Earnings Labs

CleanSpark, Inc. (CLSK)

Q1 2026 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 5, 2026

$11.28

-4.33%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+21.89%

1 Week

+12.58%

1 Month

+16.44%

vs S&P

+16.51%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Jeannie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to CleanSpark's Fiscal First Quarter 2026 Financial Results Call. [Operator Instructions]. Thank you. Harry, you may begin your conference.

Harry Sudock

Analyst · Greg Lewis with BTIG

Thanks, Jeannie, and thank you for joining us today to review the first quarter to 2026 financial results for Queen Spark. We encourage you to review our earnings results press release, which was issued today and is available on our website. Our 10-Q will be filed shortly. A webcast replay and transcript of today's call will be added to our website once available. On the call today, I am joined by Matt Schultz, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Gary Vecchiarelli, our President and Chief Financial Officer. Some of the statements we make today will be forward looking based on our best view of the world and our business as we see them today. The statements and information provided remain subject to the risk factors disclosed in our 10-K. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures concerning our performance during today's call. You can find the reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures in our press release, which is available on our website. And with that, it's my pleasure to turn it over to Matt.

Matthew Schultz

Analyst · Mike Colonnese with H.C. Wainwright

Good afternoon, and thank you all for joining us. This quarter represents a meaningful step forward in CleanSpark's evolution into a digital infrastructure and data center development company. One that builds on the strengths of our mining operations while expanding the set of opportunities our assets can support. We continue to operate a large-scale fundamentally sound Bitcoin mining business that generates durable cash flows and balance sheet strength. What is different today is what those cash flows now enable? CleanSpark is no longer a single track business. We are building an infrastructure platform with multiple independently valuable earning streams, all anchored by scarce utility grade power. Bitcoin mining funds the platform. AI monetizes it and digital asset management optimizes it across all cycles. To frame how we think about AI development, we see 3 phases. First, securing scarce power and land; second, tenant-driven technical and commercial alignment; and third, structured long-term monetization. We are now firmly in the second phase across multiple assets. As a result, when we look forward, we increasingly see a company defined not just by hashrate. but by the quality, scale and flexibility of its infrastructure and by its ability to allocate capital into the highest return opportunities available at any point in the cycle. As we evaluate the opportunities for expansion into AI, we are seeing improving economics per megawatt, driven by scale, power quality and contracting structures even as capital intensity increases. Despite this evolution, Bitcoin mining remains foundational to our business. We are fully operational, passing every day and generating strong cash flows from a scaled mining footprint of more than 50 exahash per second. During the quarter, despite challenging Bitcoin price action and rising network difficulty, we generated more than $180 million in revenue at a gross margin exceeding 47%. Those cash…

Gary Vecchiarelli

Analyst · Mike Colonnese with H.C. Wainwright

Thank you, Matt. The side right into the numbers for our fiscal first quarter 2026. For the quarter, our revenue grew year-over-year by approximately $19 million, an increase of almost 12%. Our Bitcoin production was relatively flat where we saw revenues of almost $100,000 per Bitcoin in the quarter compared to $84,000 in the same quarter last year. Our gross margins declined slightly from approximately 57% a year ago to 47% this quarter. This decline was mainly driven by the year-over-year increase in network difficulty. Power prices also increased marginally to. $0.056 per kilowatt hour, up from $0.049 a year ago. However, this reflects our decision to continue hashing to higher cost higher revenue periods may be curtailing based solely on an arbitrary power price threshold. This quarter, we recognized a net loss of approximately $379 million compared to net income of approximately $247 million a year ago. This change was driven primarily by mark-to-market adjustments to Bitcoin's fair value at the end of each respective period. Our adjusted EBITDA was negative $295 million compared to positive $322 million a year ago, also driven primarily by mark-to-market adjustments. Turning our attention to the performance of the first quarter versus the immediately preceding fourth quarter, revenues declined approximately $43 million or 19% to $181 million. This drop was primarily due to a combination of 2 external headwinds, rising network difficulty and softer Bitcoin prices. Because of these pressures, we experienced some of the lowest cash prices in history during the quarter, underscoring the importance of having a fleet with high uptime and efficiency. Quarter-over-quarter, our cost per kilowatt hour decreased marginally from $0.059 in Q4 to $0.056 in Q1, partially offsetting our 19% revenue decline. As a result, our gross margins remained healthy at 47%. With respect to our overhead expenses,…

Harry Sudock

Analyst · Greg Lewis with BTIG

Thanks, Gary. We will now open the floor to questions from the analyst community. Operator, please provide instructions and manage the queue for the Q&A session.[Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Mike Grondahl with Northland Securities.

