The Chinese-owned cryptocurrency mine that had set up a mile from F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne has a new owner, and this time, it’s a 100% domestic company with no foreign operations.
Las Vegas-based CleanSpark announced it’s acquired the MineOne facility on Tuesday. CleanSpark CEO Zack Bradford was also present at the state Select Committee on Blockchain’s meeting Monday to talk about his future plans in Wyoming.
“I expect that we’ll have close to 40 jobs,” Bradford told lawmakers. “What we do differently compared to maybe some of the prior operators is we generally staff three shifts, so we’ll have employees on site monitoring the servers 24 hours a day, 365.”
The MineOne facility isn’t the only location the company bought in Wyoming. It also bought a 30-megawatt site in Cheyenne’s Campstool Business Park.
“Between these two properties, we have 75 megawatts,” Bradford said, referencing the amount of the energy they will use. “We’ve invested a little more than $25 million on our efforts to date. We expect to invest an additional $40-$50 million on infrastructure over the next three to six months at both properties and, after that, at least another $100 million on servers.”
Hiring will begin for both properties once those investments are complete, Bradford said.
Bradford also told lawmakers during the hearing that he’s found Wyoming to be exceptionally welcoming, and that he loves what he’s seen so far of the state’s business environment.
“This is a bit of a coming home for myself and my co-founder,” he added. “He was from Lander, Wyoming. I’m from a small town. We’ve been on the East Coast for so much of what we’ve done to grow this business, so it’s great to come home to the West.”
Not Just Cheyenne
Bradford also told lawmakers that he’s not planning to buy just one or two properties in Wyoming.
“We expect Wyoming will be a meaningful part of our growth over the next four years,” he said. “Wyoming is now the fifth state that we will be operating in.”
Unlike other cryptocurrency companies that previously tried to locate in Wyoming and found electric utility companies unreceptive, Bradford said he avoided difficulties by using what he calls a “front-door” approach.
“What we’ve found in the way that we engage in all states that we go into is it’s about being a partner with the utility,” he said. “We want to be in areas and places with abundant power, or places with intermittent needs where we can, and the community at large can, benefit from our participation.”
Bradford added that his company expects to make significant investment into additional power grid infrastructure, including substations.
“That will allow greater electrification and distribution of the power available on the grid,” he said. “Our intention and our hope is, just like we did in Georgia, where Georgia was a net export state, is that it allowed power to stay in state and generate additional tax dollars within state lines.”
Ordered To Clear Out
The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) had to sign off on CleanSpark’s acquisition of the MineOne Facility, which had been ordered to immediately shut down and sell out in May after the Biden administration determined the company a national security threat.
F.E. Warren Air Force Base is a strategic missile base, home to the Minutemen III intercontinental ballistic missiles, and a key element of the nation’s nuclear triad.
Biden’s executive order said there was “credible evidence” to suggest that MineOne and its subsidiaries could “take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”
The order also noted that the company had not notified CFIUS as it should have.
It wasn’t the first time MineOne had been implicated as a potential security risk.
Cheyenne-based Bison Blockchain’s Sean Murphy had been warning lawmakers of a “Chinese takeover” in Wyoming by a conglomerate of about eight entities run by Chinese nationals who had deliberately pushed his company out not long after the facility broke ground in October 2022.
Bison Blockchain has a $22 million lawsuit pending against the companies, which are registered in Delaware and the Caymen Islands, accusing them of several misdeeds, including breach of contract.
‘Best Possible Outcome’
In the wake of MineOne’s departure, Wyoming lawmakers were eager to make clear that Wyoming still welcomes legal cryptocurrency businesses.
Rep. Cyrus Western, R-Sheridan, told Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday the situation with MineOne unfortunate, but said he’s thrilled to have an all-domestic company like CleanSpark taking over the facility.
“I think that was the best scenario, but best possible outcome,” he said. “Obviously, CleanSpark is a publicly traded company. And they’ve got mines operational across the country. So I”m really excited to have them in Wyoming. They’re a great company that’s creating jobs here. I couldn’t be more excited to have them here.”
Being publicly traded means the company has great transparency, Western added.
“The financial disclosure requirements to be listed on the NASDAQ or any American exchange are pretty stringent,” he said. “So I feel pretty good about that.”
The jobs CleanSpark is bringing are also high-paying, blue-collar jobs, which Western believes Wyomingites want to see more of.
“That’s the thing about the digital asset space and the mining spaces,” he said. “A lot of the jobs that are created, generally speaking, are the jobs that pay well. They have a 401K match, they’ve got good health insurance and that kind of stuff.”
The other thing Western was glad to hear is that the company managed to acquire all the power it will need to function in Wyoming.
Wyoming has struggled at times to keep the attention of interested cryptocurrency companies because of a lack of available power, Western said.
“Crypto mining companies need to be able to have quite a bit of power,” Western said. “I mean, they’re doing 50-plus megawatts of power. They need to have high levels of reliability at a pretty consistent price.”
Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
