Gaming Company The9 to Buy 2,000 Bitcoin Mining Machines for About $6.72M in Stock

Publicly traded Chinese gaming company The9 (NCTY) said Friday it agreed to buy 2,000 units of AvalonMiners bitcoin mining machines for about $6.72 million in stock.

In an announcement, The9 said it signed a memorandum of understanding to buy the machines with a total hashrate of about 100PH/S. To pay for the machines, The9 said it will issue 8.12 million ordinary shares, equivalent to 270,913 American depositary shares (ADS). Based on the company’s share price of $24.81 prior to signing the MOU, the deal is valued at $6.72 million.

The9 also said it completed the signing of definitive agreements for 12,246 units of bitcoin mining machines with a total hashrate of 288PH/S. Under the terms of these deals, The9 will issue 9,387,840 Class A ordinary shares (equivalent to 312,928 ADS) to the sellers, with a lockup period of six months. If the same ADS price as the earlier agreements were used, these pacts would be valued in total at about $7.76 million.

Read more: Riot Blockchain Signs Contract to Purchase 42,000 Mining Machines From Bitmain

As reported by CoinDesk, bitcoin’s hashrate, which is a way to measure the total power consumption and mining output of the network, has topped a new all-time high as mining firms like The9 continue to add more hash power.

The9’s ADS were down a little more than 4% in recent trading to $27.21.