LM Funding America, Inc.

Welcome to the LM Funding America Incorporated first quarter 2023 Business Update conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode and a question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, Ted Ives with Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Good morning and thank you for joining LM Funding America's first quarter 2023 conference call. On the call with us today are Bruce Rogers, Chief Executive Officer, and Richard Russell, Chief Financial Officer of LM Funding. This morning, the company announced its operating results for the quarter ended March 31st, 2023, and its financial condition as of that date. The press release is posted on the company's website, lmfunding.com. In addition, the company has filed its quarterly report on Form 10-Q with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, which can also be accessed on the company's website as well as the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. If you have any questions after the call and would like any additional information about the company, please contact Crescendo Communications at 212-671-1020. Before management reviews the company's operating results for the quarter ended March 31st, 2023, and its financial condition as of that date, we would like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this conference call including statements regarding our future results of operations and financial position, strategy and plans, and our expectations for future operations, our forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based largely on the company's current expectations and projections about future events and trends that it believes may affect its financial condition, results of operations, strategy, short-term and long-term business operations and objectives, and financial needs. These forward-looking statements are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, as described in the company's Form 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on March 31, 2023. Because of these risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, the forward-looking events and circumstances discussed in this conference call may not occur, and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. You should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot guarantee future results, level of activity, performance, or achievements. In addition, neither the company nor any person assumes responsibility for the accuracy and completeness of any of these forward-looking statements. The company disclaims any duty to update any of these forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements attributable to the company are expressly qualified in their entirety by these cautionary statements, as well as others made in this conference call. You should evaluate all forward-looking statements made by the company in the context of these risks and uncertainties. In addition, today's discussion will include references to non-GAAP measures. The company believes that such information provides an additional measurement and consistent historical comparison of its performance. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is available in today's news release on our website. Having said that, I will now turn the call over to Bruce Rogers. Please go ahead, Bruce.

Thanks, Ted, and good morning. Thank you to everyone for joining us today. On behalf of the LM funding team, I want to extend our sincere gratitude to our investors for your continued support and belief in our vision. We are well on our way towards achieving our goals, which we believe will drive significant shareholder value. We are pleased with the progress Ellum Funding has made during the first quarter of 2023, as we steadily shift our company's focus toward Bitcoin mining. The positive impact of this shift is reflected in the more than 1,100% year-over-year increase in revenue that we've reported in the quarter ended March 31, 2023. This was almost entirely the result of an increase in digital mining revenue in connection with the commencement of our Bitcoin mining operations in September 2022. We began 2023 with around 2,700 fully operational mining machines and added about 2,300 more during the first four months of 2023, increasing our total to approximately 5,000 machines with a mining capacity of nearly 520 petahash. actively mining Bitcoin today. Throughout the quarter, we mined close to 91.75 Bitcoin at an average value of $22,800 per Bitcoin, in contrast to the current price, which has fluctuated between $27,000 and $30,000 over the last several months. We continue to strategically acquire additional cutting-edge Bitcoin mining machines, In January, we purchased an additional 125 S19 XP machines from Bitmain Technologies for a purchase price of approximately $500,000, which were delivered in April 2023. We also took part in Bitmain Technologies' Pizza Day Raffle, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that we were able to obtain an additional 101 of the cutting-edge S19 XP mining machines for a cost of around $300,000. These machines are due for delivery by the end of May 2023. We plan to continue our efforts to identify and leverage favorable opportunities to purchase additional mining machines. Regardless of the fluctuations in the Bitcoin market, we have maintained a prudent approach of strategically acquiring and efficiently operating Bitcoin mining machines in our efforts to enhance long-term value for shareholders. In addition, the company signed a contract with Giga Energy in May to host 1,080 of our Bitcoin mining machines. We expect to have these machines fully energized and operational by the end of May, bringing the company's projected total mining capacity to 627 petahash by the end of May 2023. All of these actions align with our objectives of opportunistically acquiring and energizing more mining machines in the coming quarters and further lowering our joules per terahash energy consumption as we approach the next Bitcoin halving event, anticipated to occur sometime in 2024. Historically, in the run-up to halving events in 2012, 2016, and 2020, Bitcoin's value has climbed due to investor anticipation of a price rally, which typically occurs 6 to 12 months after the halving. We believe operating highly efficient mining machines is the key to successfully navigating the 2024 Bitcoin halving, and we will make further mining machine purchases to lower our joules per terahash profile of our mining fleet through the 2024 and 2029 halving events. With respect to our legacy business, which involves funding to nonprofit community associations, the business has remained fairly stable since our last report in the fourth quarter of 2022. Our primary focus moving forward continues to be Bitcoin mining. We are extremely enthusiastic about the future as we consistently acquire and bring online additional high-efficiency mining machines in order to mine more Bitcoin. We expect to channel the revenue generated from our mined Bitcoin back into the company. This will allow us to acquire even more miners, further accelerating the implementation of our business strategy. We continue to find it perplexing that there exists such a significant discrepancy between our stockholders' equity of $44 billion as of March 31, 2023, equivalent to $3.36 per outstanding share, and the current trading price of our shares, merely 73 cents per share, representing a 78% discount to book value. While we recognize the overall weakness in the stock market, and in particular the microcap market, which has been disproportionately impacted, we believe we can close the gap in our valuation by driving execution of our business model profitability while expanding our outreach to the investment community. On that note, I would like to turn over the call to Rick Russell, Chief Financial Officer of LN Funding, who will review the financial results of the three-month period ending March 31, 2023.

