Autor Cointelegraph By Brian Quarmby

White Rock Management CEO Andy Long believes bear markets “present excellent opportunities” for expansion via mergers and acquisitions in the crypto mining sector. Speaking with Cointelegraph, the crypto mining company CEO noted that companies who have managed their balance sheets effectively are in “great shape” during this bear market, and will continue to do well even if there’s more volatility to come. “The bear market has presented challenges for the miners who leveraged up at the top of the market, however, the sector has been here before, and well capitalized and efficient miners will do just fine,” he said.Long suggested that the current bear trend will provide key merger and acquisition opportunities for such companies, as they will have proven to investors that they can survive extreme market conditions: “Bear markets actually present excellent opportunities, so we expect to see M&A and consolidation activity in the mining sector involving both public and private players — to realize economies of scale and combine complementary operations.” “We’ll also see network growth picking up again, not to the level forecasted at the end of the year, but we’ll likely be at least 20% higher by year-end,” he added. Long also noted that the Texas mining sector has done well despite the ongoing heatwave. He noted the sector’s effective coordination with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to overcome energy supply issues over the past couple of months: “There’s a ton of activity in Texas and the mining sector is in great shape. Grid-connected miners are working with ERCOT to provide demand response during challenging weather, and we see continued growth ahead across the state.”White Rock is a crypto mining firm based out of Switzerland, that claims to have around 24 MegaWatts worth of plant capacity installed. In June announced plans to expand its operations to the U.S., starting with Texas. As part of the move, White Rock partnered with Natural Gas Onsite Neutralization (NGON) to operate out of its facility which utilizes “environmentally responsible” methods to mine Bitcoin (BTC). Heat waves As previously reported on July 11, mining firms such as Riot Blockchain and Core Scientific powered down parts of their Texas mining operations in June to reduce stress on the energy grid following temperatures rising well over 100 degrees. Both f were proactive in easing the pressure on Texas’ energy supply, but another contributing factor was that energy prices had soared amid the heat wave. Related: Will the Bitcoin mining industry collapse? Analysts explain why crisis is really opportunityAs a result of the move, the firms suffered reduced mining productivity. However, with the price of BTC gaining 14.7% over the past month, and with temperatures looking set to drop slightly to around the 90-degree mark, there is a feeling that miners will be switching their machines back on as the BTC mining profitability will be too good to ignore. “The Bitcoin price increase has led to increased profitability for miners and some miners who were pushed offline in June and July have likely plugged in their machines again,” noted Jaran Mellerud, a crypto-mining analyst at a research firm Arcane Crypto, in an interview with Bloomberg on Aug. 5. The price of Bitcoin is sitting at $23,088 at the time of writing.