Digital currency mining firm Riot Blockchain has begun deploying around 3,000 new units of S17 Pro Antminers as part of the full upgrade of its Oklahoma City mining facility.

Per a Jan. 8 press release, Riot now operates nearly 3,000 more S17 Pro Antminers it purchased from Chinese mining giant Bitmain. The new mining machines are set up at Riot’s Oklahoma City mining facility, with the company employing additional staff to exploit the new miners and accelerate the upgrade process.

Full upgrade

In mid-December of 2019, Riot announced a purchase of an additional 1,000 S17 Pro Antminers from Bitmain, which it expected to receive in January. As such, the full upgrade of Riot’s Oklahoma City mining facility to the the new S17 Pro generation of mining equipment could be completed during the next four weeks.

Riot anticipates that following the deployment of all 4,000 next-generation miners, its aggregate operating hashrate at the Oklahoma City mining facility will reach approximately 248 petahash per second, representing a 240% increase in hardware power efficiency compared to Riot’s mining hashrate. At the same time, Riot expects that total deployment of the 4,000 new miners will represent around 90% of its Oklahoma City's mining facility's total current capacity.

As Cointelegraph previously reported, Riot reportedly paid around $1.35 million for the additional 1,000 S17 Pro Antminers, or approximately $1,350 per rig. The retail price listed on the Bitmain web-store is $1401 per unit, although this was unlikely to include local sales tax.

In April 2019, Riot filed with the Securities and Exchanges Commission to launch a new regulated cryptocurrency exchange called RiotX in the U.S. by the end of Q2 2019. The planned exchange’s users would be allowed to create accounts connected to accredited banking institutions in the U.S., and transfer and hold both fiat and cryptocurrencies. As of today, however, the development has not been implemented.