Mike Grondahl

Analyst

I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the demand environment you're seeing for HPC? And maybe how that's changed in the last 90 or 100 days? And kind of what attributes are you looking for most in a lease partner?

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Brian Dobson with Clear Street

Mike, thanks for the question, and thank you for the recent initiation. We're glad to see Northland covering us. I can tell you that 6 months ago, when I reassumed the role of CEO. We entered a market where there was a lot of enthusiasm around signing a deal. And what we're now seeing is some of the punitive components of the early leases such as losing a significant amount of revenue for a day late delay on an RFS date. And differing terms that are backstopped only at the site level rather than at the top co level. It has given us an opportunity to really sit back and evaluate what's out there. And I can tell you that We, Gary, Harry and myself and some of our team attended the Pacific Telecom Conference in Hawaii. And the feedback that we received by presenting an end-to-end solution was very overwhelmingly positive. We've been very pragmatic about the assets that we've accumulated, the location, the distance away from fiber networks, the access to behind-the-meter generation. And as a result, we've now been entertaining multiple trillion balance sheet companies that are interested in long-term leases on some of these assets. So we're seeing the demand continuing to escalate. And I might add, we saw Amazon earlier today talk about their commitment to invest $200 billion in AI infrastructure in 2026. exceeding the $140 billion estimated by the Street. So looking at the demand behind that, we feel very solid about it. And if the inbound inquiries and conversations we're having with hyperscalers or any indication, the fear of a bubble is highly overstated.

Mike Grondahl

Analyst

Got it. And then maybe just as a follow-up, your 3 sites, Sealy, Sandersville and Brazil, would you say it's equal demand for all 3? Or is there one that sticks out amongst those? How would you handicap that?

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Brian Dobson with Clear Street

I think probably the highest demand right now is Sandersville. Quite frankly, because it's 250 megawatts, we already built a substation. It's already energized. The Sealy site energization is Q1 '27 for the first 207 megawatts, so we're seeing strong demand there. And obviously, the next site has also been very appealing. But I would say that the data center environment in Georgia and the energized site are very compelling to the offtake clients.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brian Dobson with Clear Street.

Brian Dobson

Analyst · Brian Dobson with Clear Street

So just as a quick follow-up. You mentioned there have been some really positive CapEx comments from companies like Amazon. To me, that signals rising demand for AI data centers. Would you say that that's indicative of demand, call it, across the sector from various hyperscalers that you're speaking with? Or are people getting more cautious at all?

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Brian Dobson with Clear Street

Yes. I would say it's an emphatic yes. Just as a quick aside, Jeff Thomas, who leads our AI venture has been in the office with us this entire week, and more often than not, he's excusing himself to go into his office and close the door to field an inbound inquiry. So I would say demand is escalating rapidly.

Brian Dobson

Analyst · Brian Dobson with Clear Street

That's certainly good news. And I know you guys mentioned that you're looking for a mix of quality and scalability among clients, given construction commitments that you've already made, how confident are you that you'll be able to, call it, sign a contract in the relatively near future?

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Brian Dobson with Clear Street

We're very confident, Brian. I'll be honest with you the delay in -- I wouldn't even call it a delay. I mean when we did this 6 months ago and then we had our earnings call 7 or 8 weeks ago, we said that we would expect to sign a quality lease in less than a year. And I would say that, that's highly accelerated. But the discipline that we're taking, you look at some of the leases that other Bitcoin miners have put up and they're very highly redacted in the public filings. And that's a result of the punitive nature of some of the delay provisions. So as we contemplate this, we're actually working on a basis of design with the offtake customer. We're designing it in advance and then assuring that we can meet the delivery time lines to remove that potential overhang of failure to deliver risk. So being disciplined about this and building specific to the basis of design for the offtaker, including the implementation of the approved reference architecture from the chip manufacturers will allow us to have that certainty to secure the supply chain before we enter into these commitments to ensure that we don't have that fail to deliver.

