Ninjas in Pyjamas Owner Buys Third Bitcoin Miner Batch for 247 Million Shares

NIP Group, the company behind esports organization Ninjas in Pyjamas, has acquired its third batch of Bitcoin miners in exchange for more than 247 million Class A ordinary shares. The deal pushes the company's claimed hash rate to roughly 13.85 EH/s, which management says can mine about 195 Bitcoin per month — around $2.8 million at current prices.

The buy is a deliberate counter-cyclical bet. Founder and CEO Hicham Chahine told Decrypt he wants to build mining capacity while the market is "cooling," rather than expanding when competition heats up. The shares-for-miners structure also means NIP Group is funding hardware with equity instead of cash, a choice that dilutes shareholders while avoiding debt.

The stock market has already voted on that trade. Since the Bitcoin announcement last week, NIPG has fallen 40.7%, from $6.74 to $4, according to Yahoo Finance data. That is an all-time low for the share price. Bitcoin itself slipped about 2% to $79,820 over the same period, per Decrypt's data — so the equity collapse far outruns the coin's dip.

What does the deal change for NIP Group?

The headline number is the step-up in production. Last year, the esports firm expanded its Bitcoin operation with a target of mining 160 Bitcoin a month. This third batch of miners lifts that target by 35 Bitcoin to 195 per month. Chahine says the new hardware will require "minimal ramp time," which suggests the facilities and power connections are already in place.

Chahine put the expansion in blunt terms: "Now that this tranche is closed, we're at roughly 13.85 EH/s. That puts us among the largest publicly listed miners in the world, roughly 195 Bitcoin a month. That's real revenue, and it supports everything else we're building."

He framed the mining push as part of a broader company-wide reset. "This year we reviewed every single piece of NIP Group, not just mining," Chahine said. "We made decisions with one goal: better margins and a clear path to profitability. Mining had to earn its place in that review, and it did."

NIP Group is a digital entertainment company at its core. It owns Ninjas in Pyjamas, the storied esports brand that fields professional teams in Counter-Strike 2, Valorant, League of Legends and Rocket League. Mining revenue is now meant to underwrite that broader entertainment business — a diversification play that mirrors moves by other publicly listed miners hunting for income beyond block rewards.

Is an AI pivot on the table?

Chahine was direct about it. The purchased facilities, he told Decrypt, could shift toward artificial intelligence infrastructure if the market pays for it. The logic is straightforward: mining sites already carry the power, cooling and land that AI and high-performance computing demand.

"We look at what AI and [high-performance computing] customers will actually pay, how long they'll commit and whether that demand is sustained or temporary," Chahine said. "When those workloads clearly beat mining on returns, consistently and not just for a week or two, that's when we may move capacity. If the numbers say shift, we shift."

The caveat is real, though. Bitcoin miners cannot be converted into AI data centers at the flick of a switch — the retrofit takes capital, time and enterprise-grade engineering. Chahine acknowledged as much, but argued the infrastructure around the mining facilities forms a workable foundation.

"When we talk about AI, we mean using that footprint and that know-how for compute-heavy work when the economics make sense," he said. "We're a gaming and entertainment company at heart, and our fans already live on compute, bringing infrastructure and entertainment under one roof makes sense."

The road ahead

For now, the strategy rests on two pillars: mining revenue at 195 Bitcoin a month, and an esports audience the company wants to feed with that cash flow. Chahine says he is "optimistic about where this is heading."

Investors clearly need more convincing. A 40.7% drawdown to an all-time low, on the back of a dilutive share issuance for mining hardware, signals skepticism about the pivot's timing and terms. The operational milestones are now concrete enough to watch: whether the third batch reaches full hash rate quickly, whether monthly production actually hits 195 Bitcoin, and whether AI or HPC customers emerge with contracts that beat mining economics on a sustained basis.