Company: ARBK
Filing Date: 2025-05-15
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001104659-25-049311
Chunk: 96

Company: Argo Blockchain Plc
Filing Date: 2025-05-15
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 5
Chunk 96
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 the halving event in April 2024. Post April 2024, mining economics dropped to below recent all-time-lows and while it recovered slightly, it remained below the 2023 average. We carefully monitor fluctuations and longer-term trends in the value of Bitcoin, which impacts the price of machines, when planning our short- and long-term operating strategies and capital expenditures. We also regularly evaluate potential innovations in geography, physical footprint, infrastructure computing technology and similar areas to improve our operations and productivity. We believe this strategy will enable us to build value over the long term, and differentiates us from competitors whose decisions, we believe, are driven principally by short-term market dynamics and opportunities.
The market for cryptocurrencies is new, rapidly evolving and subject to regulatory, tax, political and market factors beyond our control. Increased hashrate in the market resulting from the deployment of new mining machines will generally lead to increases in mining difficulty, which in turn decreases our revenue and adversely affects our mining margins. Further, reward rates for cryptocurrency are subject to adjustments at predetermined intervals. For example, for Bitcoin, the reward was initially set at 50 Bitcoin rewards per block and this was cut in half to 25 on November 28, 2012 at block 210,000, again to 12.5 on July 9, 2016 at block 420,000 and again to 6.25 on May 11, 2020 at block 630,000. The most recent halving for Bitcoin occured on April 19, 2024 at block 840,000, when the reward was reduced to 3.125. These adjustments have had and will continue to have material effects on the economic viability of mining assets that are in production. These factors could lead to material adverse changes in the market for Bitcoin, which could in turn result in substantial damage to or even the failure of our business. See Item 3. D. “Risk Factors — Risks Related to Cryptocurrency Mining — The cryptocurrency for which we currently mine, Bitcoin, is subject to halving; the cryptocurrency reward for successfully uncovering a block will halve several times in the future and the cryptocurrency’s value may not adjust to compensate us for the reduction in the rewards we receive from our mining efforts.”
Capacity and Efficiency of Mining Machines
The cryptocurrency mining industry is currently undergoing an arms race in mining technology and increased capacity, as miners need to deploy increasingly sophisticated mining machines in ever greater quantities to remain competitive. While many of our competitors have embraced a “