Bitcoin Miner Riot Platforms Expands Its BTC Holdings to 16,728 BTC

Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms has significantly expanded its BTC holdings. As of December 12, it acquired 5,117 BTC for $510 million.

Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms (NASDAQ:RIOT) has quietly expanded its BTC holdings by a substantial margin. According to an SEC filing on December 12, the company acquired 5,117 BTC for $510 million, bringing its total reported holdings to 16,728 BTC.

The purchase was funded through proceeds from Riot’s 0.75% convertible senior notes due 2030 and existing cash reserves. The average acquisition price for the BTC was $99,669.

Riot Platforms’ Bitcoin Holdings Now at 16,728 BTC Riot Platforms recent Bitcoin acquisition is part of a larger trend of treating the flagship cryptocurrency as a strategic reserve asset. This strategy aligns with recent market plays by other companies and governments.

For instance, MicroStrategy (NASDAQ:MSTR), a pioneer in using Bitcoin as a corporate treasury reserve, now holds over 423,650 BTC. Since November, the firm has made over $15 billion worth of BTC purchases.

Similarly, Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA) has quietly amassed 40,435 BTC, positioning itself as another leader in the mining and holding of digital assets.

At the government level, Pennsylvania introduced the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve Act, which proposes allocating up to 10% of its $7 billion state funds to Bitcoin.

Meanwhile, Texas is considering legislation to allow tax payments in Bitcoin, and Bhutan has been quietly mining Bitcoin since 2019, amassing over 12,000 BTC. Just this week, the city of Vancouver passed a Bitcoin reserve proposal, and a Russian lawmaker filed for a similar proposal in Moscow.

These examples collectively demonstrate growing confidence in Bitcoin’s ability to serve as a store of value and an inflation hedge. A 2024 study suggests that there is empirical evidence supporting this notion, but as adoption increases, its store of value may dwindle.

“The results, based on monthly data between August 2010 and January 2023, indicate that bitcoin returns increase significantly after a positive inflationary shock, corroborating empirical evidence that Bitcoin can act as an inflation hedge. However, we observe that bitcoin’s inflationary hedging property is sensitive to the price index – it only holds for CPI shocks – and to the period of analysis — the hedging property stems primarily from sample periods before the increasing institutional adoption of BTC (“early days”). Thus, the inflation-hedging property of Bitcoin is context-specific and is likely to be diminishing as adoption increases,” wrote researcher Harold Rodriguez.

Regardless, Riot Platforms’ decision to dedicate substantial resources to Bitcoin holdings signals confidence in the cryptocurrency’s future and its strategic alignment with a global shift toward digital reserve assets.

In a closely related development, activist investor Starboard Value has acquired a significant stake in Riot Platforms. Starboard is advocating for Riot to repurpose some of its Bitcoin mining facilities into hyperscale data centers to serve large-scale computing clients.

Riot has acknowledged ongoing discussions with Starboard, noting their work on enhancing shareholder value.