Crypto Miner HIVE Announces Rebranding, Wants to Focus on AI

<p>HIVE Blockchain
Technologies Ltd. (NASDAQ: <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/tag/hive-blockchain-technologies/" target="_blank" rel="follow">HIVE</a>), the Canadian publicly-listed <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/terms/c/crypto-mining/">crypto mining</a>
company, has unveiled plans to undergo a strategic rebranding. It includes a
change of name to HIVE Digital Technologies Ltd.</p><p>This move
aims to show the company's evolving expansion into high-performance computing
(HPC) data centers and the trend of mass adoption of Artificial Intelligence
(AI).</p><p>HIVE Moves from
Cryptocurrency Mining to AI</p><p>HIVE
Blockchain has been mining digital assets since the first crypto boom of 2017.
Six years later, with another revolution coming to the market, the company is
betting on changing its strategic goals.</p><p>The HPC data
centers mentioned above use Nvidia high-performance graphics processing units
(GPUs), commonly used in the current expansion of AI solutions. According to
analysts, Nvidia is at the forefront of the current artificial intelligence
revolution, which HIVE Digital Technologies has decided to join.</p><p>The
proposed name change signifies a strategic expansion poised to exploit the
potential of HIVE's green energy data centers and GPU Cloud computing
technology. They are essential assets in the AI, <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/terms/m/machine-learning/">machine learning</a>, and advanced
data analysis domains.</p><p>The common
shares and warrants of the company will continue to trade under the ticker 'HIVE'.
There will be no changes in any of the company's trading symbols or
consolidation of share capital in relation to the name change. The rebranding
is expected to be officially effective around 12 July.</p><p>"Because
HIVE owns hard assets such as data centers and advanced multi-use servers, we
believe our shares offer investors an attractive way to gain exposure to the
cryptocurrency space," the company commented in the press release. Now, the
crypto offering will be supplemented by AI solutions.</p><p>In 2017, HIVE
Blockchain <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/exchange/hive-blockchain-technologies-goes-live-tsx-venture-exchange/" target="_blank" rel="follow">became the first publicly-listed cryptocurrency miner</a> to include
green energy and ESG solutions in its strategy.</p><p>HIVE Revenue Halves from
Record High</p><p>One of the
reasons the company is seeking changes in its current strategy is <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/canadian-btc-miner-hives-revenue-halves-from-record-high/" target="_blank" rel="follow">the latest
annual report</a>. According to data for the fiscal year 2023 ending on 31 March,
the miner's revenue fell by 50% from a record level <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/07/20/2482356/0/en/HIVE-Achieves-Record-Annual-Revenue-Ended-March-31-2022-of-211-Million-and-Earnings-of-79-Million-with-a-545-Growth-in-BTC-Mining-Hashrate.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">of $211 million</a> reported a
year earlier.</p><p>The drop in
revenue to $106.3 million was primarily caused by the depreciation of Bitcoin
(BTC) and an increase in the difficulty of mining leading cryptocurrencies.
Although the price of Bitcoin has rebounded in recent months, it fell by almost
60% from March 2022 to March 2023. Meanwhile, BTC was testing multi-year lows
at around $15,500.</p><p>"Gross
operating margin is directly impacted by digital currency prices and network
difficulties as this impacts revenue from mining operations," HIVE
explained. "The decrease is mainly attributed to the decrease in Bitcoin
price and an increase in the Bitcoin network difficulty versus the prior year,
combined with the company not mining Ether since the merge on 15 September,
2022."</p><p>Despite the
increasing mining difficulty, HIVE continues to invest in new rigs and <a href="https://www.financemagnates.com/cryptocurrency/hive-blockchain-produces-more-btc-in-march-2022-despite-rising-mining-difficulty/" target="_blank" rel="follow">increases
the number of Bitcoins mined</a>. It now wants to take advantage of the potential interest
in artificial intelligence to optimize its operations.</p>

This article was written by Damian Chmiel at www.financemagnates.com.