of increasing the scale of digital asset settlements may significantly alter the competitive dynamics in the digital asset market and may adversely affect the value of bitcoin and the price of our class A common stock. Any of which could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations.
The digital asset exchanges on which cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, trade are relatively new and largely unregulated, and thus may be exposed to fraud and failure. Such failures may result in a reduction in the price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies and can adversely affect an investment in us.
Digital asset exchanges on which cryptocurrencies trade are relatively new and, in most cases, largely unregulated. Many digital exchanges do not provide the public with significant information regarding their ownership structure, management teams, corporate
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practices or regulatory compliance. As a result, the marketplace may lose confidence in, or may experience problems relating to, cryptocurrency exchanges, including prominent exchanges handling a significant portion of the volume of digital asset trading.
A lack of stability in the digital asset exchange market and the closure or temporary shutdown of digital asset exchanges due to fraud, business failure, hackers or malware, or government-mandated regulation may reduce confidence in digital asset networks and result in greater volatility in cryptocurrency values. These potential consequences of a digital asset exchange’s failure could adversely affect our results of operations.
We are subject to momentum pricing risk.
Momentum pricing typically is associated with growth stocks and other assets whose valuation, as determined by the investing public, reflects anticipated future appreciation in value. Cryptocurrency market prices are determined primarily using data from various exchanges, over-the-counter markets, and derivative platforms. Momentum pricing may have resulted, and may continue to result, in speculation regarding future appreciation in the value of cryptocurrencies and bitcoin in particular, inflating and making their market prices more volatile. As a result, they may be more likely to fluctuate in value due to changing investor confidence in future appreciation (or depreciation) in their market prices, which could adversely affect the value of bitcoin mined by us, which could lead to an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.
Our reliance on third-party mining pool service providers for our mining payouts may have a negative impact on our business.
We use third–party mining pools to receive our mining rewards from the network. Mining pools allow miners to combine their processing power, increasing their chances of solving a block and getting paid by the network. The rewards are distributed by the pool operator, proportionally to our contribution to the pool’s overall mining power used to generate each block. Should a pool operator’s system suffer downtime for any reason, including, as a result of a cyber-attack, software malfunction or other similar issues for any reason, it would negatively impact our ability to receive revenue. Furthermore, we are dependent on the accuracy of the mining pool operator’s record keeping to accurately record the total processing power provided to the pool for a given bitcoin mining application in order to assess the proportion of that total processing power we provided. While we have internal methods of tracking both our processing power provided and the total used by the pool, the mining pool operator uses its own record-keeping to determine our proportion of a given reward. We have little means of recourse against the mining pool operator if we determine the proportion of the reward paid out to us by the mining pool operator is incorrect, other than leaving the pool. If we are unable to consistently obtain accurate proportionate rewards from our mining pool operators, we may experience reduced reward for our efforts, which would have an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.
Banks and financial institutions may not provide bank accounts, or may cut off certain banking or other financial services, to cryptocurrency investors or businesses that engage in bitcoin-related activities or that accept bitcoin as payment.
A number of companies that engage in bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrency-related activities have been unable to find banks or financial institutions that are willing to provide them with bank accounts and other services. Similarly, changing governmental regulations about the legality of transferring or holding bitcoin and other cryptocurrency may prompt other banks and financial institutions to close existing bank accounts or discontinue banking or other financial services to such companies in the cryptocurrency industry, or even investors with accounts for transferring, receiving or holding their cryptocurrency. Specifically, China already restricts financial institutions from holding, trading or facilitating transactions in bitcoin. Similarly, other countries have proposed cryptocurrency legislation that could have a significant impact on the ability to utilize banking services in such countries for cryptocurrency. Both India and China, among other countries, are reportedly driving toward the development and adoption of a national digital currency—and taking legislative action that could be viewed as disadvantaging to private cryptocurrencies in the process.
Should such rules and restrictions continue or proliferate, we may not only be unable to obtain or maintain these services for our business but also experience business disruption if our necessary commercial partners, such as bitcoin mining pools or miner manufacturers, cannot conduct their businesses effectively due to such regulations. The difficulty that many businesses that provide bitcoin and/or derivatives on other cryptocurrency-related activities have and may continue to have in finding banks and financial institutions willing to provide them services may diminish the usefulness of bitcoin as a payment system and harm public perception of bitcoin. If we are unable to obtain or maintain banking services for our business as a result of our bitcoin-related activities, our results of operations and financial condition could be materially adversely affected.
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Blockchain technology may expose us to specially designated nationals or blocked persons or cause us to violate provisions of law.
We are subject to the rules enforced by The Office of Financial Assets Control of the US Department of Treasury (“OFAC”), including regarding sanctions and requirements not to conduct business with persons named on its specially designated nationals list. However, because of the pseudonymous nature of blockchain transactions, we may inadvertently and without our knowledge engage in transactions with persons named on OFAC’S specially designated nationals list. It is possible that the use of cryptocurrencies, including bitcoin, could be a potential means of avoiding federally-imposed sanctions, such as those imposed in connection with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On March 2, 2022, a group of United States Senators sent the Secretary of the United States Treasury Department a letter asking Secretary Yellen to investigate its ability to enforce such sanctions vis-à-vis bitcoin, and on March 8, 2022, President Biden announced an executive order on cryptocurrencies which seeks to establish a unified federal regulatory regime for cryptocurrencies. We are unable to predict the nature or extent of new and proposed legislation and regulation affecting the cryptocurrency industry, or the potential impact of the use of cryptocurrencies by specially designated nationals or other blocked or sanctioned persons, which could have material adverse effects on our business and our industry more broadly. Further, we may be subject to investigation, administrative or court proceedings, and civil or criminal monetary fines and penalties as a result of any regulatory enforcement actions, which could harm our reputation and adversely affect our results of operations.
The impact of geopolitical and economic events on the supply and demand for crypto assets, including bitcoin, is uncertain.
Geopolitical crises may motivate large-scale purchases of bitcoin and other crypto assets, which could increase the price of bitcoin and other crypto assets rapidly. Our business and the infrastructure on which our business relies is vulnerable to damage or interruption from catastrophic occurrences, such as war, civil unrest, terrorist attacks, geopolitical events, disease, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, and similar events. Specifically, the uncertain nature, magnitude, and duration of hostilities stemming from Russia’s recent military invasion of Ukraine, including the potential effects of sanctions limitations, retaliatory cyber-attacks on the world economy and markets, and potential shipping delays, have contributed to increased market volatility and uncertainty, which could have an adverse impact on macroeconomic factors that affect our business. This may increase the likelihood of a subsequent price decrease as crisis-driven purchasing behavior dissipates, adversely affecting the value of our inventory following such downward adjustment. Such risks are similar to the risks of purchasing commodities in general uncertain times, such as the risk of purchasing, holding or selling gold. Alternatively, as an emerging asset class with limited acceptance as a payment system or commodity, global crises and general economic downturn may discourage investment in bitcoin as investors focus their investment on less volatile asset classes as a means of hedging their investment risk.
As an alternative to fiat currencies that are backed by central governments, bitcoin, which is relatively new, is subject to supply and demand forces. How such supply and demand will be impacted by geopolitical events is largely uncertain but could be harmful to us. Political or economic crises may motivate large-scale acquisitions or sales of bitcoin either globally or locally. Such events could have a material adverse effect our results of operations.
Risks Related to our Power Generation Operations
Our operations and financial performance may be impacted by fuel supply disruptions, price fluctuations in the wholesale power and natural gas markets, and fluctuations in other market factors that are beyond our control.
Our power generation depends on our purchases of fuel and other products consumed during the production of electricity from a number of suppliers. Our operations and financial performance generally may be impacted by changes in the supply of fuel and other required products, price fluctuations in the wholesale power and natural gas markets, and other market factors beyond our control.
Delivery of these fuels to our facilities is dependent upon fuel transmission or transportation infrastructure, storage and inventory of fuel stocks, as well as the continuing financial viability of contractual counterparties. As a result, we are subject to the risks of disruptions or curtailments in the production of power at our generation facility if fuel is limited or unavailable at any price, if a counterparty fails to perform, or if there is a disruption in the fuel delivery infrastructure. Disruption in the delivery of fuel, including disruptions as a result of weather, transportation difficulties, global demand and supply dynamics, labor relations, environmental regulations or the financial viability of fuel suppliers, could adversely affect our ability to operate our facilities, which could result in lower power sales and/or higher costs to our cryptocurrency datacenter operations and thereby adversely affect our results of operations.
