Company: ARBK
Filing Date: 2025-05-15
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001104659-25-049311
Chunk: 27

Company: Argo Blockchain Plc
Filing Date: 2025-05-15
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4A
Chunk 27
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 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“bigger is better”growth strategy, we believe that our commitment to mining efficiency and return on investment in mining machines will remain our competitive advantage. To maintain this competitive advantage over the long term, we must develop and maintain strong relationships across the mining machine supply chain, strategically invest in state-of-the art mining machines at attractive prices, and effectively manage our fleet as it ages along the obsolescence curve.

Table of Contents

Cost and Source of Power

Mining cryptocurrency is a power-intensive process, with electrical power required both to operate the mining machines and to dissipate the significant amount of heat generated by operating the machines. We believe the combination of the increasing difficulty of successfully mining rewards,