A publicly traded bitcoin mining company is the latest cryptocurrency firm to establish a presence in the Miami area.
Bit Digital (Nasdaq: BTBT), which bills itself as one of the world's largest Bitcoin mining firms, announced it leased an office space at the WeWork at 429 Lenox Ave. in Miami Beach. It's the company's second U.S. location, outside of its headquarters in New York City.
CEO Bryan Bullet said Mayor Francis Suarez's campaign to recruit crypto businesses to the Miami-area – part of the public official's professed mission to transform Miami into a global hub for the industry – was a factor that drew the Bit Digital to area.
"The Miami metropolitan area has emerged as a leading hub in the crypto community, thanks in no small part to forward-thinking initiatives from [Suarez]," he said.
Chief Strategy Officer Sam Tabar told the Business Journal that he and Bullet will work out of the Miami Beach office, which other employees will use on an as-needed basis. He said Bit Digital is "always looking for talent in the Bitcoin sector" and would likely make new hires in the city.
Bit Digital had seven employees including Bullet, two people on its accounting staff and five part-time workers as of May, according to a regulatory filing. The company reported a net loss of $1.9 million on $21.06 million in revenue from crypto mining in 2020.
A host of digital currency exchanges and investment firms have established a footprint in Miami in recent months, including BlockTower Capital, eToro and Blockchain.com. Suarez recently told CNBC he wanted to welcome bitcoin miners to the city after China, a center for mining, banned the practice earlier this year.
Bitcoin mining refers to the practice of creating new bitcoins and updating the digital ledger of all transactions of existing tokens by solving complex computational puzzles, a process that requires huge amounts of energy. When the computers solve the problem, they earn new bitcoins.
Bit Digital is a "sustainability focused" bitcoin mining operation and aims to increase its reliance on renewable and carbon-free energy sources moving forward, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The company, which initially launched in China, suspended its mining operations in the country effective June 21.
"Naturally, our first order of business is to secure and redeploy elsewhere our remaining China-based fleet. Accordingly, we accelerated our migration strategy to North America," the filing said.
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