Brian Dobson

Analyst · Brian Dobson with Clear Street

Excellent. Excellent. And then just one final one on Bitcoin mining, if I may. Given your efficiency you're better positioned than those heading into the next having, I guess, has your thought process changed at all as far as operating Bitcoin lines, call it, in tandem with your expansion into HPC.

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Brian Dobson with Clear Street

That's a great question, Brian. And what we found is that as new energy sources are energized, some of these communities, especially the smaller communities, are incentivized to monetize those metal lots very rapidly. The challenge is to build a data center for a hyperscaler with the approved basis of design and incorporating that reference architecture is a 12-month best case 18- to 24-month kind of average case delivery time line, we can use the infrastructure that we have for Bitcoin mining, like we did in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where we secured a 100-megawatt lease over a hyperscaler. We did that simply because we committed to start paying power bills inside of 6 months, not inside of 1.5 years, and that makes a difference to these communities. So we'll continue to use Bitcoin mining as that tool. You heard us talk about on the call, something that we haven't published it yet because it wasn't material, and that is we have 122-acre parcel adjacent to Sandersville. What does that mean? That means I can operate 11 exahash to a profitable Bitcoin mining up until the day we cut the power over to support the data center for our end-use clients. We also on the map of our projects, something that we haven't talked about is a 15-megawatt site in South Dakota. The utility there had introduced a blockchain specific tariff that with an interruptible load it gives us the lowest cost per kilowatt hour of almost any site in our portfolio. So that flexibility allows us to migrate that mining to a profitable location once we've spun up a data center behind us. So we see it kind of as a loss leader, but it makes money.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Colonnese with H.C. Wainwright.

Michael Colonnese

Analyst · Mike Colonnese with H.C. Wainwright

Matt, first one maybe for you. I appreciate your comments on the HPC business with start being advanced discussions or diligence stages rather potential tenants here. And that you're currently looking on a basis of design. Curious what milestones should we be on the lookout for next and some of the expected time lines you see as we come across the next couple of quarters here?

Matthew Schultz

Analyst · Mike Colonnese with H.C. Wainwright

So I think the process when you're dealing with a hyperscaler is we could rush in and sign a lease, so we could get a headline. And then we're facing potential losses for a failure to deliver. So as I mentioned in my prior comments, we're working towards that basis of design. And one of the things I think that is a key differentiator that's maybe gone a little bit under the radar. And that is we put out a press release announcing an MOU with Subaru. Mike, you've been around our company long enough that we don't ever make a material disclosure unless we've got a firm contract. And we felt that, that was important as we head into some of these discussions because summer has been very successful in building a modular MEP. So mechanical, electrical and plumbing, all the fiber runs everything according to the reference architecture required by the chipset manufacturers. So our solution will be to build the gray space to build a tilt up shell and then slot in the reference architecture. That also gives us flexibility. So if you have a hyperscaler that wants to modify from one particular type of chip to another, we have that modular approach. It also shortens the time line because we've all heard the horror stories about some of our peers that have a couple of thousand tradesmen all working at the same sites in West Texas, and they're struggling to provide housing and food and bathroom facilities. We look at this differently. We build instead of a one-off data center that's stick built. We build the shell according to the specifics required by the end customer. and then we build the MEP portion in a factory. So it's consistent and duplicatable and scalable, which is differentiated from anything else in the space. So it's important to us to establish all of those build parameters ahead of time. So when we put pen to paper, there's absolute certainty that we can deliver the product as expected on time.

Michael Colonnese

Analyst · Mike Colonnese with H.C. Wainwright

Helpful color. Matt, I appreciate that. And Gary, maybe one for you. Does this recent downturn in Bitcoin prices change or huddled approach at all? I know from covering the name for a while here, you guys have historically had a very dynamic high approach, one that tended to adjust based on prevailing market conditions. So curious how you guys are thinking about the huddles back here?

Gary Vecchiarelli

Analyst · Mike Colonnese with H.C. Wainwright

Thanks, Mike. Since you've been around a while, you know we've built this business on optionality. So that option is still on the table if we wanted to dip into the hotel and part with some of those Bitcoin, I'll tell you that's not something we're planning on doing even at these levels. We think that the strategy is still intact and part of the hedge is for us really selling nearly 100% of our monthly operating production. So as of right now, there's really been no change in that strategy. I'd also conversely say that we're not expecting to hold 100% of the operating Bitcoin production either because that would mean that we'd run through our cash a whole lot quicker and as we had mentioned, when we were raising the convert funds, we expect to use the majority of those funds to expand in AI data centers because we think that's the future of the company.