Separate from supply, market prices for power, capacity, ancillary services, natural gas, and oil are volatile, unpredictable and tend to fluctuate substantially. Disruptions in our fuel supplies may require us to find alternative fuel sources at higher costs, to find other sources of power to deliver to counterparties at a higher cost, or to pay damages to counterparties for failure to deliver power as contracted. Unlike most other commodities, electric power can only be stored on a very limited basis and generally must be produced
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concurrently with its use. As a result, power prices and our costs are subject to significant volatility due to supply and demand imbalances, especially in the day-ahead and spot markets. We buy significant quantities of fuel on a short-term or spot market basis. Prices for the natural gas that we purchase fluctuate, sometimes rising or falling significantly over a relatively short period of time. The price we can obtain for the sale of power may not rise at the same rate, or may not rise at all, to match a rise in fuel or delivery costs. Further, any changes in the costs of natural gas or transportation rates, changes in the relationship between such costs and the market prices of power, or an inability to procure fuel for physical delivery at prices that we consider favorable could all adversely affect our operations, the costs of meeting our obligations, and the profitability of our cryptocurrency datacenter, and thus, our operations and financial performance. Volatility in market prices for fuel and electricity may result from a number of factors outside of our control, including:
Such factors and the associated fluctuations in power and natural gas prices have affected our wholesale power generation profitability and cost of power for cryptocurrency datacenter activities in the past and will continue to do so in the future.
Changes in technology may negatively impact the value of our Town of Torrey, New York power plant and any future power plants.
Research and development activities are ongoing in the industry to provide alternative and more efficient technologies to produce power. There are alternate technologies to supply electricity, most notably fuel cells, micro turbines, batteries, windmills and photovoltaic (solar) cells, the development of which are currently being subsidized and expanded by the State of New York, where we currently operate (as well as by state or local governments in areas where we may operate in the future), to address global climate change concerns. It is possible that technological advances will reduce the cost of alternative generation to a level that is equal to or below that of certain central station production. Also, as new technologies are developed and become available, the quantity and pattern of electricity usage by customers could decline, with a corresponding decline in revenues derived by generators. These alternative energy sources could result in a decline to the dispatch and capacity factors of our power plant located in the town of Torrey, New York. As a result of these factors, the value of our generation facilities could be significantly reduced.
We sell capacity, energy and ancillary services to the wholesale power grid managed by the NYISO. Our business may be affected by the actions of nearby states or other governmental actors in the competitive wholesale marketplace.
We sell capacity, energy and ancillary services to the wholesale power grid managed by the NYISO. The competitive wholesale marketplace may be impacted by out-of-market subsidies provided by states or state entities, including bailouts of uneconomic nuclear plants, imports of power from Canada, renewable mandates or subsidies, mandates to sell power below our cost of acquisition and associated costs, as well as out-of-market payments to new or existing generators. These out-of-market subsidies to existing or new
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generation undermine the competitive wholesale marketplace, which can lead to decreased energy market revenues or premature retirement of existing facilities, including those owned by us. If these measures continue, capacity and energy prices may be suppressed, and we may not be successful in our efforts to insulate the competitive market from this interference. Our wholesale power revenue may be materially impacted by rules or regulations that allow regulated utilities to participate in competitive wholesale markets or to own and operate rate-regulated facilities that provide capacity, energy and ancillary services that could be provided by competitive market participants.
The availability and cost of emission allowances could adversely impact our costs of operations.
We are required to maintain, through either allocations or purchases, sufficient emission allowances for SO2, CO2 and NOx to support our operations in the ordinary course of operating our power generation facilities. These allowances are used to meet the obligations imposed on us by various applicable environmental laws. If our operational needs require more than our allocated allowances, we may be forced to purchase such allowances on the open market, which could be costly. If we are unable to maintain sufficient emission allowances to match our operational needs, we may have to curtail our operations so as not to exceed our available emission allowances or install costly new emission controls. As we use the emission allowances that we have purchased on the open market, costs associated with such purchases will be recognized as operating expense. If such allowances are available for purchase, but only at significantly higher prices, the purchase of such allowances could materially increase our costs of operations in the affected markets.
Our financial performance could be materially and adversely affected if energy market participants continue to construct additional generation facilities (i.e., new-build) or expand or enhance existing generation facilities despite relatively low power prices and such additional generation capacity results in a reduction in wholesale power prices or more competition from cryptocurrency datacenter competitors with access to cheaper supplies of electricity.
Given the overall attractiveness of the markets in which we operate, and certain tax benefits associated with renewable energy, among other matters, energy market participants have continued to construct new generation facilities (i.e., new-build) or invest in enhancements or expansions of existing generation facilities despite relatively low wholesale power prices. If this market dynamic continues, and/or if our cryptocurrency datacenter competitors begin to build or acquire their own power plants to fuel their cryptocurrency datacenter operations, our results of operations and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected if such additional generation capacity results in a cheaper supply of electricity to our cryptocurrency datacenter competitors or lower prices at which we sell capacity, energy or ancillary services to the wholesale power grid.
Maintenance, expansion and refurbishment of power generation facilities involve significant risks that could result in unplanned power outages or reduced output and could have a material adverse effect on our revenues, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition.
Our facilities require periodic maintenance and repair. Any unexpected failure, including failure associated with breakdowns or forced outages, and any related unanticipated capital expenditures could result in reduced profitability from both loss of cryptocurrency datacenter operations and power generation. Such unexpected outages have occurred in the past, and may occur in the future, due to factors both within and outside of our control. We can give no assurances that outages involving our power plant will not occur in the future, or that any such outage would not have a negative effect on our business and results of operations. In addition, we cannot be certain of the level of capital expenditures that will be required due to changing environmental laws (including changes in the interpretation or enforcement thereof), needed facility repairs and unexpected events (such as natural disasters or terrorist attacks). Unexpected capital expenditures could have a material adverse effect on our liquidity and financial condition. If we significantly modify power generation equipment, we may be required to install the best available control technology or to achieve the lowest achievable emission rates as such terms are defined under the new source review provisions of the Clean Air Act of 1963, which would likely result in substantial additional capital expenditures.
Operation of power generation facilities involves significant risks and hazards that could disrupt or have a material adverse effect on our revenues and results of operations, and we may not have adequate insurance to cover these risks and hazards. Our employees, contractors, customers and the general public may be exposed to a risk of injury due to the nature of our operations.
The conduct of our operations, including operation of our power plant, information technology systems and other assets is subject to a variety of inherent risks. These risks include the breakdown or failure of equipment, accidents, potential physical injury, hazardous spills and exposures, fires, property damage, security breaches, viruses or outages affecting information technology systems, labor disputes, obsolescence, delivery/ transportation problems and disruptions of fuel supply, performance below expected levels or other
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financial liability, and may be caused to or by employees, customers, contractors, vendors, contractual or financial counterparties, other third parties, weather events or acts of God.
Operational disruptions or similar events may impact our ability to conduct our businesses efficiently and lead to increased costs, expenses or losses. Planned and unplanned outages at our power plants may require us to curtail operation of the plant. Any reduced power supply could also have a negative impact on the cost structure of our cryptocurrency datacenter operations.
These and other hazards can cause significant personal injury or loss of life, severe damage to and destruction of property, plant and equipment, contamination of, or damage to, the environment and suspension of operations. Further, the employees and contractors of our operating affiliates work in, and customers and the general public may be exposed to, potentially dangerous environments at or near our operations. As a result, employees, contractors, customers and the general public are at risk for serious injury, including loss of life.
The occurrence of one or more of these events may result in us or our affiliates being named as a defendant in lawsuits asserting claims for substantial damages, including for environmental cleanup costs, personal injury and property damage and fines and/or penalties. We maintain an amount of insurance protection that we consider adequate, but we cannot provide any assurance that our insurance will be sufficient or effective under all circumstances and against all hazards or liabilities to which we may be subject and, even if we do have insurance coverage for a particular circumstance, we may be subject to a large deductible and maximum cap. A successful claim for which we are not fully insured could hurt our financial results and materially harm our financial condition. Further, due to rising insurance costs and changes in the insurance markets, we cannot provide any assurance that our insurance coverage will continue to be available at all or at rates or on terms similar to those presently available. Any losses not covered by insurance could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.
Our business is subject to substantial energy regulation and may be adversely affected by legislative or regulatory changes relating to climate change or policies regarding cryptocurrency mining, as well as liability under, or any future inability to comply with, existing or future energy regulations or requirements.
