LM Funding America, Inc.

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the LM Funding America fourth quarter and full year 2024 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Cody Fletcher, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining LM Funding America's fourth quarter and full year 2024 earnings conference call. Joining us today are Chairman and CEO Bruce Rogers, President of U.S. Digital Mining Ryan Duran, and CFO Richard Russell. For today's call, we've uploaded an accompanying supplemental investor presentation. which can be found under the events section of LM Funding's investor relations website. Before we get started, please note that our remarks today may include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially. We will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures today. Please refer to our 10-K filing and our website for a full reconciliation of these non-GAAP performance measures to the most comparable GAAP measures. For a more comprehensive discussion of these and other risks, please refer to our filings with the SEC available on www.sec.gov and in the investor section of our website at www.lmfunding.com backslash investors. I'll now turn the call over to our CEO, Bruce Rogers. Bruce?

Thanks, Cody. Good morning, and thanks for joining us today. Since we entered the Bitcoin mining business in 2021, LM Funding has steadily advanced our strategy to become a successful participant in the digital asset sector. Our early focus was on an asset-light model to minimize initial capex by leveraging third-party hosting arrangements while we gain market insights and establish our operational footprint. Last year, through careful planning and execution, we transitioned to a vertically integrated model, one where we manage the infrastructure ourselves ensuring better margins and mitigating risks associated to third-party hosting agreements. Today, we own and directly manage our mining infrastructure with our inaugural 15 megawatt site in Oklahoma. This vertical integration reduces our fleet-wide energy costs and improves our operations for enhanced uptime and mining efficiency. Throughout our expansion, we have continued our commitment to disciplined OPEX control. By actively maintaining a low-cost structure, from power sourcing and infrastructure investments to staffing and equipment, we were able to successfully navigate a challenging year for the industry in our first Bitcoin halving event, which occurred in April 2024. This strategic cost control enabled us to achieve profitability in 2024 on a core EBITDA basis, as well as retain more Bitcoin on our balance sheet, which is a significant piece of our long-term strategy. By retaining a portion of our mined Bitcoin, we not only capture potential upside for our shareholders, but also deepen our alignment with the broader Bitcoin industry. This approach, combined with selective financing during advantageous market windows, helps us maximize value and ensure sufficient liquidity to fund future expansion. In terms of our financial and operational highlights, in 2024, we mined 170.6 Bitcoin, which generated approximately $11 million of revenue and $3.9 million in core EBITDA. This represents strong growth on the bottom line, as well as steadily growing our Bitcoin HODL balance to 150.2 Bitcoin at the end of December 2024, from 95.1 Bitcoin at the end of December 2023. At the end of February 25, we expanded our total energized hash rate to 560 petahash per second, and we held 165.8 Bitcoin on our balance sheet, which equates to approximately $2.81 per share as of Wednesday the 26th. We believe our current market cap relative to our Bitcoin holdings presents compelling value. As of March 26th, our share price of $1.49 per share reflects a market cap of $7.6 million. Yet our Bitcoin holdings alone are valued at $14.4 million, or $2.81 per share. This nearly 2x disparity between our market cap and Bitcoin holdings demonstrates a compelling opportunity, in our opinion, and values us at significant discount to our Bitcoin mining peers. As we look forward to 2025, our emphasis on vertical integration, disciplined cost management, strategic infrastructure expansion, and strong Bitcoin treasury remain crucial to our success. Our lean operations and strengthened balance sheet position us to capitalize on the evolving Bitcoin mining landscape. We plan to invest in next-generation mining hardware, energy efficiency initiatives, and strategic site acquisitions to grow our company. I'll now turn the call over to Ryan Duran, our president of U.S. Digital Mining, to review our operational highlights in more detail.