BitNile (NYSE:NILE) trades 9.2% higher premarket after it plans to fund up to $100M in commercial loans to small, publicly traded companies, secured by Bitcoin, through its subsidiary, Digital Power Lending (DP Lending). During 2022, BitNile plans to significantly expand its Bitcoin mining production capacity, growing its number of Bitcoin miners to 20.6K, representing an expected mining production capacity of ~2.24 exahashes per second. The company plans to hold up to $100M of self-mined Bitcoin in reserve to back the expansion of commercial loans to be offered through a new lending platform known as Ault Lending, powered by DP Lending. The funding of the platform is expected to occur over an approximate 2-year period and it is created to lend to publicly traded companies under $250M in market cap. The program is expected to commence in May 2022. The company’s goal is to provide a Bitcoin-backed lender to fund these public companies in a