A major Bitcoin miner burned through 357 BTC on secret compute deals while its output plummeted

Bitcoin miner and cloud-mining provider BitFuFu said advance payments for 330 days of future hashrate were the primary reason its reported Bitcoin holdings fell by 357 BTC in July. At the same time, production and managed hashrate declined, leaving a clear operational checkpoint: whether the platform reaches approximately 20 EH/s by mid-August.The company's SEC-filed July operating update put holdings at 1,314 BTC on July 31, down from 1,671 BTC a month earlier. The reported balance excludes Bitcoin produced for cloud-mining customers. Total production fell to 112 BTC from 125 BTC, while average daily output slipped to 3.6 BTC from 4.2 BTC.Total managed hashrate declined to 14.2 EH/s from 15.3 EH/s. Third-party suppliers and hosting customers contributed 10.6 EH/s, down from 11.8 EH/s, while self-owned hashrate rose to 3.6 EH/s from 3.5 EH/s.Management expects capacity secured in June and July to restore total managed hashrate to about 20 EH/s by mid-August. From the July-end level, that guidance implies a 5.8 EH/s, or roughly 41%, increase if the base otherwise remains unchanged.A separate June operating update disclosed 5.3 EH/s from suppliers for 270 days beginning in August. Th...