Cipher Mining Inc. (NASDAQ:CIFR) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

John Todaro : Got it. Okay. So just to make partially would be still wind and then part of it would be from the grid there. Okay. Correct. Still bring your average cost down. Quite a bit I would imagine?

Tyler Page : It’s hard to forecast right, because we have the exact same price, when the wind is blowing. But when the wind stops we would be tapping the power prices that we could get. So it probably would look something like a mix of the Bear and Chief power price plus the Alborz’s power price, if that makes sense. So think about one-third the Alborz cost and about two-third of the Bear and Chief costs. But keep in mind, the Bear and Chief cost we put in the deck but that can vary right because it’s front of the meter. So if market prices go way up that could change, or conversely if they go down same thing.

John Todaro : Okay. Got it. Understood. Thank you guys. Appreciate it.

Operator: Our next question comes from Mike Colonnese from H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Mike Colonnese: Good morning guys. Thank you for taking my question this morning. First one for me. So in your slide presentation that you have 2.2 exahash and self-owned expandable capacity at three of your four sites so does Bear and Chief that you call out specific for 2023. How long would it take you guys to build out the additional capacity when you decide to do so? Really just trying to get a better sense on the timeline to scale organically during this calendar year?

Tyler Page: Thanks, Mike. So the 2.2 we mentioned across Odessa, Bear and Chief are all theoretically possible within the calendar year. So that would be — there is the early work going on at Bear and Chief. We need to go acquire rigs. They need to get delivered. We need to build the infrastructure et cetera, but we estimate that we would be able to bring that up by year end. And certainly at Odessa that’s just a matter of acquiring the rigs after we finish the build-out and the build-out will be finished in the next quarter.

Mike Colonnese: Got it. Got it. That’s helpful. Thank you, Tyler. And then the next one for me. You mentioned, you’re seeing a lot of acquisition opportunities right now. What type of deals would get you more excited to engage in M&A versus expanding organically?

Tyler Page: We try to stay very disciplined on modeling costs and profitability and ROI. And so the truth is we would evaluate an M&A opportunity or an asset purchase just like we would expansion. Now obviously there’s some extra risks that you mix in with M&A that we also have to somehow put a call it a risk price on. So — but we really just have to compare what the opportunity is. I think it’s fair to say, I can’t imagine there is possibly an M&A opportunity as good as the expansion at Odessa right? We have a fixed lowest cost that I’m aware of in the industry just waiting for rigs there. So I don’t think anything from an ROI perspective can possibly beat that unless someone I guess was in real distress. But beyond that what I’d say is there are questions as we get closer to the having and now we’re only about a year or 13 months out a lot of miners with sort of different approaches to costs are going to get under more and more stress and we think we’re going to be — the belle of the ball.

I think that people are going to be very interested in partnering with us. So we will look for whatever the best opportunity is to grow thoughtfully and produce the best shareholder returns.

Mike Colonnese: Make sense. Thank you for taking my question.

Tyler Page: Thanks, Mike.

Operator: Our next question comes from Joseph Vafi from Canaccord. Please go ahead. Your line is open.