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Mike Colonnese with H.C. Wainwright

Mike, maybe that just a little -- another layer to the Bitcoin mining side. At our last disclosure, we were at 16.07 jewels per terahash and Taylor and his team are actively deploying the 13.5 jewel per terahash machines in the immersion cooled containers in 5 different locations. So we expect our fleet efficiency to continue to improve. In the last cycles, I mean we've been through this a few times, we see the kind of wash out of the sorting process and the less efficient fleets tend to unplug. So we also believe that there is a very strong opportunity for us to organically grow a share of the network hash rate just by default as other less efficient miners or for unplug.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Greg Lewis with BTIG.

Gregory Lewis

Analyst · Greg Lewis with BTIG

Just thinking about the move forward in the HPC, I know Jeff joined the team a few months ago now. Gary, you alluded to potentially higher SG&A over time as we kind of build out the team and get ready to pivot into this new business. Like how should we think about costs and processes? And where are we in terms of -- we've seen other companies go out and build teams. What we're realizing we have a lot of capable talented people already inside the company. How should we think about growth at the employee level here?

Gary Vecchiarelli

Analyst · Greg Lewis with BTIG

Greg. Thanks for the question. It's a great question. We get it quite often from investors. I'll tell you, it's hard to give guidance on that because while we have a plan to bring on a certain number of FTEs, the timing of when those hit is really what's going to drive what the numbers are going to be for the fiscal year. Additionally, we have optionality to where we can rent services. So if we need services from someone we could bring in outside consultant -- contractors to help fill that void while we're waiting to bring on full-time talent. And there's -- that could be different than what it would be to bring on a burden employee. So we're not prepared to give out numbers about right now. I don't think it's anything that's material that's putting us at risk or anything. I think we've been pretty measured about bringing on people right around the time we will need them. So I think you'll see that slowly uptick throughout the remainder of the year.

Gregory Lewis

Analyst · Greg Lewis with BTIG

Okay. Great. And then I think it's been understood that we were going to acquire more land at Sanders ville for at least a few months. How does now owning that additional land at Sandersville. Does that go at all in changing the kind of conversation that it seems like we're focusing -- it seems like part of this call is you focusing on potential terms of some of these HPC contracts. Does -- I would think earning the land matters a lot. I guess my question is, was not earning some of the land and potentially leasing it kind of a nonstarter?

Harry Sudock

Analyst · Greg Lewis with BTIG

Greg, it's Harry. I think you're exactly right. So we view the closing of the land expansion at Sandersville, a very orderly process in progressing the AI data center project there. It allows us to move into a very specific basis of design alignment exercise, which is underway. And it also brings a level of specificity to the compute and power ramp for the data center deployment as well because there's complexity to these projects that extend beyond standing up the data center for our state. There's a lengthy commissioning process that the tenants typically take on in the context of the overall project life cycle and being able to map out those time lines and those work streams in detail, is critical as we move through the full commercial scope of the discussions, they are, in many cases, governed by some of those technical pieces in the ramp process.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Glagola with KBW.

Stephen Glagola

Analyst · Stephen Glagola with KBW

Thanks for the question. Can you maybe provide some insight in how ERCOT's proposed large load bag study process may the energization time line for the Sealy side as well as the approval and development schedule associated with your Brazoria County, Texas project?

