Riot Platforms raises Bitfarms stake to 14%, buys another $3.87 million worth of shares

Early Thursday evening, bitcoin miner Riot Platforms said it acquired another 1,432,063 shares of Bitfarms for about $2.70 per share, or about $3.87 million.

Riot now owns 57.62 million shares of Bitfarms, or about 14%. This is the latest step in Riot's attempted hostile takeover of Bitfarms.

Last month, Riot Platforms  attempted to acquire Bitfarms for roughly $950 million. On Wednesday, Riot Platforms’ CEO criticized Bitfarms’ latest plans to block a takeover.

“Instead of engaging with us privately and in good faith, Bitfarms has responded by implementing an off-market Poison Pill with a trigger well below the customary 20% threshold,” Riot Platforms CEO Jason Les said in a statement.

Earlier this week, Bitfarms adopted a "poison pill" to prevent a possible takeover. A poison pill attempts to make the company less desirable and/or dilute an acquirer’s ownership of the takeover target.

"Under Bitfarm's plan, if an entity accumulates more than 15% of Bitfarms' stake after June 20 and up to Sept. 10, the company would issue fresh shares, diluting the entity's stake," a Reuters report said. "After Sept. 10, the threshold would be relaxed to 20% if any takeover attempt meets certain conditions."

Riot intends to requisition a special meeting of Bitfarms shareholders, at which Riot intends to nominate several independent directors to join the board of directors.

Earlier today, Bitfarms' stock rose 15% after saying its 2025 hash rate will exceed 35 EH/s by developing its first large-scale mining site in the United States.

Riot Platforms has a market cap of $3.17 billion compared to Bitfarms' cap of about $1 billion.