Applied Blockchain: Catalysts And Improving Valuation

SummaryApplied Blockchain has seen improvement in what were previously highly elevated valuation multiples compared to datacenter and mining peers.Ethereum mining is being permanently disrupted, and Bitcoin mining is facing a profitability squeeze. These are potential headwinds for the kinds of companies APLD does business with.As long as we're in a risk-off macro environment, I view APLD as a potentially promising hold.When I last covered Applied Blockchain (APLD) for Seeking Alpha, my main argument for calling it a hold was how overvalued it was compared to both data center peers and Bitcoin (BTC-USD) mining peers. Since that article, the price of the stock has doubled and the valuation metrics have actually improved. In this follow-up, we'll go over a few things that have changed in the three months since my last article, revisit some of the valuation metrics that we explored in mid-June, and try to assess the health of Bitcoin miners broadly.What's new?Since June, the company has made a few significant non-earnings related announcements. The first was that the company has entered an agreement with Marathon Digital (MARA) for hosting services. While the agreement will see Marathon relying on Applied Blockchain for 90 megawatts of hosting capacity at APLD's Texas facility and 110 megawatts out of North Dakota, the hosting capacity could ultimately reach a total of 270 megawatts by mid-2023. As the rollout of Marathon's hosti...