Our business is subject to extensive U.S. federal, state and local laws. Compliance with, or changes to, the requirements under these legal and regulatory regimes may cause us to incur significant additional costs or adversely impact our ability to continue operations as usual or compete on favorable terms with competitors. Failure to comply with such requirements could result in the shutdown of a non-complying facility, the imposition of liens, fines, and/or civil or criminal liability and or costly litigations before the agencies and/or in state of federal court. Changes to these laws and regulations could result in temporary or permanent restrictions on certain operations at our facilities, including power generation or use in connection with cryptocurrency mining, and compliance with, or opposing such regulation, may be costly.
The regulatory environment has undergone significant changes in the last several years due to state and federal policies affecting wholesale competition and the creation of incentives for the addition of large amounts of new renewable generation and, in some cases, transmission. These changes are ongoing, and we cannot predict the future design of the wholesale power markets or the ultimate effect that the changing regulatory environment will have on our business. In addition, in some of these markets, interested parties have proposed material market design changes, including the elimination of a single clearing price mechanism, as well as proposals to reinstate the vertically-integrated monopoly model of utility ownership or to require divestiture by generating companies to reduce their market share. If competitive restructuring of the electric power markets is reversed, discontinued, delayed or materially altered, our business prospects and financial results could be negatively impacted. In addition, since 2010, there have been a number of reforms to the regulation of the derivatives markets, both in the United States and internationally. These regulations, and any further changes thereto, or adoption of additional regulations, including any regulations relating to position limits on futures and other derivatives or margin for derivatives, could negatively impact our ability to hedge our portfolio in an efficient, cost-effective manner by, among other things, potentially decreasing liquidity in the forward commodity and derivatives markets or limiting our ability to utilize non-cash collateral for derivatives transactions.
Obtaining and complying with required government permits and approvals may be time-consuming and costly.
We and our affiliates are required to obtain, and to comply with, numerous permits and licenses from federal, state and local governmental agencies. The process of obtaining and renewing necessary permits and licenses can be lengthy and complex, requiring up to months or years for approval depending on the nature of the permit or license and such process could be further complicated or extended in the event regulations change. In addition, obtaining such permit or license can sometimes result in the establishment of conditions that create a significant ongoing impact to the nature or costs of operations or even make the project or activity for which the permit or license was sought unprofitable or otherwise unattractive. In addition, such permits or licenses may be subject to denial,
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revocation or modification under various circumstances. Failure to obtain or comply with the conditions of permits or licenses, or failure to comply with applicable laws or regulations, may result in the delay or temporary suspension of our operations and electricity sales or the curtailment of our delivery of electricity to our customers and may subject us to penalties and other sanctions. Although various regulators routinely renew existing permits and licenses, renewal of our existing permits or licenses could be denied or jeopardized by various factors, including failure to provide adequate financial assurance for closure, failure to comply with environmental, health and safety laws and regulations or permit conditions, local community, political or other opposition and executive, legislative or regulatory action.
Our inability to procure and comply with the permits and licenses required for these operations, or the cost to us of such procurement or compliance, could have a material adverse effect on us. In addition, new environmental legislation or regulations, if enacted, or changed interpretations of existing laws, may cause activities at our facilities to need to be changed to avoid violating applicable laws and regulations or eliciting claims that historical activities at our facilities violated applicable laws and regulations. In addition to the possible imposition of fines in the case of any such violations, we may be required to undertake significant capital investments and obtain additional operating permits or licenses, which could have a material adverse effect on us.
Our cost of compliance with existing and new environmental laws could have a material adverse effect on us.
We and our affiliates are subject to extensive environmental regulation by governmental authorities, including the United States Environmental Protection Agency (the “EPA”), and state environmental agencies and/or attorneys general. We may incur significant additional costs beyond those currently contemplated to comply with these regulatory requirements. If we fail to comply with these regulatory requirements, we could be forced to reduce or discontinue operations or become subject to administrative, civil or criminal liabilities and fines. Existing environmental regulations could be revised or reinterpreted, new laws and regulations could be adopted or become applicable to us or our facilities, and future changes in environmental laws and regulations could occur, including potential regulatory and enforcement developments related to air emissions, all of which could result in significant additional costs beyond those currently contemplated to comply with existing requirements. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on results of operations and financial condition.
The EPA has recently finalized or proposed several regulatory actions establishing new requirements for control of certain emissions from certain sources, including electricity generation facilities. In the future, the EPA may also propose and finalize additional regulatory actions that may adversely affect our existing generation facilities or our ability to cost-effectively develop new generation facilities. There is no assurance that the currently installed emissions control equipment at the natural gas-fueled generation facilities owned and operated by us will satisfy the requirements under any future EPA or state environmental regulations. Future federal and/or state regulatory actions could require us to install significant additional emissions control equipment, resulting in potentially material costs of compliance for our generation units, including capital expenditures, higher operating and fuel costs and potential production curtailments. These costs could have a material adverse effect on results of operations and financial condition.
We may not be able to obtain or maintain all required environmental regulatory approvals. If there is a delay in obtaining any required environmental regulatory approvals, if we fail to obtain, maintain or comply with any such approval or if an approval is retroactively disallowed or adversely modified, the operation of our generation facilities could be stopped, disrupted, curtailed or modified or become subject to additional costs. Any such stoppage, disruption, curtailment, modification or additional costs could have a material adverse effect on results of operations and financial condition.
In addition, we may be responsible for any on-site liabilities associated with the environmental condition of facilities that we have acquired, leased, developed or sold, regardless of when the liabilities arose and whether they are now known or unknown. In connection with certain acquisitions and sales of assets, we may obtain, or be required to provide, indemnification against certain environmental liabilities. Another party could, depending on the circumstances, assert an environmental claim against us or fail to meet its indemnification obligation to us. Such event could have an adverse effect on our results of operations and financial condition.
Increasing scrutiny and changing expectations from investors, lenders, customers, government regulators and other market participants with respect to our Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) policies may impose additional costs on us or expose us to additional risks.
Companies across all industries and around the globe are facing increasing scrutiny relating to their ESG policies. Investors, lenders and other market participants are increasingly focused on ESG practices and in recent years have placed increasing importance on the implications and social cost of their investments. In February 2021, the Acting Chair of the SEC issued a statement directing the Division of Corporation Finance to enhance its focus on climate-related disclosure in public company filings and in March 2021 the SEC announced the creation of a Climate and ESG Task Force in the Division of Enforcement. The increased focus and activism
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related to ESG may hinder our access to capital, as investors and lenders may reconsider their capital investment allocation as a result of their assessment of our ESG practices. If we do not adapt to or comply with investor, lender or other industry shareholder expectations and standards and potential government regulations, which are evolving but may relate to the suitable deployment of electric power, or which are perceived to have not responded appropriately to the growing concern for ESG issues, our reputation may suffer, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We could be materially and adversely affected if current regulations are implemented or if new federal or state legislation or regulations are adopted to address global climate change, or if we are subject to lawsuits for alleged damage to persons or property resulting from greenhouse gas emissions.
There is attention and interest nationally and internationally about global climate change and how greenhouse gas emissions, such as CO2, contribute to global climate change. Over the last several years, the U.S. Congress and state and federal authorities have considered and debated several proposals intended to address climate change using different approaches, including a cap on carbon emissions with emitters allowed to trade unused emission allowances (cap-and-trade), a tax on carbon or greenhouse gas emissions, limits on the use of generated power in connection with cryptocurrency mining, incentives for the development of low-carbon technology and federal renewable portfolio standards. A number of federal court cases have been filed in recent years asserting damage claims related to greenhouse gas emissions, and the results in those proceedings could establish adverse precedent that might apply to companies (including us) that produce greenhouse gas emissions. Our results of operations and financial condition could be materially and adversely affected if new federal and/or state legislation or regulations are adopted to address global climate change or if we are subject to lawsuits for alleged damage to persons or property resulting from greenhouse gas emissions.
Risks Related to Our Support Services Segment.
A substantial portion of revenue generated by our Support Services segment is attributable to a limited number of clients. The loss or reduction in business from any of these clients could adversely affect its business and results of operations.
