Hut 8 Corp. responds to misleading short report
Miami, Jan. 24, 2024 - Hut 8 Corp. (Nasdaq | TSX: HUT) ("Hut 8" or the "Company"), one of North America's largest, innovation-focused digital asset mining pioneers, and high-performance computing infrastructure provider, today issued the following statement regarding a report from an activist short-selling firm containing false and misleading characterizations about Hut 8's business.
Hut 8 has assessed the claims set forth by the authors of the report and believes that the report is filled with inaccuracies, misrepresented data, speculative claims, and unfounded character attacks. The report appears to represent a deliberate attempt to spread misinformation about Hut 8, its operations, finances, management practices, and key executives. The statements made by the short seller expose an inadequate, distorted understanding of the Company, its operations, and its key executives. The report appears to have been made to distract from the Company's achievements and progress since closing its merger of equals. The Company believes that the report was designed for the sole purpose of negatively impacting Hut 8's share price for the short seller's own benefit, at the expense of Hut 8's shareholders, partners, and employees.
"The Board maintains full confidence in the Company's merger of equals, strategic plan, and management team," said Bill Tai, Chairman of Hut 8's Board of Directors. "Our focus remains on the long-term vision and continued success of Hut 8. We remain committed to ensuring that our governance and oversight are aligned with the best interest of our stakeholders."
The Company continues to focus on driving strong operating and financial results. On December 31, 2023, Hut 8 held 9,195 Bitcoin in reserve, with an approximate value of $390 million, and had North American-wide operations spanning 205,759 miners under management. In addition to its strong balance sheet, Hut 8 is distinguished from its peers by its diversified business, as approximately 30% of its revenue was generated from fiat revenue streams as of September 30, 2023.
"Since I joined as CEO more than three years ago, our leadership team and I have worked tirelessly to earn investors' and analysts' confidence in our operations, our diversified strategy, and our growth trajectory. We will not be derailed by activists who stand to profit from spreading misinformation and making defamatory character attacks," said Hut 8 CEO Jaime Leverton. "The short report is riddled with speculative accusations and misinformation. Our Board of Directors and management team continue to have full confidence in our merger of equals and we look forward to showing our team, shareholders, and the broader investment community that together, we are not only stronger than the sum of our parts, but we are also poised to capture upside as we move forward as a unified team."
Hut 8 cautions investors to not make decisions based on the report and instead strongly encourages them to consult credible sources, including the Company's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the Canadian securities regulatory authorities, prior to making their investment decisions.
About Hut 8
Through innovation, imagination, and passion, Hut 8 Corp.'s seasoned executive team is bullish on creating value at the intersection of infrastructure and energy through Bitcoin mining and hosting, groundbreaking managed services, energy arbitrage, operating traditional data centers, and capitalizing on emerging technologies like AI and machine learning. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, Hut 8 Corp.'s infrastructure portfolio includes eleven sites: five high performance computing data centers across British Columbia and Ontario that offer cloud, co-location, AI, machine learning, and VFX rendering computing solutions, and six Bitcoin mining, hosting, and managed services sites located in Alberta, New York, Nebraska, and Texas. Long-distinguished for its unique treasury strategy, Hut 8 Corp. has one of the highest inventories of self-mined Bitcoin of any publicly-traded company globally. For more information, visit www.hut8.com and follow us on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @Hut8Corp.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information
This press release includes "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws and United States securities laws, respectively (collectively, "forward-looking information"). All information, other than statements of historical facts, included in this press release that address activities, events or developments that Hut 8 expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future, including such things as future business strategy, competitive strengths, goals, expansion and growth of the business, operations, plans and other such matters is forward-looking information. Forward-looking information is often identified by the words "may", "would", "could", "should", "will", "intend", "plan", "anticipate", "allow", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "predict", "can", "might", "potential", "predict", "is designed to", "likely" or similar expressions. Specifically, such forward-looking information included in this press release includes, but is not limited to, statements relating to the short report and statements relating to the Company's future vision, strategy, objectives, and success, including its ability to capture future upside.
Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts, but instead represent management's expectations, estimates and projections regarding future events based on certain material factors and assumptions at the time the statement was made. While considered reasonable by Hut 8 as of the date of this press release, such statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information, including but not limited to, security and cybersecurity threats and hacks, malicious actors or botnet obtaining control of processing power on the Bitcoin network, further development and acceptance of the Bitcoin network, changes to Bitcoin mining difficulty, loss or destruction of private keys, increases in fees for recording transactions in the Blockchain, erroneous transactions, reliance on a limited number of key employees, reliance on third party mining pool service providers, regulatory changes, classification and tax changes, momentum pricing risk, fraud and failure related to digital asset exchanges, difficulty in obtaining banking services and financing, difficulty in obtaining insurance, permits and licenses, internet and power disruptions, geopolitical events, uncertainty in the development of cryptographic and algorithmic protocols, uncertainty about the acceptance or widespread use of digital assets, failure to anticipate technology innovations, the COVID19 pandemic, climate change, currency risk, lending risk and recovery of potential losses, litigation risk, business integration risk, changes in market demand, changes in network and infrastructure, system interruption, changes in leasing arrangements, failure to achieve intended benefits of power purchase agreements, potential for interrupted delivery, or suspension of the delivery, of energy to the Company's mining sites, and other risks related to the digital asset and data center business. For a complete list of the factors that could affect the Company, please see the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's Registration Statement on Form S-4 dated November 7, 2023, available under the Company's EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov, and Hut 8's other continuous disclosure documents which are available under the Company's SEDAR+ profile at www.sedarplus.ca and under the Company's EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov.
