Marathon Patent Group, a Nasdaq listed Bitcoin mining firm, has announced that it will purchase another 10,000 Antminer S-19 Pro miners from Bitmain. This comes barely two months since the company bought 10,500 S-19 ASIC miners in a deal quoted at $23 million. The latest contract will see Marathon scale its miners to 23,560 upon full installation, making it the largest self-mining firm in North America.
With the delivery dates scheduled for the first half of 2021, Marathon speculates that it will boost its mining performance to a 2.56 EH/s hashrate. The company’s CEO, Merrick Okamoto, confirmed this estimate as per the official press release,
“Upon delivery and full Installation of all purchased miners, the Company’s mining operations will include 23,560 next-generation miners bringing our total hashrate to 2.56 Eh/s and making us the largest self-miner in North America.”
Notably, this move coincides with a bullish Bitcoin market, one of Marathon’s motivating factors in an email to Decrypt.
“The rise in Bitcoin has certainly increased our confidence in our existing growth plans.”
According to a spokesman from the firm, the price of BTC plays a fundamental role in Marathon’s sustainability and growth prospects. Despite the halving event, Marathon says that they are optimistic about running profitable mining operations given their muscle in Bitcoin mining infrastructure. He was keen to note that smaller-scale players may not survive the halving event,
“To remain competitive and be successful, the scale is paramount. As evidenced by our unique relationship with Bitmain and our purchase of 23,560 miners to date, we’re clearly in a position to grow despite the halving.”
Other than increasing its mining power, Marathon recently collaborated with Beowulf Energy; this partnership is expected to lower Marathon’s data management and electricity costs by 38%. Going by the firm’s philosophy of cost reduction and power output increase, it is clear where Marathon derives its current strategy.
