Bitcoin Miner Riot Platforms Purchases $500 Million Worth Of BTC — Details

Bitcoin mining company Riot Platforms has increased its BTC holdings with the addition of over 5,000 coins in the past few days. This significant purchase came on the back of reports that the miner was under pressure from activist investor Starboard Value.

How Much BTC Does Riot Platforms Currently Own?

On Friday, December 13, Riot Platforms announced that it had purchased approximately $510 million worth of BTC between December 10 and December 12. According to the post on X, the cost of this latest purchase was pegged at around $99,669 per BTC, including fees and other charges.

The most recent acquisition was executed with the net proceeds from the offering of Riots’ 0.75% convertible bond issue due 2030 and its cash reserves. And it brings the Bitcoin miner’s holdings to 16,728 BTC, valued at approximately $1.68 billion.

Interestingly, this BTC purchase comes after an underwhelming third-quarter performance for Riot Platforms. The mining company recorded a net loss of $154.4 million in the third quarter, resulting from the growing costs and unrealized investment losses.

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Riot Platforms purchasing such a significant amount of Bitcoin in a short period underscores the level of institutional adoption seen by the crypto market in 2024. With other corporations like MicroStrategy also increasing their BTC holdings, the market has enjoyed huge attention from large-scale investors this year.

Unsurprisingly, the price of Riot’s stock (with the ticker RIOT) rose by more than 7% to around $13.28. As observed with MicroStrategy’s stock (MSTR), institutions that continually expand their Bitcoin holdings tend to see the reflection in their stock prices, especially as the BTC price continues to rise.

As of this writing, the price of Bitcoin stands at around $101,257, reflecting a 1% increase in the past 24 hours. According to CoinGecko data, the premier cryptocurrency is down by about 2% in the last week.

Why Riot Bought Bitcoin

As earlier inferred, this latest BTC acquisition by Riot Platforms came off the back of news that activist investor Starboard Value has bought a stake in the firm. According to the Wall Street Journal, Starboard encouraged the Bitcoin miner to reinvent some of its Bitcoin mining capacity to service artificial intelligence models. It appears that purchasing the world’s largest cryptocurrency is one of the best ways for Bitcoin miners to satisfy their investors.

The price of Bitcoin on the daily timeframe | Source: BTCUSDT chart on TradingView

Featured image from iStock, chart from TradingView