Company: CIFRW
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001819989-25-000005
Chunk: 183

Company: Cipher Mining Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-02-25
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 183
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 work” validation, which due to its inherent characteristics may be particularly hard to scale to allow simultaneous processing of multiple daily transactions by users. Participants in the cryptocurrency ecosystem debate potential approaches to increasing the average number of transactions per second that the network can handle and have implemented mechanisms or are researching ways to increase scale, such as “sharding”, which is a term for a horizontal partition of data in a database or search engine, which would not require every single transaction to be included in every single miner’s or validator’s block. 

There is no guarantee that any of the mechanisms in place or being explored for increasing the scale of settlement of cryptocurrency transactions will be effective, how long they will take to become effective or whether such mechanisms will be effective for all cryptocurrencies. If the Bitcoin network is unable to address scaling issues, the price of bitcoin may decrease as users seek alternative networks. There is also a risk that any mechanisms of increasing the scale of cryptocurrency settlement may significantly alter the competitive dynamics in the cryptocurrency market and may adversely affect the value of bitcoin and the price of our common stock. Alternatively, if bitcoin does make changes to its protocol to address scaling issues, these changes may render our business model obsolete. Any of the foregoing could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results. 

The development and acceptance of competing blockchain platforms or technologies may cause consumers to use alternative distributed ledgers or other alternatives. 

The development and acceptance of competing blockchain platforms or technologies may cause consumers to use alternative distributed ledgers or an alternative to distributed ledgers altogether. Our business intends to rely on presently existent digital ledgers and blockchains and we could face difficulty adapting to emergent digital ledgers, blockchains, or alternatives thereto. This may adversely affect us and our exposure to various blockchain technologies and prevent us from realizing the anticipated profits from our investments. Such circumstances could have a material adverse effect on our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results and potentially the value of any bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies we may potentially acquire or hold in the future. 

If a malicious actor or botnet obtains control in excess of 50% of the processing power active on any digital asset network, including the Bitcoin network, it is possible that such actor or botnet could manipulate the blockchain in a manner that may adversely affect our business, prospects, financial condition, and operating results. 

If a malicious actor, such as a rogue mining pool or botnet (a volunteer or hacked collection of computers controlled by networked software coordinating the actions of the