"The company is considering a wide range of alternatives to maximize shareholder value, including, but not limited to, the sale of all or part of the Company, or another strategic transaction involving some, or all of, the assets of the Company," the miner said in a press release on Thursday.

Stronghold, the company that turns piles of coal waste into energy to mine bitcoin, said the move comes as there is a "valuation dislocation" of the stock compared to its other mining peers in the market.

“Stronghold’s Board and management team are committed to maximizing value for our shareholders and, to that end, have commenced a comprehensive and thorough review of strategic alternatives,” said Greg Beard, chairman and chief executive officer of Stronghold.

The company has hired Cohen and Company Capital Markets as financial advisers and said there isn't any specific timeline set for the completion of the review. The shares fell about 2% on Thursday.

The stock fell 62% this year, while peers such as Riot Platforms (RIOT) and Marathon Digital (MARA) fell about 40%. Bitcoin rose 39% so far this year.

Stronghold went public during the peak of the bull market in 2021. However, like many of its peers, it faced financial difficulties during the crypto winter due to a heavy debt load on its balance sheet. The company was able to avoid a similar fate as some of its peers that went bankrupt by restructuring its debt and shoring up the balance sheet in 2022 and 2023.

Mergers and acquisitions have been touted as one of the areas that will gain momentum after the halving, which made the mining landscape more competitive for the miners as rewards were cut in half.

There has already been an uptick in M&As in the mining industry as miners with stronger balance sheets started to buy up assets that are trading at low valuations.

UPDATE (May 2, 16:36 UTC): Adds more context, updates share price performance.

Bitcoin Mining mergers and acquisitions Stronghold Digital SDIG

Aoyon Ashraf

Aoyon Ashraf is CoinDesk's managing editor for Breaking News. He spent almost a decade at Bloomberg covering equities, commodities and tech. Prior to that, he spent several years on the sellside, financing small-cap companies. Aoyon graduated from University of Toronto with a degree in mining engineering. He holds ETH and BTC, as well as ALGO, ADA, SOL, OP and some other altcoins which are below CoinDesk's disclosure threshold of $1,000.