Harry Sudock

Analyst · Stephen Glagola with KBW

Stephen, yes, Harry, again. Happy to do that. So I think the first piece of it is that the study process that ERCOT is proposing to roll out has not gone final yet. They're still in a comment period where they're taking member requests for how they want to influence that process and how it's going to be brought to market. So we're waiting to see kind of the final form of that. But given the early news there, we've had a lot of detailed discussions with a number of counterparties that we're working with there. That includes the substation developer. It includes the utility. It includes some of the political folks and obviously, some of the teams that are caught as well. And I think the assets that we have in the state are in very favorable position relative to this new piece of the process for a handful of reasons. The first is that the large load studies that have been done. Its Sealy, it's complete. And at the second location, it's in a deeply progressed state. And we've received the notice to proceed language at both of them. So that's kind of .1 and 2. The next is that the interconnect and the FDA pieces are executed. And the third at Brazoria is that the CAIC has been funded. And at the Sealy location substation is already under construction. So these are significantly progressed projects. And what we've seen is that the view of the batching and the study rollout is largely being informed by project maturity as well as location. And what we've gotten feedback from the utility of both of those locations of -- is that the location that we selected is that a point in the overall ERCOT transmission system that's going to be the least impacted by this type of reevaluation process. So we feel very, very positively about where these 2 assets sit within the system and how they're going to be treated. But until ERCOT comes out with final language, we can't have 100% visibility into that yet.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Todaro with Needham & Company.

John Todaro

Analyst · John Todaro with Needham & Company

Two here, I guess, we'll start with the one that kind of comes off the ERCOT question. Are there -- as you think about just kind of longer-term pipeline, adding more power, are there other power markets that are now starting to look maybe a little bit more attractive relative to Texas and where could we see that? And then I have a follow-up on the HPC tenant side.

Unknown Executive

Analyst · John Todaro with Needham & Company

Thanks, John. I think that we have always had a strong heritage of diverse portfolio construction. We see it in the way that we enter into power agreements today. We've got a significant footprint deployed and operating in Georgia. We've got significant presence in Tennessee. Wyoming and Mississippi as well are the smallest 2, but they're by no means small. So I think that what we're going to be able to accomplish is a continued expansion in those markets because of the relationship and community quality that we've engaged in to date. But additionally, I think that the other side of the question that you're asking is do large-scale data centers skew towards in front of the meter power or behind the meter power. And we're asking these questions internally along both vectors. So we think that there's a huge amount of opportunity inside of Texas and outside on the in front of the meter profile. We have a team that's become exceedingly expert in sourcing, negotiating and closing on that power. And then we are also strongly evaluating the capacity for behind-the-meter power as well in places where we're either able to get a smaller in front of the meter load or there's a particularly rich commodity environment by which we could power behind-the-meter generation and then the associated data center. So we're people for its business fundamentally, and our power and land teams are prepared to expand the portfolio very, very broadly in a diversified way, but also add that potential for behind the meter to the repertoire as well.

John Todaro

Analyst · John Todaro with Needham & Company

Great. And then just on the HPC 10 discussion. I guess just trying to gauge kind of how far advanced we are in the positioning. Is it -- are we kind of down to 1 potential tenant that seems much further along? Or is there kind of 3 that are in final competition stages? Just a little bit more color there?

Unknown Executive

Analyst · John Todaro with Needham & Company

Ask me a question that I can answer. What I would say, John, to be honest with you, is there are multiple potential offtake tenants for Sandersville to begin with. I would say there is a specific front runner by an order of magnitude to the extent that our team is collaborating with their team on the site placement. You may have seen a slide in our deck that had a mockup of the layout of the data center. So we've advanced it significantly with a particular offtake, but by no means is it committed elsewhere. I mean there -- the competition for megawatts and land right now is stronger than it was when we announced this strategy to expand into AI. So we're not closing any doors, but I would say there's a clear frontrunner there.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Brent Noble with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst · Brent Noble with Cantor Fitzgerald

This is Gareth on for Brett. I was just hoping you could go into detail on the 2 new sites in Texas. When are you guys expecting to have power available on those sites. And what do you think the time lines are kind of going forward there?

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Brent Noble with Cantor Fitzgerald

Yes, absolutely. So let's tackle the Sealy project first. The land secured is 271 acres. The gross power is 285 megawatts. The first 207 to 209 is coming first half of '27. And then it's about 40 in '28 and 40 in '29. And that's driven by the transmission agreement by which we secure the power. The second project is in Brazoria County. Larger footprint with up to 477 acres at that location. And the way that it's structured is that we've signed for that agreement, but we're not closed yet, and there's some closing conditions associated with it, that we expect to wrap up here. The time line for the energization is a function of some of those closing conditions. And so we don't have the type of line in the sand clarity that we have at Sealy. But I think that Q4 '27, Q1 '28 is a range that is all reasonable and everybody internally is working to bring that energization date as close to the inside as possible.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Paul Golding with Macquarie.