Our Support Services segment receives a significant amount of its revenue from a limited number of customers. For the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, which was prior to the Merger and not included in our results of operations, Support.com's largest customer accounted for over 44% and 63% of its total revenue, respectively. For the years ended December 31, 2020 and 2019, its second largest customer accounted for 43% and 25% of Support.com’s total revenue, respectively. For the year ended December 31, 2021, of which only a portion was included in our results of operations, its largest and second largest customer accounted for 57% and 24% of its total revenue, respectively. There were no other customers that accounted for 10% or more of Support.com’s total revenue in any of the periods presented. In October 2021, Support.com agreed with a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, its second largest customer to terminate its contract to provide support services to Comcast (the “Comcast Contract”), effective the first quarter of 2022. The Comcast Contract represented approximately $8.3 million of Support.com’s revenues for the year ended December 31, 2021, of which, only a portion occurred since the Merger and was included in our results of operations. Support.com’s operating income from the Comcast Contract for each of the aforementioned periods was negative.
In the past, sales to Support.com’s largest customers have fluctuated significantly from period to period and year to year and will likely continue to fluctuate in the future. The loss of these or other significant relationships, the change of the terms or terminations of its arrangements with any of these customers, the reduction or discontinuance of programs or billable hours with any of these customers, or the failure of any of these customers to achieve their targets has in the past adversely affected and could in the future adversely affect our Support Services segment.
If we are unable to protect or enforce intellectual property rights related to our Support Services segment, or we lose our ability to utilize the intellectual property of others, our Support Services segment could be adversely affected.
The success of our Support Services segment depends, in part, upon our ability to obtain intellectual property protection for Support.com’s proprietary processes, software and other solutions. Support.com relies upon confidentiality policies, nondisclosure and other contractual arrangements, and patent, trade secret, copyright and trademark laws to protect its intellectual property rights. These laws are subject to change at any time and could further limit Support.com’s ability to obtain or maintain intellectual property protection. There is uncertainty concerning the scope of patent and other intellectual property protection for software and business methods, which are fields in which Support.com relies on intellectual property laws to protect its rights. Even where Support.com obtains intellectual property protection, its intellectual property rights may not prevent or deter competitors, former employees, or other third parties from reverse engineering its solutions or software. Further, the steps Support.com takes in this regard might not be adequate to prevent or deter infringement or other misappropriation of its intellectual property by competitors, former employees or other third parties, and it may not be able to detect unauthorized use of, or take appropriate and timely steps to enforce, its intellectual
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property rights. Enforcing Support.com’s rights might also require considerable time, money and oversight, and it may not be successful. Further, Support.com relies on third-party software in providing some of its services and solutions. If Support.com loses its ability to continue using any such software for any reason, including because it is found to infringe the rights of others, it will need to obtain substitute software or find alternative means of obtaining the technology necessary to continue to provide its solutions. Support.com’s inability to replace such software, or to replace such software in a timely or cost-effective manner, could materially adversely affect the results of operations of our Support Services segment.
Our Support Services segment must comply with a variety of existing and future laws and regulations that could impose substantial costs on it and may adversely impact its business.
We are subject to a variety of laws and regulations, which may differ among jurisdictions, affecting our Support Services segment’s operations in areas including, but not limited to: intellectual property ownership and infringement; tax; anti-corruption such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the UK Bribery Act; foreign exchange controls and cash repatriation restrictions; data privacy requirements such as the European Economic Area Privacy Regulation, the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”); competition; consent order terms (for example, the recent Consent Order Support.com entered into with the FTC); advertising; employment; product regulations; health and safety requirements; and consumer laws. If we fail to continue to comply with these regulations, we may be unable to provide products or services to certain customers within our Support Services segment, or we may incur penalties or fines. We are unable to predict the outcome or effects of any of these potential actions or any other legislative or regulatory proposals on our business. Any changes to the legal and regulatory framework applicable to our Support Services segment could have an adverse impact on the results of its operations. Although Support.com’s management systems are designed to maintain compliance, if we violate or fail to comply with any laws or regulations, applicable consent orders or decrees, a range of consequences could result, including fines, sales limitations, criminal and civil liabilities or other sanctions. The costs of complying with these laws (including the costs of any investigations, auditing and monitoring) could adversely affect our Support Services segment current or future business.
The Support Services segment operates in a highly competitive industry, with intense price competition, which may intensify as its competitors expand their operations.
The industry in which our Support Services segment operates is highly competitive and includes numerous small companies capable of competing effectively in it markets on a local basis, as well as several large companies that possess substantially greater financial resources than we do. Contracts are traditionally awarded on the basis of competitive bids or direct negotiations with customers.
The competitive factors in these markets include, amongst others, product and service quality and availability, responsiveness, experience, technology, equipment quality, reputation for retaining highly skilled agents and price. The competitive environment has intensified as mergers among industry partners have reduced the number of available customers and mergers amongst our competitors have created larger companies for us to compete against. Some of our current and potential competitors have greater resources, longer histories, more customers, and/or greater brand recognition. They may secure better terms from vendors, adopt more aggressive pricing, and devote more resources to technology, infrastructure, fulfillment, and marketing.
Competition may intensify, including with the development of new business models and the entry of new and well-funded competitors, and as our competitors enter into business combinations or alliances and established companies in other markets expand to become competitive with our business. Furthermore, we cannot be sure that its competitors will not develop competing products, systems, services or technologies that gain market acceptance in advance of our products, systems, services or technologies, or that our competitors will not develop new products, systems, services or technologies that cause our existing products, systems, services or technologies to become non-competitive or obsolete, which may adversely affect our Support Services segment’s results of operations through the potential reduction of sales and profits.
Our Support Services segment’s success depends upon our ability to attract, develop and retain highly qualified employees while also controlling its labor costs in a competitive labor market.
Support.com’s customers expect a high level of customer support and product knowledge from its employees. To meet the needs and expectations of Support.com’s customers, it must attract, develop and retain a large number of highly qualified employees while at the same time control labor costs. Support.com’s ability to control labor costs is subject to numerous external factors, including prevailing wage rates and health and other insurance costs, as well as the impact of legislation or regulations governing labor relations, minimum wage, or healthcare benefits. An inability to provide wages and/or benefits that are competitive within the markets in which our Support Services segment operates could adversely affect our ability to retain and attract employees. In addition, Support.com competes with other retail businesses for many of its employees in hourly positions, and it invests significant resources in training and
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motivating them to maintain a high level of job satisfaction. These positions have historically had high turnover rates, which can lead to increased training and retention costs, particularly in a competitive labor market. Effective succession planning is also important to our long-term success. Failure to ensure effective transfer of knowledge and smooth transitions involving key employees and executive management could hinder Support.com’s strategic planning and execution. There is no assurance that Support.com will be able to attract or retain highly qualified employees in the future. As such, our Support Services segment’s ability to develop and deliver successful products and services may be adversely affected.
Support.com’s systems collect, access, use, and store personal customer information and enable customer transactions, which poses security risks, requires it to invest significant resources to prevent or correct problems that may be caused by security breaches, and may harm our Support Services segment’s business.
A fundamental requirement for online communications, transactions and support is the secure collection, storage and transmission of confidential information. Support.com’s systems collect and store confidential and personal information of its individual customers as well as its partners and their customers’ users, including personally identifiable information and payment card information, and its employees and contractors may access and use that information in the course of providing services. In addition, Support.com collects and retains personal information of its employees in the ordinary course of its business. Support.com and its third-party contractors use commercially available technologies to secure this information. Despite these measures, parties may attempt to breach the security of Support.com’s data or that of its customers. In addition, errors in the storage or transmission of data could breach the security of that information. Support.com may be liable to its customers for any breach in security and any breach could subject it to governmental or administrative proceedings or monetary penalties, damage its relationships with partners and harm its business and reputation. Also, computers are vulnerable to computer viruses, physical or electronic break-ins and similar disruptions, which could lead to interruptions, delays or loss of data. We may be required to expend significant capital and other resources to comply with mandatory privacy and security standards required by law, industry standard, or contract, and to further protect against security breaches or to correct problems caused by any security breach.
Risks Related to the Ownership of Our Securities
Because we are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the Nasdaq listing rules, our stockholders may not have certain corporate governance protections that are available to stockholders of companies that are not controlled companies.
So long as more than 50% of the voting power for the election of our directors is held by an individual, a group or another company, we will qualify as a “controlled company” within the meaning of Nasdaq’s corporate governance standards. As of December 31, 2021, Atlas and its affiliates control 90.1% of the voting power of our outstanding capital stock. As a result, we are a “controlled company” within the meaning of Nasdaq’s corporate governance standards and will not be subject to the requirements that would otherwise require us to have: (i) a majority of independent directors; (ii) compensation of our executive officers determined by a majority of the independent directors or a compensation committee comprised solely of independent directors; and (iii) director nominees selected or recommended for our board either by a majority of the independent directors or a nominating committee comprised solely of independent directors. Because we are a “controlled company”, our stockholders may not have these corporate governance protections that are available to stockholders of companies that are not controlled companies.