Rick? Thanks, Bruce, and good morning, everyone. Total revenues for the three months ended March 31, 2023 totaled $2.3 million, a more than 1100% increase from $200,000 for the three months ended March 31st, 2022. Revenues for the three months ended March 31st, 2023 include digital mining revenue of $2.1 million due to the mine of 91.7 bitcoins in the first quarter of 2023. Operating expenses total $4.3 million for the first quarter of 2023 compared to 5.2 million for the comparable prior year quarter. The $900,000 decrease is primarily attributable to a $3.5 million decrease in stock compensation, a $400,000 realized gain on the sale of Bitcoin, partially offset by a $1.7 million of digital mining costs, increases in professional fees, and depreciation expense as compared to the first quarter of 2022. For the three months ended March 31st, 2023, the net loss attributable to LM funding shareholders was $5.4 million, which included a $5.8 million non-cash, unrealized loss on investment and equity securities, compared to a $5.4 million loss for the first quarter of 2022, which included a $1 million unrealized loss on investment and equity securities. Core EBITDA for the quarter ended March 31, 2023, improved to a loss of $300,000 compared to a loss of $1.4 million in the 2022 comparable quarter. Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $3.4 million cash, around 84 Bitcoins worth $1.8 million, and working capital of $4.6 million, which we believe provides sufficient liquidity to execute on our current Bitcoin mining strategies. In addition, we had minimal long-term debt and ended the quarter with LM funding stockholders' equity of $44 million, or 3.36 per share. Finally, net cash used in operations was $1.1 million during the three months ended March 31, 2023, compared to net cash used in operations of $520,000 during the 2022 comparable period. This change in cash used in operating activities was primarily driven by 2.1 million of my Bitcoin, recognized as relative but not recognized as cash, partially offset by 1.5 million of proceeds from the sale of Bitcoin. That concludes our prepared remarks. I would now like to open the call for questions. Operator, could you please assist us with that?

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our first question is coming from Elon Friedman. Sir, you may proceed.

Thank you. Congratulations on a very strong quarter. It also looks like we have more machines coming online. I'm not looking for guidance, but can you give some additional color on your expectations for the balance of this year?

Sure, I don't want to attach numbers to it and goals, but we are mining and generating cash and we're looking for bargains in the XP machines and places to put them because we think that strategy takes us through this halving and puts us where we want to be for the next four years after that halving. So that's the current intent and the current operating plan. And this is Rick Russell.

I think we have to close. that we anticipate had about 6,080 machines in place by the end of this month, up from what we had, I think, 3,700 in March. So it's a slow ratcheting this quarter of those new machines. As Bruce said, we'll reinvest our excess cash into new machines when that arises.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Once again, if you have any questions, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad at this time. Okay. We have no further questions in queue at this time, so I'll hand it back to Mr. Rogers for his closing remarks.

Sure. I would like to thank everyone for participating in our 2023 first quarter conference call. We pivoted Bitcoin mining with the goal of energizing 5,000 mining machines We've achieved that goal and are now reinvesting mining revenues to purchase additional mining machines debt-free. We believe in the long-term appreciation of Bitcoin as an asset class, and we believe the most efficient way to invest in Bitcoin is through the purchase of highly efficient mining machines. So we're pleased with our progress during the first quarter of 2023 and anticipate the momentum to persist as we continue to acquire and electrify more mining machines in subsequent quarters. We're thankful for the ongoing support from our shareholders and are eager to provide updates on our progress as new developments emerge. Thank you all again. Look forward to talking to you next quarter.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.