Paul Golding

Analyst · Paul Golding with Macquarie

Congrats on all the progress. Gary, you referenced a peers recent capital raise. And I just wanted to ask, as we think about the liquidity you have, but also you have substantial capacity going forward that you'll hopefully be growing into with leases. Should we take that to be -- that comment to be indicative at all of how you hope to essentially face a counterparty in terms of counterparty type face-to-face with hyperscaler able to do high yield raises where the counterparty credit quality could yield that, I guess, how should we think about how you're selecting your counterparties given the context given around capital raising and cost of capital.

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Paul Golding with Macquarie

Thanks, Paul. I'll tell you that it's very important to us to have that grade A credit quality tenants because we think that's the most financeable and the best cost of capital. So that's what we're focused on. In terms of the vehicle, I quote the recent Cipher deal because the high yield seems to be a playbook that a number of our peers have started to go down that path. We're open to that. We're happy to see that the terms are getting better both with that and the contracts and leases that are backed by that bond. There's some other options as well. obviously, a little higher cost of capital. But at the end of the day, what's great about this is, and you've heard this word from us for quarters or years now is optionality, right? We have a lot of options on the table. But I think it's safe to say we're going to follow a playbook right now that's probably proven in the capital markets, and it all starts with a grade A tenant.

Paul Golding

Analyst · Paul Golding with Macquarie

And then maybe a follow-up. I believe, Matt, you mentioned when speaking about the Sandersville work and the 122 acres with tenant-driven specs in mind. How should we think about what that means for terms? You also noted that terms in discussion were seemingly more positive across the conversations you're having. Is there any kind of prepayment or deposit discussion involved in the conversations you're having, given that you are proactively using tenant-driven specs to set up the sites for HPC?

Matthew Schultz

Analyst · Paul Golding with Macquarie

It's -- thanks for the question, Paul. It's a bit -- it's a little early in the discussions to comment on that. directly. But I can tell you that we're -- obviously, there are a number of different leases that have been put up. You've seen modified gross. You've seen triple net. You've seen posted agreements. You've seen miners that have committed to buy the chips themselves. So I can tell you that our focus initially, and I'm not -- I don't mean to downplay the quality of any other transaction. But as we look at the financing options, I think it's important to us to have a significantly better deal than I think the market would have otherwise expected. I think we're interested in putting a deal together directly with the hyperscaler, not necessarily with the Neo cloud backed by a hyperscaler. And we believe that we'll set the standard for the quality of the agreement and the, I guess, win-win is a term we use in the company a lot. There will certainly be expectations our feet will be held to the fire, so to speak, to deliver, but it's not at the risk of an existential threat on a fail to deliver. So we're negotiating all those terms. And I think what you'll see when we announced the first lease is a basis or a model for what you can expect going forward.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jim Milre with Chardan.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst · Jim Milre with Chardan

At the current Bitcoin prices, let's call it, $63,000 or so. How much of your minor fleet is economic to operate? Or another way to ask it is how much of the minor fleet is -- meets the hurdle rate in order to operate.

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Jim Milre with Chardan

Great question, Jim. Thank you for that. So our fleet efficiency improved and then it got a bit worse. And it got worse by design, because as mining economics improved, we actually started to scale up some less efficient equipment in our fleet. What I can tell you is that Taylor and his team are constantly running real-time analysis based on utility prices, network difficulty and the price of Bitcoin. And they brought me in to Gary and myself this morning as we were working on this presentation today. They brought us in a list. And I would say less than 10% of our fleet at the current half price is not profitable. So the vast majority of it is and the small portion that is at or below the breakeven threshold our machines that we brought on to take advantage of $125,000 Bitcoin 1.5 quarters ago. So it's not punitive to us to unplug those. Having said that, as we unplug those less efficient machines or scale them down or under clock them, it increases the overall efficiency of our fleet.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst · Jim Milre with Chardan

Got it. That's helpful. And can you discuss CapEx plans for this year and next, both in from a dollar basis as well as an allocation between Bitcoin and HPC.