Atlas and its affiliates may have their interest in us diluted as a result of future equity issuances or their own actions in selling shares of our common stock, in each case, which could result in a loss of the “controlled company” exemption under the Nasdaq listing rules. We would then be required to comply with those provisions of the Nasdaq listing requirements.
The dual class structure of our common stock will have the effect of concentrating voting power with Atlas and its affiliates, which may depress the market value of the class A common stock and will limit a stockholder or a new investor’s ability to influence the outcome of important transactions, including a change in control.
While the economic rights of our common stock are the same, the class A common stock have one (1) vote per share, while class B common stock have ten (10) votes per share. As of December 31, 2021, our class B common stockholders represent approximately 96% of our voting power. Given the 10:1 voting ratio, even a significant issuance of class A common stock, and/or a transaction involving class A common stock as consideration, may not impact Atlas’ significant majority voting position in us.
We have enacted a dual class voting structure to ensure the continuity of voting control in us for the foreseeable future. As a result, for the foreseeable future, Atlas and its affiliates will be able to control matters submitted to stockholders for approval, including the election of directors, amendments of our organizational documents and any merger, consolidation, sale of all or substantially all of our assets or other major corporate transactions.
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Atlas and its affiliates may have interests that differ from other stockholders and may vote their class B common stock in a way with which other stockholders may disagree or which may be adverse to such other stockholders’ interests. In addition, this concentrated control will have the effect of delaying, preventing or deterring a change in control of Greenidge, could deprive our stockholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their capital stock as part of a sale of Greenidge, and might have a negative effect on the market price of shares of our class A common stock.
The market price, trading volume and marketability of our class A common stock may be significantly affected by numerous factors beyond our control.
The market price and trading volume of our class A common stock may fluctuate and/or decline significantly. Many factors that are beyond our control may materially adversely affect the market price of our class A common stock, the marketability of our class A common stock and our ability to raise capital through equity financings. These factors include, but are not limited to, the following:
We may need to raise additional capital to grow our business and may not be able to do so on favorable terms, if at all. Future issuances of equity or debt securities may adversely affect the value of our common stock.
We may need to raise additional capital in the future, including to expand our operations and pursue our growth strategies, to respond to competitive pressures or to meet capital needs in response to operating losses or unanticipated working capital requirements. We may not be able to obtain additional debt or equity financing on favorable terms in the future, if at all, which could impair our growth and adversely affect our existing operations. Similarly, in connection with the purchase agreement (the “Purchase Agreement”) entered into in September 2021 between us and the B. Riley Principal Capital, LLC (the “Investor”), because the purchase price per share to be paid by the Investor for the shares of class A common stock that we may elect to sell to the Investor fluctuates based on the market prices of our class A common stock at the time we elect to sell shares, we may not be able to continue to sell shares of class A common stock on favorable terms, or at all.
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If we conduct an equity offering, or exercise our right to sell shares of class A common stock to the Investor under the Purchase Agreement, to raise capital or to take advantage of strong capital markets, our stockholders may experience significant dilution of their ownership interests, and the per share value of our class A common stock could materially decline. Furthermore, if we engage in further debt financing, the holders of debt likely would have priority over the holders of our common stock, including the class A common stock, with respect to order of payment. Upon a bankruptcy or liquidation, holders of any such debt securities, and lenders with respect to other borrowings we may make, would receive distributions of our available assets prior to any distributions being made to holders of class A common stock.
Moreover, if we issue preferred stock in the future, the holders of such preferred stock could also be entitled to preferences over holders of class A common stock in respect of the payment of dividends and the payment of liquidating distributions. Further, such securities could require us to accept terms that restrict our ability to incur additional indebtedness, take other actions including terms that require us to maintain specified liquidity or other ratios that could otherwise not be in the interests of our stockholders.
We cannot predict or estimate the amount, timing or nature of any such future offerings or borrowings.
Our obligations associated with being a public company requires significant resources and management attention. We will incur increased costs as a result of being a public company.
As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, which requires that we timely file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business and financial condition, and are subject to the rules and regulations implemented by the SEC, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010, and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, and the listing requirements of Nasdaq, each of which imposes additional reporting and other obligations on public companies. As a public company, we face increased legal, accounting, administrative and other costs and expenses that we have not previously incurred as a private company, and we may need to hire additional financial and accounting personnel and other experienced staff with the expertise to address complex matters applicable to public companies. In addition, we are required to, among other things:
These rules and regulations, and any future changes thereto, will increase—potentially materially—our legal and financial compliance costs compared to our prior operations and require significant time and attention from our management.
As a public company, it may also be more expensive for us to obtain director and officer liability insurance, and we may be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain coverage. These increased costs may require us to divert a significant amount of money that we could otherwise use to expand our business and achieve our strategic objectives.
We may not complete our analysis of our internal control over financial reporting in a timely manner, or these internal controls may not be determined to be effective.
We are in the early stages of the costly and challenging process of compiling the system and process documentation necessary to perform the evaluation needed to comply with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In this regard, we will need to continue to dedicate internal resources (including the potential hiring of additional finance staff), engage outside consultants and adopt a detailed work plan to assess and document the adequacy of internal control over financial reporting, continue steps to improve control processes as appropriate, validate through testing that controls are functioning as documented and implement a continuous reporting and improvement process for internal control over financial reporting. We may not be able to complete our evaluation, testing and any required remediation in a timely fashion. During the evaluation and testing process, if we identify one or more material weaknesses in our internal control over financial reporting, we will need to remediate any future material weaknesses and, if we are unable to do so, we may be unable to assert that our internal controls are effective. If we are unable to assert that our internal control over financial reporting is effective, or if our auditors are unable to express an opinion on the effectiveness of our internal controls when they are
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required to issue such opinion, investors could lose confidence in the accuracy and completeness of our financial reports, which could harm our business and the price of our common stock.
Our management team has limited experience managing a public company.
While certain members of our management team have some experience serving as board members of a public company and interacting with public company investors, these management team members have not previously served as management of a publicly traded company and may not have experience complying with the increasingly complex laws pertaining to public companies. Our management team may not successfully or efficiently manage our immediate transition to being a public company subject to significant regulatory oversight and reporting obligations under the federal securities laws as well as the continuous scrutiny of securities analysts and investors. These new obligations and constituents will require significant attention from our senior management and could divert their attention away from the day-to-day management of our business, which could adversely affect our business and financial performance.
We are subject to ongoing public reporting requirements that are less rigorous than Exchange Act rules for companies that are not emerging growth companies or smaller reporting companies, and stockholders could receive less information than they might expect to receive from larger or more mature public companies.
We qualify to publicly report on an ongoing basis as an “emerging growth company” (as defined in the JOBS Act) and a “smaller reporting company” (as defined in SEC rules) under the reporting rules set forth under the Exchange Act. For so long as we remain an emerging growth company, we may take advantage of certain exemptions from various reporting requirements that are applicable to other Exchange Act reporting companies that are not emerging growth companies, including but not limited to:
In addition, Section 107 of the JOBS Act also provides that an emerging growth company can take advantage of the extended transition period provided in Section 7(a)(2)(B) of the Securities Act for complying with new or revised accounting standards. This means that an emerging growth company can delay the adoption of certain accounting standards until those standards would otherwise apply to private companies. We have elected to take advantage of the benefits of this extended transition period and so our financial statements may not be comparable to those of companies that comply with such new or revised accounting standards.
We expect to take advantage of these reporting exemptions until we are no longer an emerging growth company or smaller reporting company. We can remain an emerging growth company for up to five years, although if the market value of our class A common stock that is held by non-affiliates exceeds $700 million or more as of any June 30 before that time, we would cease to be an emerging growth company as of the following December 31. We will qualify as a smaller reporting company until our public float, as of the last day of our second fiscal quarter, exceeds $250 million; because our common stock held by our directors, executive officers and Atlas and its affiliates are excluded from the calculation of public float, we anticipate qualifying as a smaller reporting company for the near future.
Because we will be subject to ongoing public reporting requirements that are less rigorous than Exchange Act rules for companies that are not emerging growth companies or smaller reporting companies, stockholders could receive less information than they might expect to receive from more mature or larger public companies, and the class A common stock may experience less active trading or more price volatility as a result.
Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of us more difficult, and limit attempts by stockholders to replace or remove current management.
Provisions in our restated certificate of incorporation and bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change of control or changes in our management, including provisions that:
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These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to effect a change in control, or to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for our stockholders to replace members of the board of directors, which is responsible for appointing the members of management.
