Argo mined 124 Bitcoin in May — a 25.3% drop from the previous month.
The company said the decrease was due to a series of factors, namely the increase in difficulty in the Bitcoin network experienced in May, in a statement Tuesday.
Network difficulty increased by 5.56 % on April 27 and 4.89% on May 11, but more fell back down by -4.33% on May 25, according to BTC.com.
About 20 BTC of the difference between the two months can be attributed to “essentially luck” from the Terra Pool, according to Argo CEO Peter Wall.
Wall explained that unlike other pools, where miners are paid based on hash rate, in this case, Argo is paid based on the number of blocks produced.
“You’re exposed to essentially chance,” Wall said. “In the past, we’ve had pretty good fortune. This past month we’ve had pretty bad luck. We had a couple of dry spells where we didn’t very many blocks.”
The CEO stated that the company was reevaluating the relationship with Terra Pool and looking to have “consistent bitcoin rewards” from whatever pool it is using.
Argo said that last month’s results were also due to the high temperatures in Texas that led to an uptick in power demand and higher electricity prices. The company responded by curtailing mining operations and reducing energy usage, per the statement.
Finally, results were also related to downtime that happened while working out some kinks in its new flagship facility Helion, in Texas — which has come online this past month.
The company’s hash rate by the end of the month was 1.9 exahash per second — an increase of 300 petahash.
Wall said that the company sold some bitcoin in May, mainly to fund growth.
Mining revenue was about $3.89 million in May, with a Bitcoin and Bitcoin Equivalent mining margin of 62%. The drop in margin was mainly a result of lower bitcoin price and fewer bitcoin mined, the company said.
As to Argo’s agreement with Intel — which recently announced a new ASIC chip called Blockscale — the company said that it had bought the 6,600 mining machines and had the right to place orders for up to 23,400 more.
The machines will be custom-built for Argo, in partnership with Canadian manufacturer ePIC, and designed specifically to run on immersion cooling.
Wall said they will be manufactured over the summer, with deliveries expected to start in September.
