Edward Engel: Perfect, thank you. And then one more on the ETH, one of the questions we’re asked, so I’m just going to fill this in. Would you consider restaking ETH on like emerging protocols like Agile, or is it a bit too early to tell?
Erke Huang: And that’s a very good question, and maybe I can add. So, we now are having pretty much maturity data staking, but we are in more turn those restaking, or better, we call it enhanced strategies in one of our self-custody, the fund, Bit Digital net. So that’s like experimental and R&D fund within the house that we’re doing those higher returns in the ETH ecosystem. But we will ask when it, becomes a material, or a better return, so just fight. Thanks for your question.
Edward Engel: Great, thanks for the color, thank you.
Operator: Thank you so much, Edward. And the next speaker we have is Alex Schmidt from CoinShares. Please go ahead, Alex.
Alex Schmidt: Hi, good afternoon, good morning for you guys. Yes, I think given that most of my questions have already been answered, I’ll just leave you, with like a more of a philosophical one. From a perspective of miners, how do you see the investment case for miners in relation, to now the possibility of investing in Bitcoin ETFs directly in the U.S.? We know that these businesses were peers to this type of investment before, but now investors have other options. So how do you see in terms of share price performance going forward?
Sam Tabar: Yes, I’m happy to answer that question. Feel free to express any opinions, Cam and Erke. But on that note, Alex, I agree with you that right now there’s a lot more on the menu for investors to express their Bitcoin aspirations. So now they can express that. In the past it was through the Bitcoin mining sector, or the underlying commodity itself. Now there’s a lot of Bitcoin miners in the sector and there is an ETF, a Bitcoin ETF. And there is the underlying commodity. And there are other ways to express Bitcoin aspirations. So there’s a lot on the menu. All the more reason why we felt, it was very necessary to differentiate ourselves from the sector, which is one of the reasons why we have the largest ETH stack in the country, which is another reason why we built a vertical using our skillset that’s throwing off very material revenue that’s completely uncorrelated to the price of Bitcoin.
And what we didn’t want to do running this business philosophically is run it on hope, hope that Bitcoin goes up. That’s not a good way to run a business. And so that’s why we have done this tripartite approach of ETH staking and a very solid AI vertical and increase our Bitcoin mine fleet, doubling it to the size of the end of the year. We’ve differentiated ourselves like that. And so that, and we hope the capital markets, we know the capital markets, time is our friend. They will recognize that we built an all-weather business.
Alex Schmidt: Yes, you mentioned growth in hash rate and you made some smaller acquisitions in the beginning of the year whilst your peers, have made massive ones. I just wondering, at current prices, despite the having Bitcoin mining has become attractive, very attractive again, do you think that holding your guns for much longer, maybe you could lose some of this rather cheap mining gears that’s available still at the moment?
Sam Tabar: Erke, you want to – I have a view on that, but Erke, do you want to go first, and then I’ll add?
Erke Huang: Yes, I’m happy to. I mean, procuring miners really hasn’t been an issue for us. We have all the channels to procure them. And from my point of view, I think miner price will just going to be more attractive going forward, and with the happening with the increase of network cash. So, now we are actively monitoring [where the network] difficulty will go. Especially after the happening and to make sure – the investment, or the procurement we make, can be return risk justified. It has been our strategy. So for example, from year late 2021, until the first quarter of 2023, we didn’t make any minor purchases because it was just the model doesn’t work out. So about, after Q1, 2023, we started growth again. So it’s a matter of timing, and also the overall market conditions.
Sam Tabar: And Alex, I think you would expect the demand side post having, to subside to some degree. I mean, if no other reason than just based on if you look at public miner stock price year-to-date, I mean, cost of equity is way more expensive. So using that as a source of funding, basic purchases, is probably not going to sustain the levels we saw in late 2023. So I mean, we continue to have the view that, even if they go up to some degree that we’re not risking missing a great value right now just by being cautious.
Alex Schmidt: Yes. Okay. Thank you very much.
Operator: Okay, that concludes our Q&A session. And I would like to turn this back to Sam for final remarks. Thank you, Alex.