Future sales of class A common stock may affect the market price of our class A common stock.
We may raise capital by continuing to exercise our rights under the Purchase Agreement to sell shares of class A common stock to the Investor or through other future equity offerings.
Pursuant to the Purchase Agreement, we have the right to sell to the Investor up to $500,000,000 of shares of class A common stock, subject to certain limitations and conditions, from time to time during the term of the Purchase Agreement, however, under the applicable Nasdaq rules, in no event may we issue a number of shares of class A common stock that exceeds the Exchange Cap, unless we obtain stockholder approval to issue shares in excess of the Exchange Cap in accordance with applicable Nasdaq rules. We may ultimately decide to sell to the Investor all, some or none of the shares of our class A common stock that may be available for us to sell to the Investor pursuant to the Purchase Agreement. Depending on market liquidity at the time, resales of those shares by the Investor may cause the public trading price of our class A common stock to decrease.
We cannot predict what effect, if any, actual or potential future sales of our class A common stock will have on the market price of our class A common stock. Sales of substantial amounts of our class A common stock in the public market, or the perception that such sales could occur, could materially adversely affect the market price of our class A common stock.
We may incur additional indebtedness.
Despite our current level of indebtedness, we and our subsidiaries may be able to incur significant additional indebtedness. The indenture governing our Notes allows us and our subsidiaries to incur additional indebtedness. If new indebtedness is added to our and our subsidiaries’ current debt levels, the related risks that we face would be increased, and we may not be able to meet all our debt obligations, including repayment of the Notes, in whole or in part. If we incur any additional debt that is secured, the holders of that debt will be entitled to share in the proceeds distributed in connection with any enforcement against the collateral or an insolvency, liquidation, reorganization, dissolution or other winding-up of the applicable obligor prior to applying any such proceeds to the notes. As of December 31, 2021, we had $100.5 million of indebtedness, $72.2 million of which was unsecured.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation designates the Delaware Court of Chancery as the sole and exclusive forum for certain types of actions and proceedings that may be initiated by our stockholders and provides that claims relating to causes of action under U.S. federal securities laws may only be brought in U.S. federal district courts, which could limit the ability of our stockholders to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us, our directors, officers or employees, if any, and could discourage lawsuits against us and our directors, officers and employees, if any.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware shall, to the fullest extent permitted by law, be the sole and exclusive forum for (i) any derivative action or proceeding brought on behalf of us, (ii) any action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any of our current or former directors, officers, employees or stockholders to us or our stockholders, (iii) any action asserting a claim arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL or the amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws or as to which the DGCL confers jurisdiction on the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware, or (iv) any action asserting a claim governed by the internal affairs doctrine of the laws of the State of Delaware. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation also provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the U.S. federal district courts
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shall, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under U.S. federal securities laws. Support.com’s governing documents do not contain any exclusive forum provisions.
These exclusive forum provisions may limit the ability of our stockholders to bring a claim in a judicial forum that such stockholders find favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or employees, if any, which may discourage such lawsuits against us and our directors, officers, and employees, if any. Alternatively, if a court were to find the choice of forum provisions contained in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, and operating results.
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ITEM 1B. UNRESOLVED STAFF COMMENTS.
None.
ITEM 2. PROPERTIES.
We own the approximately 106 MW natural gas power generation facility used by our Cryptocurrency Datacenter and Power Generation Segment, which is located on our 162-acre property in the Town of Torrey, New York. This property is subject to a lease/leaseback relationship with the Yates County Industrial Development Agency. In consideration for certain incentives provided by the Yates County Industrial Development Agency, we are committed to certain investment and job creation obligations all of which have been fulfilled. The primary obligations are the continuation of employment, including the Yates County Industrial Development Agency as an additional insured on various insurance policies and the completion of annual reporting forms. The payment in lieu of taxes agreement executed by the Yates County Industrial Development Agency and us provides predictability with respect to the increase in the annual real property tax burden on the power plant.
We also own an additional 143 acres of land located in the Town of Torrey, New York. Approximately 29 acres are occupied by a landfill used to dispose of coal ash by the power plant’s former owners.
We own the 4.6 mile long natural gas pipeline that runs from our power plant facility, to the connector pipeline in Milo, Yates County, New York. We also hold a series of easements and right of way agreements with landowners through whose land the pipeline runs.
On December 7, 2021, pursuant to a Purchase and Sale Agreement (the “LSC Agreement”) dated October 21, 2021, between one of our subsidiaries and a subsidiary of LSC Communications, Inc. (“LSC”), we purchased two parcels of land containing approximately 175 acres of land located in Spartanburg, South Carolina, including over 750,000 square feet of industrial buildings to be used by our Cryptocurrency Datacenter and Power Generation Segment. LSC is a portfolio company of private investment funds managed by Atlas Holdings LLC. Our controlling shareholder consists of certain funds associated with Atlas Holdings LLC. The purchase price of the Spartanburg property was $15.0 million. We commenced small scale mining operations, using portable equipment, at the Spartanburg facility in December 2021.
We lease office space in Fairfield, Connecticut.
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ITEM 3. LEGAL PROCEEDINGS.
From time to time, we may become involved in various lawsuits and legal proceedings that arise in the ordinary course of business. However, litigation is subject to inherent uncertainties, and an adverse result in these, or other matters, may arise and harm our business. Other than discussed below and as set forth in Note 15 “Commitments and Contingencies” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, which is incorporated herein by reference, we are currently not aware of any such legal proceedings or claims that we believe will have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition or operating results.
On December 17, 2020, certain parties filed an Article 78 petition with the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Yates County, that challenges the Town of Torrey’s site plan review for the planned expansion of our cryptocurrency datacenter. We were joined in the petition as a necessary party. The petition asserts two errors, by the Town of Torrey, namely (1) a violation of General Municipal Law 239-m for failure to make the necessary referral to the County or Torrey Planning Committee prior to the Town’s approval of the site plan; and (2) a violation of the State of New York Environmental Quality Review Act ("SEQRA")for, among other things, failing to identify all areas of environmental concern or scrutinizing the potential environmental impacts of the planned expansion of our data center. The matter was adjourned, during which time the General Municipal Law referral issue was rectified, leaving only the SEQRA matter. We have successfully defended similar SEQRA claims brought by the same petitioners in past litigation. Nevertheless, we cannot predict the outcome of this litigation. On April 19, 2021, the Town of Torrey Planning Board once again declared that the site plan application created no significant negative environmental impacts and again approved the proposed site plan. In light of the recent Town action, the petitioners have amended their pleadings against the Town of Torrey and requested that the Court set a new return date to have their claims fully addressed. We believe that the petitioners’ claims against the Town of Torrey have no merit.
After announcement of the Merger, six complaints were filed in various U.S. federal district courts by alleged individual stockholders of Support.com against Support.com, the individual directors of Support.com and, in two of the cases, Greenidge and Merger Sub. Of these six complaints, two were filed in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware: Stein v. Support.com, Inc. et al, Case No. 1:21-cv-00650 (May 5, 2021), and Bell v. Support.com, Inc. et al, Case No. 1:21-cv-00672 (May 7, 2021); three were filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York: Broder v. Support.com, Inc. et al, Case No. 1:21-cv-04262 (May 12, 2021), Salerno v. Support.com, Inc. et al, Case No. 1:21-cv-04584 (May 21, 2021), and Bowen v. Support.com, Inc. et al, Case No. 1:21-cv-04797 (May 28, 2021). The sixth lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York: Steinmetz v. Support.com, Inc. et al, Case No. 1:21-cv- 02647 (May 11, 2021). Support.com and individual members of the Support.com board were named as defendants in all of the lawsuits; Greenidge and Merger Sub were also named as defendants in Bell and Salerno. The lawsuits generally alleged that the Form S-4 Registration Statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the Merger on May 4, 2021 made misleading omissions of certain material information. The Salerno complaint also alleged that the members of the Support.com board breached their fiduciary duties in negotiating and approving the Merger Agreement and that Greenidge and Merger Sub aided and abetted that breach. The lawsuits purported to seek to enjoin the Merger, or alternatively, rescission and unspecified damages and costs. On August 2, 2021, lawyers representing a seventh putative stockholder of Support.com sent a demand letter seeking additional disclosures regarding the proposed transaction and reserving their purported right to seek to enjoin the transaction.
All of the lawsuits have since been voluntarily dismissed by plaintiffs.
