Hive Blockchain Technologies Inc., a startup that’s among the first public companies focused on cryptocurrency mining, is expanding its ability to mine coins with a fresh round of financing.

The Vancouver-based company raised 30 million Canadian dollars ($22 million) after taking over the listing for Leeta Gold Corp. to increase its capacity at a data center in Sweden. The company also has a cryptomining facility in Iceland, where electricity is comparably inexpensive and the government is stable.

“Being a GPU miner, we can switch from coins based on GPU consensus algorithms,” Olivier Francois Roussy Newton, co-founder and director of Hive Blockchain, said in an interview. That means the company can mine a variety of coins such as ethereum, ethereum classic, zcash and monero.

Blockchain is a technology used to verify and record transactions on a public, online ledger. Computerized "miners" solve complex math problems to verify transactions to earn a newly issued coin. Hive paid Hong Kong-based Genesis Mining Ltd., builder of the world's largest ether mining facility, $9-million and gave it a 30 percent interest to buy the data center in Reykjanes, Iceland.

Hive Blockchain tries to keep its operational cost as low as possible to avoid having to sell coins to raise money, according to an investor presentation on its website. Hive plans to mine different coins depending on which ones offer the best margins, and to build its inventory of coins with the expectation that they'll appreciate.

One of the backers of Hive Technologies is Frank Giustra, a Canadian mining maverick who built a company that would later become Goldcorp and found film studio Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.

Francois said he’s glad to see signs that the cryptocurrency market is maturing and the recent frenzy for initial coin offerings (ICOs) is dying down.

“I’m hopeful the market will get more regulated and slow down the number of ICO listings,” he said.

The profusion of ICOs, some of which have triggered regulatory scrutiny and charges of fraud from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, has added to suspicions about the legitimacy of cryptocurrencies.

Proponents of cryptocurrencies say the coins are based on open-source technologies with rules that are clearly defined, which should prevent a bad actor from creating counterfeiting coins and flooding markets with fake supply.

Cryptocurrency fans also see the possibility for the coins to rise in value as central banks like the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of Japan and People’s Bank of China debase their fiat currencies to remain competitive or to stimulate growth during recessions. In that sense, bitcoin can store value the same way that commodities like precious metals do.

Bitcoin is also being accepted for purchases at retailers, which improves the utility of the currency in comparison with cash. A bitcoin wallet app is needed to buy bitcoins and to use them for transactions.

Bitcoin has exploded in value, rising eightfold to more than $7,200 a coin since the beginning of the year. That jump has led to talk about a bitcoin bubble.

Warren Buffett, the billionaire chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., is wary of cryptocurrencies.

“You can’t value bitcoin because it’s not a value-producing asset...it's a real bubble in that sort of thing,” he said last month in an annual question-and-answer session with students.