The Bitcoin (BTC) miner sold 1,500 Bitcoin (BTC) in January.
Marathon Digital (MARA), one of the largest publicly traded Bitcoin (BTC) miners, sold 1,500 Bitcoin (BTC) in January – 1st time ever – to monetize the past few rally in the cryptocurrency market.
The miner stated in a release on Thursday that the decision was created to cover some of its expenses. “With Bitcoin (BTC) production increasing and becoming more consistent, we made the strategic decision to sell some of our Bitcoin (BTC), as previously planned, to cover some of our operating expenses and for general corporate purposes,” Marathon’s Chairman and CEO Fred Thiel, stated in a statement. The company still holds about 11,418 Bitcoin (BTC) in its reserve.
The move attract the miner’s strategy inline with some of its peers, including Riot Platforms (RIOT), which started selling some of its mined Bitcoin (BTC) last year. Marathon was between few remaining miners who continued to hold onto its mined Bitcoin (BTC), even after indicating that it may sell at some point. The decision likely came after the price of Bitcoin (BTC) rose about 40 percent in January. The miner intends continuation to sell some of its mined Bitcoin (BTC) in the year, to finance its monthly operating costs, reports by the statement.
The miners had an operating hashrate or computing power of 11 exahash per Second (EH/s) in January and intends to reach 23 EH/s near the middle of 2023, the statement stated. Bitcoin (BTC) network’s hashrate is as of now around 282.55 EH/s, implying Marathon has about 4 percent of the worldwide computing power.
Marathon stated it mined a record 687 Bitcoin (BTC), which is up 45 percent from December of a year ago. “The improvement in our Bitcoin (BTC) production was primarily a result of our team’s capacity to work in tandem with the new hosting provider in McCamey, Texas, to address the maintenance and technical issues at the King Mountain data center that had suppressed our Bitcoin (BTC) production in the fourth quarter of 2022,” Thiel said.
The shares of the miner rose on Thursday with the broader market. Nonetheless, the shares dropped about 4 percent in after-market trading as Bitcoin (BTC) lost some of its momentum from the earlier rally.
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