Gary Vecchiarelli

Analyst · Jim Milre with Chardan

Jim, it's Gary. I'll tell you that our focus is going to be on deploying capital towards AI. That's in the range of $9 million to $11 million a megawatt which, as you probably know, has been reported by most of our peers in the space right now, and that's the range that we're seeing. So what is deployed is really going to depend on -- that amount is going to depend on the design to build and the customers and when we sign those respective leases. But I'll tell you that the overwhelming percentage majority percentage of that is related to HPC. With respect to Bitcoin mining, I think that the investment, particularly at these levels doesn't make a whole lot of sense from the sticker prices that we're seeing from the major manufacturers. If you look at our balance sheet as of 12/31, we had about $130 million of prepaid deposits on Bitcoin mining equipment and miners. And about $112 million of that was through September. So we're still deploying some infrastructure, mainly emerging cooling and miners that will help drive down that efficiency. But we don't plan on spending a significant portion of our cash on mining, unless economics change. We need to keep in mind that we are about 2 years off to the next having. And in any cycle, as you get closer to having that ROI window closes rapidly. And right now, it doesn't make sense. So we want to be redirecting every dollar possible towards CapEx.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Capitalo with Maxim Group.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst · Matthew Capitalo with Maxim Group

I'm filling for Mac right now. I was just wondering if you guys have any insight or I guess, predictions on how we should be thinking about network difficulty in response to the current Bitcoin prices.

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Matthew Capitalo with Maxim Group

Yes, absolutely. So I think that what we've seen over the last weeks and the difficulty adjustment that's coming on Saturday is important to know is the largest difficulty adjustment to the downside since the China mining ban in 2020. And that's a combination of 2 factors. The first is that there have been significant weather events across the entire country during that period of time. where you're seeing either the demand response programs get engaged or you're seeing power prices move past the breakeven point of economics. And so that's certainly a contributor to this difficulty adjustment. The second piece is clearly Bitcoin price is off considerably. And so that next coming difficulty adjustment is going to be a significant one. And then I think given the price action that we've seen in the latter part of the difficulty adjustment period that we're in the middle of right now, we could see additional downward pressure on difficulty in addition to that. So I think that ultimately, this is the self-healing nature of the proof-of-work and Bitcoin mining system. And as you see these types of market forces, the network adjusts to be able to create that security model that's supposed to keep producing blocks and processing transactions.

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Matthew Capitalo with Maxim Group

I just want to add one thing because if you look at this historically, when Bitcoin runs and hash price gets better, the global hash rate laps right? You'll have a period of time, usually weeks, maybe a month or whatever, for miners to find a way to get plugged in because miners just don't sit around waiting for hash price to sit typically, they're just not on racks just waiting for Bitcoin price at a certain price. It's the opposite on the way down because most miners, not all, but most miners know what their breakeven is because that's a real punitive cash penalty because they have to pay their power deals. And so as Bitcoin mining economics go down, what we've seen at least historically, is that cash rate comes off pretty quickly, pretty close to that. And that's because miners say, well, hey, why am I going to take a lot of X amount of dollars when I could just go buy Bitcoin, and I have more Bitcoin than if I actually mined it. So I think that given that routed in the fact that we have a decreasing a fleet with decreasing jewels per terahash, meaning our efficiency is going up. and we're more efficient and we're producing more Bitcoin for every watt that we're putting through these machines. We will be one of the last ones theoretically to turn off, and we'll mine more Bitcoin in terms of quantity as that global half decreases.

Unknown Analyst

Analyst · Matthew Capitalo with Maxim Group

And I guess as a follow-up on the Texas opportunities. Do you guys have a time line on executing behind the meter opportunity into your portfolio?

Unknown Executive

Analyst · Matthew Capitalo with Maxim Group

Yes, I appreciate the question. I think it's too early to have a view on the exact timing for that type of opportunity. What I can say is that we're evaluating a number of different behind-the-meter deployment types. Some of those energization schedules are longer. Some of them are much faster to market. And so ultimately, those types of decisions will be made in concert with the tenant community, and we're really looking to be able to meet their need and satisfy impute demand, whether that's through one form or behind the meter generation or another.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions currently. Harry, I turn the call back over to you.

Harry Sudock

Analyst · Greg Lewis with BTIG

Thank you, and thank you, everyone, again, for joining today's earnings call. We look forward to staying in touch and sharing future results with you in the coming quarters. Stay tuned for more progress and exciting achievements ahead from us at CleanSpark.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.