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Iris Energy Ltd. is set to go public Wednesday, as the Australia-based bitcoin miner’s initial public offering priced above the expected range to value the company at more than $1.5 billion.
The company raised $231.5 million as it sold 8.27 million shares in the IPO, which priced overnight at $28 a share. The company had previously expected the IPO to price between $25 and $27 a share.
With about 55.45 million shares outstanding expected after the IPO, the pricing values the company at about $1.55 billion.
Under the ticker symbol “IREN,” the stock is expected to start trading on the Nasdaq some time after the opening bell.
“We have been mining bitcoin since 2019,” the company said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “We liquidate all the bitcoin we have mined and therefore do not have any bitcoin held on our balance sheet as of September 30, 2021.”
The company estimates the market for bitcoin mining BTCUSD is approximately $16 billion in 2021.
As of Sept. 30, Iris said a successful bitcoin miner earns a block reward of 6.25 bitcoins plus transaction fees for each block added to the blockchain, which occurs about every 10 minutes. That equates to 52,560 blocks, or 328.500 bitcoins per year, excluding transaction fees.
Iris said the block reward is programmed to halve to 3.125 bitcoin by approximately mid-2024.
Iris reported a net loss of A$79.7 million ($57.6 million) on bitcoin mining revenue of A$10.4 million ($7.5 million) in the year ended June 30, after a loss of A$3.4 million on revenue of A$3.3 million in the same period a year ago.
The company had A$118.6 million ($85.7 million) in cash and cash equivalents as of Sept. 30. the
The company listed nine underwriters of the IPO, with J.P. Morgan, Canaccord Genuity and Citigroup the lead book runners.
The company is going public at a time that bitcoin has soared 35.6% over the past three months, and amid relatively strong investor interest in IPOs. The Renaissance IPO exchange-traded fund
IPO,
has rallied 9.7% over the past three months while the S&P 500 index
SPX,
has gained 5.7%.
