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Crypto Miner Marathon Digital Mines Record 615 Bitcoin in October

Marathon increased its hashrate by 84% in October in setting its new monthly high.

Marathon Digital Holdings CEO Fred Thiel (CoinDesk)
Marathon Digital Holdings CEO Fred Thiel (CoinDesk)

Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) mined 615 bitcoin in October, the highest monthly total in its history, showing that its struggle to bring hashrate online is behind it, the firm said in a press release on Wednesday.

Asset-light Marathon, which works with hosting firms and doesn't own the infrastructure behind its mining machines, has had a tough few months.

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Most of its hashrate was knocked offline by a June storm in Montana. Its hosting partner Compute North, one of the largest in the U.S., filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in late September, unsettling the market about Marathon's deployment prospects.

Despite these headwinds, Marathon energized 32,000 machines during October, increasing its hashrate by 84%. The miner's computing power is now 7 exahash/second (EH/s), the press release said, making it one of the world's largest miners.

The bitcoin mined in October almost matches the 616 it mined for the entire third quarter.

The rest of Marathon's hashrate is supposed to come online by mid-2023 through a 200 megwatt (MW) hosting deal with Applied Blockchain (APLD), an additional 42 MW with troubled Compute North and 12 MW with undisclosed firms. The miner didn't provide updates as to the progress of these projects.

Read more: A Huge Glut of Bitcoin Mining Rigs Is Sitting Unused in Boxes

Eliza Gkritsi

Eliza Gkritsi is a CoinDesk contributor focused on the intersection of crypto and AI, having previously covered mining for two years. She previously worked at TechNode in Shanghai and has graduated from the London School of Economics, Fudan University, and the University of York. She owns 25 WLD. She tweets as @egreechee.

Eliza Gkritsi