Marathon Digital (MARA), one the largest publicly traded bitcoin miners sold 1,500 bitcoin in January to monetize recent rallies in the crypto market.
In a Thursday release, the miner stated that it was taking this decision to pay some of its expenses. Marathon’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Fred Thiel stated in a statement that bitcoin production is increasing and becoming more consistent. He also said that the decision was made to sell some bitcoin as previously planned to pay some of its operating expenses. Statement. The company has approximately 11,418 bitcoin left in its reserves.
This move brings the miner’s strategy into line with other peers like Riot Platforms (RIOT), who started selling some of their mined bitcoin last January. Marathon was one of few miners that remained loyal to its mined bitcoin despite being told it might be sold. After bitcoin’s price rose by 40% in January, the decision was likely made. According to the statement, the miner plans to continue selling some of its mined Bitcoin this year to help fund its monthly operating expenses.
According to the statement, the miner’s operating hashrate (or computing power) was 11 exahash per sec in January. It plans to increase that number to 23 EH/s by the middle of 2023. The current hashrate of the Bitcoin network is around 282.55 EH/sMarathon is home to approximately 4% of the world’s computing power.
Marathon reported that it had mined 687 bitcoins, a record which is up 45% over December last year. Thiel stated that the improvement in our bitcoin production was due to our team’s ability in McCamey to work with the new host provider. This allowed us to resolve the technical and maintenance issues at King Mountain, which had suppressed our production in the fourth quarter 2022.
On Thursday, the shares of the miner rose along with the wider market. After-market trading saw the shares fall by 4%, as bitcoin lost some momentum from its earlier rally.
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