Riot's Team Sells $16m Worth of Shares
Including four of the five board directors, the CFO, the CAO, and the General Counsel
Since April, part of the senior management at Riot Platforms (RIOT) has been consecutively liquidating some of their stakes in the firm with most of the selling activities taking place over the past week.
Whatever the reason is, it’s interesting to see multiple team members of any project liquidating their stakes in the project around the same time.
According to recent Form-4 and Form-144 filings, four of the five board directors of Riot – Lance D'Ambrosio, Hannah Cho, Jason Les (also the CEO), and executive chairman Benjamin Yi – have reduced their stakes. Within the senior management, Riot’s chief financial officer Colin Yee and chief accounting officer Ryan Werner were also part of the liquidation force. Following the transactions, they still collectively hold millions of Riot shares.
In addition to the stocks sold (~$5m) before June 1, Les and Yi as well as the General Counsel William Jackman filed further notices of proposed stock sales last week. The transactions were expected to take place on Thursday and Friday with gross proceeds of ~$11m, although the final Form-4s haven’t been filed yet as of publishing.
Securities aside, public mining companies have released very positive results for May, partly thanks to the surge in transaction fees last month. A direct consequence of the on-chain activities was that each of the four major operations below achieved a much-improved hashrate realization rate in May, compared to the previous month.
Marathon had a particularly good month as its realization rate increased from 60% in April to 85%, primarily due to the proprietary firmware that Marathon’s CEO claimed in a CoinDesk interview. Marathon mines with its own MaraPool, the output of which is also affected by luck. It’d be interesting to see whether its hashrate realization can keep up in June as bitcoin transaction fees have returned to normal.
Regulation news
Bitcoin Miners Gain Support From Texas With Two Bills Passed, One Halted - CoinDesk
Texas Bill That Would Limit Miners' Participation in Cost-Saving Grid Programs Stopped in House Committee - CoinDesk
Finance News
Bitcoin Miners Are Probably Selling Their Output at the $28K Level: Matrixport - CoinDesk
Bitcoin Miner Revenue Climbs to $916 Million in May - The Block
Hardware & Infrastructure News
Cathedra Bitcoin to Deploy Crypto Miners at 360 Mining's Texas Site - CoinDesk
Bitcoin Miner CleanSpark Buys 12,500 Bitmain Machines for $40.5M - CoinDesk
Compass Mining Announces Ohio Site With Arthur Mining - Link
Bitcoin Player Shifts Focus From Miner Consulting to Hosting - Blockworks
Corporate News
Marathon Digital Mined 77% More Bitcoin in May With the Help of Its Software - CoinDesk
Tether Doubles Down on Bitcoin: Mining Operations in Uruguay in the Works - Blockworks
Feature
Bitcoin Mining Difficulty’s Record-Setting Streak Shows No Signs of Stopping - CoinDesk
Are you a journalist or analyst seeking more information or comments from industry experts? We’d love to help!