Tuesday 10 August 2021 1:24 pm | Updated: Tuesday 10 August 2021 1:25 pm

London bitcoin miner faces attack from short-seller Boatman Capital

At some point tomorrow, Bitcoin will experience its fourth halving. The reward miners receive for processing every 10 minute block will decline from 6.25 Bitcoin to 3.125. Bitcoin will become an even scarcer commodity with annual issuance dropping from 1.6% to 0.8%. The market appears to believe that this will be a serious loss for Bitcoin miners. Miner stocks, such as Riot, Marathon and Bitfarms, are down over 50% from their February highs.

A London-listed bitcoin miner has been accused of purchasing land for 100x its value by the anonymous authors of a report from Boatman Capital.

In February 2021, Argo Blockchain told shareholders it had reached an agreement with DPN LLC to buy 320 acres of land in Texas for $5 million in shares initially, rising to $17.5 million.

However, Boatman Capital requested a formal valuation of the land by a certified real estate appraiser in Texas and found that the land acquired by Argo was worth $168,000.

Peter Wall, the CEO of Argo Blockchain clarified that the land in question was 160 acres in size with an option for an additional 160 acres to be purchased as part of the agreement.

Addressing the report in a video shared on social media, Wall insisted the purchase was “a good deal” because it “wasn’t just a land acquisition, but a project acquisition.”

“Our feeling was that the opportunity cost to wait, to try and find our own piece of land to do all of that legwork ourselves would be too big” he added, calling the project “a very solid deal.”

The video also addressed Boatman’s claims that Argo had failed to make public an ongoing litigation case with the Celsius Network from which it leases approximately 40 per cent of its mining fleet.

Wall confirmed a case is ongoing, but denied that it would affect the company’s mining capacity or equipment supply. According to Wall, the dispute arose because Celsius tried to cancel a profit-sharing agreement they have with Argo Blockchain.

The news comes after Argo reported strong results for the first half of the year with revenue jumping by 180 per cent to £31.1m. Yesterday, the company’s share price fell by 12.6 per cent from its daily high after the report was published, with price down 0.62 per cent in the past 24 hours.

Boatman Capital caused problems for a British contractor in 2018 when they published a report that caused Babcock’s shares to fall by more than 5 per cent on the day it was published.