ITEM 4. MINE SAFETY DISCLOSURES.
Not applicable.
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PART II
Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.
Market Information for Our Class A Common Stock
The Merger combined the respective businesses of Greenidge and Support.com through an all-stock transaction. Prior to the Merger, Greenidge’s class A common stock was registered pursuant to the Exchange Act and, upon completion of the Merger on September 15, 2021, began trading on Nasdaq Global Select Market under the ticker symbol “GREE”. Concurrently, Support.com deregistered its shares pursuant to the Exchange Act. Our Class B common stock is not listed or traded on any stock exchange.
Holders of Record
As of March 29, 2022, we had 25 registered holders of our class A common shares, including Cede & Co., the nominee for the Depository Trust Company and 10 registered holders of our class B common shares. The class A common shares registered holders' number excludes shareholders whose stock is held in nominee or street name by brokers.
Dividend Policy
We have never declared or paid cash dividends on our capital stock. Our policy is to retain all earnings, if any, to provide funds for the operation and expansion of our business and we do not anticipate paying any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. The declaration of dividends, if any, will be subject to the discretion of our board, which may consider such factors as our results of operations, financial condition, capital needs and acquisition strategy, among others. Under the Bridge Promissory Note entered into in March 2022 that matures on July 20, 2022, subject to up to five 30-day extensions that may be elected by the Company, the Company cannot pay dividends.
Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans
Information about the securities authorized for issuance under our equity compensation plan is set forth under “Item 12.
Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters—Equity Compensation
Plan Information.”
Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities and Use of Proceeds
On September 14, 2021, we issued 562,174 shares of our class A common stock to 210 Capital, LLC as a consulting fee in connection with the Merger.
On September 14, 2021, we issued 5,760,000 shares of our class A common stock and 720,000 shares of our class B common stock upon conversion of the 6,480,000 shares of series A preferred stock.
On September 15, 2021, we entered into a purchase agreement (the “Purchase Agreement”), with B. Riley Principal Capital, LLC (“BRPC”) pursuant to which we have the right to sell to BRPC up to $500 million in shares of class A common stock, subject to certain limitations and the satisfaction of specified conditions in the Purchase Agreement, from time to time over the 24-month period commencing on October 6, 2021. From October 6, 2021 through March 31, 2022, we issued 2,547,500 shares of our class A common stock to BRPC under the Purchase Agreement. We intend to use the net proceeds for general corporate purposes, including funding capital expenditures, future acquisitions, investments and working capital and repaying indebtedness.
On September 16 2021, we issued 344,800 shares of our class A common stock to B. Riley Securities, Inc. upon its exercise of our outstanding warrants at an exercise price of $6.25 per share.
The sales of the above securities were deemed to be exempt from registration under the Securities Act in reliance upon Section 4(a)(2) of the Securities Act or Regulation D promulgated thereunder, or Rule 701 promulgated under Section 3(b) of the Securities Act as transactions by an issuer not involving any public offering or pursuant to benefit plans and contracts relating to compensation as provided under Rule 701. The recipients of the securities in each of these transactions represented their intentions and appropriate legends were placed upon the stock certificates issued in these transactions.
From July 27, 2021 to October 14, 2021 (the date of the filing of our registration statement on Form S-8, File No. 333-260257), we granted stock options to purchase an aggregate of 37,000 shares of our Class A common stock to our employees at an exercise price of
48
$7.18 per share under our 2021 Equity Incentive Plan. The offers, sales, and issuances of the securities described in this paragraph were deemed to be exempt from registration under the Securities Act in reliance on Rule 701 promulgated under the Securities Act as transactions by an issuer not involving a public offering or under benefit plans and contracts relating to compensation as provided under Rule 701. The recipients of the securities in each of these transactions represented their intentions to acquire the securities for investment only and not with a view to or for sale in connection with any distribution thereof. All recipients had adequate access through their relationships with us, or otherwise to information about us. The issuances of these securities were made without any general solicitation or advertising.
ITEM 6. SELECTED FINANCIAL DATA.
Not required.
ITEM 7. MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITIPON AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT’S DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF
OPERATIONS FOR GREENIDGE
You should read the following discussion of our financial condition and results of operations in conjunction with our
consolidated financial statements and related notes included herein. Among other things, those financial statements include more
detailed information regarding the basis of presentation for the following information. The financial statements have been
prepared in accordance with U.S. GAAP and are presented in U.S. dollars. The following discussion contains forward‑looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. As a result of many factors, such as those set forth under "Item 1A—Risk Factors," "Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, our actual results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward‑looking statements. You should carefully review the sections titled “Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” and “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.
Overview
Cryptocurrency Datacenter and Power Generation Segment
We own cryptocurrency datacenter operations in the Town of Torrey, New York and in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Our operation in the Town of Torrey, New York is a vertically integrated cryptocurrency datacenter and power generation facility with an approximately 106 MW natural gas power generation facility that has undergone a remarkable transformation in recent years. We generate all the power we require for our cryptocurrency datacenter operations in the New York facility, where we enjoy low power costs due to our access to the Millennium Pipeline price hub, which provides relatively low market rates for natural gas. At our facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina, we purchase power from a supplier of approximately 60% zero-carbon sourced energy. We believe our competitive advantages include low fixed costs, an efficient mining fleet and in-house operational expertise. We are currently mining bitcoin and contributing to the security and transactability of the bitcoin ecosystem while concurrently supplying power to assist in meeting the power needs of homes and businesses in the New York region.
As of December 31, 2021, we powered approximately 51 MW of mining capacity capable of producing an estimated aggregate hash rate of 1.4 EH/s at our facilities, substantially all of which is dedicated to bitcoin mining. Our Cryptocurrency Datacenter and Power Generation segment generates revenue i) through the exchange of bitcoins earned by ASICs as rewards and transaction fees for U.S. dollars and, to a much lesser extent, through revenue earned from third parties for hosting ASICs owned by third parties and providing operations, maintenance and other blockchain related services to third parties and ii) through the sale of electricity generated by our power plant, and not consumed in cryptocurrency datacenter operations, to New York State’s power grid at prices set on a daily basis through the NYISO wholesale market. We opportunistically increase or decrease the total amount of electricity sold by the power plant based on prevailing prices in the wholesale electricity market.
We believe that our behind-the-meter power generation capability provides a stable, cost-effective source of power for cryptocurrency datacenter activities. Our behind-the-meter power generation capability provides us with stable delivery due to the absence of any contract negotiation risk with third-party power suppliers, the absence of transmission and distribution cost risk and the firm delivery of gas for our New York facility via our captive pipeline. Notwithstanding the structural stability of our behind-the-meter capabilities, we do however procure natural gas at our New York facility through a third-party energy manager which schedules delivery of our
49
natural gas needs from the wholesale market which is subject to price volatility. We procure the majority of our gas at spot prices and enter into fixed price forward contracts from time to time for the purchase of a portion of anticipated natural gas purchases based on prevailing market conditions to partially mitigate the financial impacts of natural gas price volatility. These forward contracts qualify for the normal purchases and sales exception under ASC 815, Derivatives and Hedging, as it is probable that these contracts will result in physical delivery.
Volatility in the natural gas market may impact our results of operations and financial performance. While natural gas prices decreased in 2020, partially due to COVID-19 related demand reduction, prices have been on an upward trajectory since June of 2021 and are expected to continue rising during 2022 due to low inventory levels. Volatility in the natural gas market may be caused by disruption in the delivery of fuel, including disruptions as a result of weather, transportation difficulties, global demand and supply dynamics, labor relations, environmental regulations or the financial viability of fuel suppliers. See “Risk Factors—Risks Related to Our Business—Risks Related to our Power Generation Operations.” We procure the majority of our natural gas supply at our New York facility from the Millennium Pipeline price hub, which provides relatively low market rates for natural gas.
Support Services Segment
Our Support Services segment provides solutions and technical programs to customers delivered by home-based employees. The Support Services segment provides customer service, sales support, and technical support primarily to large corporations, businesses and professional services organizations. The Support Services segment also earns revenues for end-user software products provided through direct customer downloads and sale via partners. The Support Services segment operates primarily in the United States, but has international operations that include staff providing support services.
