Bitcoin Miner Marathon on Track to Meet Its Hashrate Guidance, Despite Delay

Marathon Digital (MARA), one of the largest publicly traded bitcoin miners, is still on track to meet its hashrate guidance of 23.3 exahash per second (EH/s) by early 2023, despite a 45-day delay in deploying its mining rigs during the first quarter, the company said Monday.

• The company attributed the delay to a longer-than-expected permitting process for the required power for its operations.
• “Typically, power flows from power stations into the grid. However, to ensure we have a consistent power supply when the renewable sources are operating intermittently, we also needed power to flow from the grid back into the power station at scale,” said Marathon CEO Fred Thiel, noting that this process required permitting, which delayed the deployment.
• The delay comes after Marathon said that during the fourth quarter of last year maintenance to the power generating station in Hardin, Mont., affected the company’s bitcoin (BTC) production in November.
• However, Thiel said the “delays are now behind us” and expects to reach 23.3 EH/s by early next year.
• Marathon mined 1258.6 bitcoin during the first quarter, a 15% increase from the previous quarter and 556% higher than a year ago.
• The miner is still holding on to its mined bitcoins and currently has 9,373.6 BTC with a fair market value of approximately $427.7 million.
• Marathon also confirmed to CoinDesk that it is open to selling the company for the right offer, as was earlier reported by Bloomberg.
• Marathon shares have fallen 12% this year, while the price of bitcoin has fallen 2.6% and shares of mining peers Riot Blockchain (RIOT) and Core Scientific (CORZ) have dropped 9% and 16%, respectively.