Shares of Riot Platforms (RIOT) surged 5% in pre-market trading after the bitcoin mining company unexpectedly reported a profit for the third quarter on record earnings.
Net profit came in at $104.5 million, or 26 cents per diluted share, compared to a loss of $154.4 million, or 54 cents, from the previous year. Analysts had forecasted a loss of 12 cents per share, according to Zacks Equity Research.
Revenue more than doubled to $180.2 million from the same period last year, mainly due to a $93 million rise in bitcoin mining revenue, according to the company. Riot mined 1,406 bitcoin during the quarter at an average expense of $46,324 per coin. The price of the leading cryptocurrency increased by 6.4% over the quarter, as per CoinDesk data.
The Castle Rock, Colorado-based firm, which develops and manages large-scale data centers, also announced the launch of 112 megawatts of core and shell development at its Corsicana, Texas data center campus, following significant land acquisition and design completion milestones.
CEO Jason Les stated that these advancements represent a crucial step in evolving Riot into a large-scale, multifaceted data center operator capitalizing on its land and power resources.
As of September 30, Riot held 19,287 bitcoin — with 3,300 serving as collateral — valued approximately at $2.2 billion.
