CleanSpark, Inc. (NASDAQ:CLSK) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Looking forward, I think that, we are really going to wait for the more traditional debt markets to open up and for that margin expansion, just because we want to be more comfortable to be able to service that debt, which means that we — we are not going to be going after 18%, 20% cost of capital.

And so, so going forward, I just — I think we are just going to keep our eye on it. And as things improve, I think that there is going to be more money that’s available for financing.

Greg Lewis: Okay, great. And then, I mean, like you guys kind of highlighted your ability to execute and grow hash, a lot of your competitors haven’t been able to achieve what you’ve done. Clearly, there is a lot of rigs now that have gone from, I guess, you’d say, more traditional conventional Bitcoin miners, maybe to some financiers that were providing financing for rigs. Have discussions started to come into the market about these new owners of rigs looking to deploy those rigs? And really, I guess what I’m wondering is, is that something — just given what you’ve done on the infrastructure side, is that something that CleanSpark would think about entertaining in 2023, i.e., I guess I’m kind of asking is there any — do you — Zach, do you see a path forward where CleanSpark is actually hosting other miners?

Zach Bradford: I think that’s an easy answer for us, and that’d be absolutely not. The colocation business is a business where you have to take margins that are not only highly volatile, but when in a time of strain to get highly compressed, and you have to try and chop those amongst multiple players. You have to cover your own dollar plus a margin, and then there’s the owner of the rig that has to try and not only make money to pay your bill, but then they want to, of course, make something else. We specifically chose to avoid hosting anybody all the way from the beginning. And we definitely wouldn’t go back into that. I think if you look at where the most pain has been experienced in this industry over the last nine months, you’re going to find it in the colocation space.

So, we wouldn’t take that risk, and we also would much rather just buy those rigs from other players. And when it comes to the opportunities too, we — when we evaluate a site, it’s got to meet the CleanSpark standard. And that standard means that we have to run it in the CleanSpark way. And that means, we are going to manage our power actively. And that’s also one of the biggest strain points that colocation client — colocation businesses don’t have. If you have an uptime guarantee with a client, you may not be able to make the right choice to manage power the right way without a lot of complications in an agreement. So, we’re going to stick to doing what we do best and run our own sites and self mine.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Isaac Holyoak.

Isaac Holyoak: Thank you. I’d like to thank you for your questions and everyone who’s joined us today. We wish everyone a good afternoon, a good evening, and happy holidays.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, with that, we’ll conclude today’s conference. We thank you for attending. You may now disconnect your lines.

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