Expansion Opportunities
We have an active development pipeline of potential new locations we believe are suitable to develop additional cryptocurrency datacenters. We intend to use our significant power plant and bitcoin technical know-how to achieve at least 500 MW of mining capacity by 2025 across multiple locations in North America. We expect to achieve this through a combination of the available capacity of our existing sites in New York and South Carolina and through additional capacity at future expansion locations. In September 2021, we entered into exclusive agreements that expire in 2022 regarding the potential construction of new cryptocurrency data centers in Texas that includes at least six sites in the pipeline that we and the developer have identified as potential locations for new data centers. In total, these sites have over 2,000 MW of electrical capacity and include several locations surrounded by abundant wind and solar power generation. Furthermore, in October 2021, we entered into an agreement giving us an exclusive right of first refusal at multiple power generation sites comprising over 1,000 MW of power generation assets in the ERCOT market. The agreement gives us the exclusive right of first refusal to develop cryptocurrency datacenters at any current or future power generation sites controlled by the counterparty in the ERCOT market until January 2023.
Merger
On September 14, 2021, we consummated the transactions contemplated by the Merger Agreement, by and among Greenidge, Support.com and Merger Sub. As contemplated by the Merger Agreement, Merger Sub merged with and into Support.com, the separate corporate existence of Merger Sub ceased and Support.com survived as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Greenidge. At the effective time of the Merger, we issued 2,998,261 shares of class A common stock in exchange for all shares of common stock, par value $0.0001, of Support.com and all outstanding stock option and restricted stock units of Support.com. Support.com’s results of operations and balance sheet have been consolidated effective with the Merger. Refer to Note 3, Merger with Support.com, of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for a further discussion of the Merger.
Miner Fleet Growth
We began mining bitcoin in 2019 with the construction of a pilot data center to operate approximately 1 MW of bitcoin mining capacity located at our power generation facility in the Town of Torrey, New York. We launched a commercial datacenter for bitcoin mining and blockchain services in January 2020, and as of December 31, 2020, we had approximately 6,900 miners deployed on our site capable of producing an estimated aggregate hash rate capacity of approximately 0.4 exahash per second (“EH/s”). Although the number of miners deployed provides a sense of scale of cryptocurrency datacenter operations as compared to our peers, management believes that hash rate, or the number of hashes a miner can perform in each second, typically expressed in EH/s or terahash per second (“TH/s”) and used as a measure of computational power or mining capacity used to mine and process transactions on a blockchain such as bitcoin, provides a more comparable measure of our fleet’s ability to process cryptocurrency transactions as compared to other bitcoin datacenter operations.
50
During the year ended December 31, 2021, we deployed approximately 10,300 additional miners comprised primarily of Bitmain S19 and S19 Pro Bitmain Antminers, as well as MicroBT M30 and M31 Whatsminers, bringing our total miners to approximately 17,300, capable of producing an estimated aggregate hash rate of 1.4 EH/s and consuming power capacity of approximately 51MW. We have ordered additional miners that will bring our committed total capacity to approximately 49,000 miners and 4.7 EH/s, including our launch order for Bitmain’s new Antminer S19 XP. These new advanced miners have substantially greater hash rate capacities and use electric power more efficiently than our existing miner fleet. See “Risk Factors— Risk Related to Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Industry—Bitcoin miners and other necessary hardware are subject to malfunction, technological obsolescence, the global supply chain and difficulty and cost in obtaining new hardware.”
Results of Operations
The following table sets forth key components of our results of operations during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020
|
|
Years Ended December 31, |
|
|||||||||
$ in thousands |
|
2021 |
|
|
2020 |
|
|
Variance |
|
|||
Total revenue |
|
$ |
107,277 |
|
|
$ |
20,114 |
|
|
|
433.3 |
% |
Cost of revenue (exclusive of |
|
|
33,820 |
|
|
|
12,600 |
|
|
|
168.4 |
% |
Selling, general and administrative expenses |
|
|
27,156 |
|
|
|
5,581 |
|
|
|
386.6 |
% |
Merger and other costs |
|
|
32,272 |
|
|
|
- |
|
|
N/A |
|
|
Goodwill impairment charge |
|
|
42,307 |
|
|
|
- |
|
|
N/A |
|
|
Depreciation and amortization |
|
|
8,855 |
|
|
|
4,564 |
|
|
|
94.0 |
% |
Loss from operations |
|
|
(37,133 |
) |
|
|
(2,631 |
) |
|
|
1311.4 |
% |
Other (expense) income: |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
Interest expense, net |
|
|
(3,670 |
) |
|
|
(91 |
) |
|
|
3933.0 |
% |
Interest expense - related party |
|
|
(22 |
) |
|
|
(573 |
) |
|
|
-96.2 |
% |
Gain on sale of digital assets |
|
|
275 |
|
|
|
123 |
|
|
|
123.6 |
% |
Remeasurement of environmental liability |
|
|
(3,688 |
) |
|
|
(230 |
) |
|
|
1503.3 |
% |
Other income, net |
|
|
166 |
|
|
|
112 |
|
|
|
48.2 |
% |
Total other expense, net |
|
|
(6,939 |
) |
|
|
(659 |
) |
|
|
952.9 |
% |
Loss before income taxes |
|
|
(44,072 |
) |
|
|
(3,290 |
) |
|
|
1239.6 |
% |
Provision for income taxes |
|
|
408 |
|
|
|
- |
|
|
N/A |
|
|
Net loss |
|
$ |
(44,480 |
) |
|
$ |
(3,290 |
) |
|
|
1252.0 |
% |
Adjusted Amounts (a) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
Adjusted income (loss) from operations |
|
$ |
39,808 |
|
|
$ |
(1,749 |
) |
|
|
|
|
Adjusted operating margin |
|
|
37.1 |
% |
|
|
-8.7 |
% |
|
|
|
|
Adjusted net income (loss) |
|
$ |
26,755 |
|
|
$ |
(2,178 |
) |
|
|
|
|
Other Financial Data (a) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||
EBITDA |
|
$ |
(31,525 |
) |
|
$ |
1,938 |
|
|
|
|
|
as a percent of revenues |
|
|
-29.4 |
% |
|
|
9.6 |
% |
|
|
|
|
Adjusted EBITDA |
|
$ |
52,874 |
|
|
$ |
3,050 |
|
|
|
|
|
as a percent of revenues |
|
|
49.3 |
% |
|
|
15.2 |
% |
|
|
|
Revenue
|
|
Years Ended December 31, |
|
|||||||||
$ in thousands |
|
2021 |
|
|
2020 |
|
|
Variance |
|
|||
Cryptocurrency datacenter |
|
$ |
87,897 |
|
|
$ |
13,016 |
|
|
|
575.3 |
% |
Power and capacity |
|
|
9,428 |
|
|
|
7,098 |
|
|
|
32.8 |
% |
Services and other |
|
|
9,952 |
|
|
|
- |
|
|
N/A |
|
|
Total revenue |
|
$ |
107,277 |
|
|
$ |
20,114 |
|
|
|
433.3 |
% |
The components of revenue, expressed as a percentage of total revenue were:
51
|
|
Years Ended December 31, |
|
|||||
|
|
2021 |
|
|
2020 |
|
||
Cryptocurrency datacenter |
|
|
81.9 |
% |
|
|
64.7 |
% |
Power and capacity |
|
|
8.8 |
% |
|
|
35.3 |
% |
Services and other |
|
|
9.3 |
% |
|
N/A |
|
|
Total revenue |
|
|
100.0 |
% |
|
|
100.0 |
% |
Total revenue increased $87.2 million, or 433.3%, during the year ended December 31, 2021 as compared to the year ended December 31, 2020. The increase in revenue was driven by the Cryptocurrency Datacenter and Power Generation segment, specifically cryptocurrency mining, due to the significant expansion of our miner fleet over the last year. The Merger increased the consolidated revenue by $10.0 million during 2021. Refer to the “Segment Discussion” of this MD&A for a more detailed discussion of revenues from the Cryptocurrency Datacenter and Power Generation segment and the Support Services segment. Refer to Note 16 to our Consolidated Financial Statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for concentrations of revenue.
Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization)
|
|
Years Ended December 31, |
|
|||||||||
$ in thousands |
|
2021 |
|
|
2020 |
|
|
Variance |
|
|||
Cryptocurrency datacenter |
|
$ |
19,159 |
|
|
$ |
4,465 |
|
|
|
329.1 |
% |
Power and capacity |
|
|
9,231 |
|
|
|
8,135 |
|
|
|
13.5 |
% |
Services and other |
|
|
5,430 |
|
|
|
- |
|
|
N/A |
|
|
Total cost of revenue |
|
$ |
33,820 |
|
|
$ |
12,600 |
|
|
|
168.4 |
% |
As a percentage of total revenue |
|
|
31.5 |
% |
|
|
62.6 |
% |
|
|
|