This news release constitutes a "designated news release" for the purposes of the Company's prospectus supplement dated February 2, 2021 to its short form base shelf prospectus dated January 27, 2021.

VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / April 21, 2021 / HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd. (TSX.V:HIVE) (OTCQX:HVBTF) (FSE:HBF) (the "Company" or "HIVE") is pleased to announce that, further to its announcement on March 25, 2021, it has completed the share swap transaction (the "Transaction") with DeFi Technologies Inc. (NEO:DEFI, GR:RMJR, OTC: RDNAF) ("DeFi Technologies"), pursuant to which HIVE will receive 10,000,000 common shares of DeFi Technologies, representing approximately 5% of the existing outstanding common shares of DeFi Technologies in exchange for 4,000,000 common shares of the Company, representing approximately 1% of the Company's issued and outstanding common shares. Completion of the transaction is conditional on the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange. In addition, HIVE and DeFi Technologies have created a partnership surrounding the "decentralized finance" (DeFi) ecosystem with specific applications around Ethereum and Miner Extractable Value (MEV). The new partnership, which follows months of discussions, will provide HIVE with a strategic stake in DeFi Technologies and a broader partnership surrounding the DeFi ecosystem with a specific focus on the Ethereum based MEV space and developments surrounding it.

The boom in Ethereum has 3 powerful drivers, and DeFi has been a substantial part of the additional fees HIVE has received for mining Ethereum on the cloud. The other are Stablecoins and more recently non-fungible tokens or NFT's. We believe DeFi is the most significant demand driver and our investment in DeFi Technologies gives our shareholders a double benefit.

MEV refers to the amount of profit miners can extract from reordering and censoring transactions on the blockchain. It has become an important issue over the past year as the DeFi space has grown from US$3B to US$71B in market capitalization. Of the $347.3M of Extracted MEV, 88% comes from DeFi activities. As can be seen from data by Coin Metrics, over half of all ETH miner revenue currently comes from transaction fees. By partnering together to take on these activities, individuals get a more capital efficient market to play in, while distributing greater returns to miners for acting more altruistic.

About HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd.

About DeFi Technologies Inc.

For more information and to register to HIVE's mailing list, please visit www.HIVEblockchain.com. Follow @HIVEblockchain on Twitter and subscribe to HIVE's YouTube channel.

On Behalf of HIVE Blockchain Technologies Ltd.

"Frank Holmes"

Executive Chairman

For further information please contact:
Frank Holmes
Tel: (604) 664-1078

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Forward-Looking Information

Except for the statements of historical fact, this news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation that is based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. "Forward-looking information" in this news release includes information about the outcome of the strategic partnership with DeFi Technologies, the potential growth of decentralized finance, potential for the Company's long-term growth, and the business goals and objectives of the Company.

Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, if the strategic partnership with DeFi Technologies is not as successful as the Company hopes that it will be; decentralized finance does not become as widely adopted as expected; the growth in decentralized finance does not occur; the digital currency market; the Company's ability to successfully mine digital currency; the Company may not be able to profitably liquidate its current digital currency inventory, or at all; a decline in digital currency prices may have a significant negative impact on the Company's operations; the volatility of digital currency prices; and other related risks as more fully set out in the Filing Statement of the Company and other documents disclosed under the Company's filings at www.sedar.com.

The forward-looking information in this news release reflects the current expectations, assumptions and/or beliefs of the Company based on information currently available to the Company. In connection with the forward-looking information contained in this news release, the Company has made assumptions about the current profitability in mining cryptocurrency (including pricing and volume of current transaction activity); profitable use of the Company's assets going forward; the Company's ability to profitably liquidate its digital currency inventory as required; historical prices of digital currencies and the ability of the Company to mine digital currencies will be consistent with historical prices; and there will be no regulation or law that will prevent the Company from operating its business. The Company has also assumed that no significant events occur outside of the Company's normal course of business. Although the Company believes that the assumptions inherent in the forward-looking information are reasonable, forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and accordingly undue reliance should not be put on such information due to the inherent uncertainty therein.

SOURCE: Hive Blockchain Technologies Ltd