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 has mined $30 million in bitcoin (BTC) using excess power at its facilities.

“In the second half of 2020, we started mining bitcoin as a pilot project to monetize the already paid-for yet underutilized electricity load at our River View mine,” Cary Marshall, the firm’s chief financial officer, said during an earnings call.

Marshall said that at the end of the quarter, the company had 425 bitcoins on its balance sheet – which it is valuing at $30 million – and after factoring in the net costs of property, plant, and equipment, it was up $7.3 million.

ARLP was up 5% after the earnings, which also saw the company beat revenue estimates.

Marshall said that the company isn’t “buying bitcoin or anything of that nature” and is only mining bitcoin with the equipment it has.

“We do have some extra capacity that we’re renting out to other bitcoin miners within the data center that we’ve effectively built for this bitcoin mining to take advantage of the low energy costs we have,” he continued.

In the grand scheme of things, ARLP’s bitcoin on the balance sheet holdings are relatively small. Data compiled by BitcoinTreasuries.net shows that MicroStrategy has the largest holdings at $13.5 billion. Other notable entries on the list include Tesla, which has $615 million.

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