Why This Team of Ninjas Is Tripling Down on Mining Bitcoin

Ninjas in Pyjamas Group, the company behind the legendary esports team, has acquired a third batch of Bitcoin miners in exchange for over 247 million Class A ordinary shares. 

Hicham Chahine, the founder and CEO of NIP Group, told Decrypt that he wants to bet on Bitcoin mining while the market is “cooling,” rather than when it’s hot and competition is higher. He added that the facilities could be used for artificial intelligence in the future.

“Now that this tranche is closed, we’re at roughly 13.85 EH/s. That puts us among the largest publicly listed miners in the world, roughly 195 Bitcoin a month,” Chahine said. “That’s real revenue, and it supports everything else we’re building. This year we reviewed every single piece of NIP Group, not just mining. We made decisions with one goal: better margins and a clear path to profitability. Mining had to earn its place in that review, and it did.”

It comes after the esports team expanded its Bitcoin operation last year as it looked to mine 160 Bitcoin a month. This most recent acquisition brings that target up by 35 Bitcoin to 195 Bitcoin a month, or $2.8 million at today’s prices.

Chahine told Decrypt that NIP Group is “optimistic about where this is heading,” adding that the third batch of Bitcoin miners will require “minimal ramp time.”

NIP Group is a digital entertainment company known for esports and gaming ventures. It owns Ninjas in Pyjamas, which fields professional esports teams in games like Counter-Strike 2, Valorant, League of Legends, and Rocket League. 

The firm’s stock, NIPG, has dropped 40.7% from $6.74 to $4 since the Bitcoin announcement last week, according to Yahoo Finance data. This marks an all-time low for the stock. Bitcoin has dropped 2% to $79,820 over the same period of time, per Decrypt data.

An AI future

Chahine explained that the purchased facilities could shift to focus on artificial intelligence infrastructure if the market demands.

“We look at what AI and [high-performance computing] customers will actually pay, how long they’ll commit and whether that demand is sustained or temporary,” Chahine told Decrypt. “When those workloads clearly beat mining on returns, consistently and not just for a week or two, that’s when we may move capacity. If the numbers say shift, we shift.”

Of course, any sort of future pivot would require notable legwork, as Bitcoin miners can’t simply be turned into AI data centers at the flick of a switch. But, Chahine said, the infrastructure around the mining facilities is a good foundation for what AI and high-performance computing need.

“When we talk about AI, we mean using that footprint and that know-how for compute-heavy work when the economics make sense,” he said. “We’re a gaming and entertainment company at heart, and our fans already live on compute, bringing infrastructure and entertainment under one roof makes sense.”