Coal Miner Alliance Resource Dabbles In Crypto Mining, Mines 425 BTC

NASDAQ-listed coal miner Alliance Resource Partners (ARLP) said in an earnings call that it mined $30 million worth of Bitcoin {{BTC}} using excess energy from its facilities.

“We began mining bitcoin in the second half of 2020 as a pilot project to monetize the already paid but underutilized electrical load at our River View mine,” Cary Marshall, the company’s chief financial officer, said during an earnings call.

Marshall said the company had 425 bitcoins on its balance sheet at the end of the quarter, valued at $30 million, and that figure increased by $7.3 million after accounting for net property, plant and equipment costs.

ARLP rose 5% following earnings, indicating the company beat revenue estimates.

Marshall said the company “does not buy bitcoin or anything like that” and only mines bitcoin with equipment it owns.

“We have extra capacity that we lease to other bitcoin miners within the data center that we have effectively created for this bitcoin mining to take advantage of the lower energy costs that we have,” he continued.

All in all, ARLP’s amount of Bitcoin on the balance sheet is relatively small. Data compiled by BitcoinTreasuries.net shows that MicroStrategy has the largest holding at $13.5 billion. Other notable entries on the list include the $615 million Tesla.

Bitcoin is currently trading above $63,000, up 1.3%, according to CoinDesk Index data.