Marathon Digital Kicks Off Miners’ Earnings Season With Focus on Rig Deployment, Funding
The bitcoin miner will report its first-quarter results on Wednesday, followed by its first-ever earnings conference call.
Marathon Digital (MARA), which is one of the world's largest publicly traded bitcoin miners, will kick off the first-quarter earnings season for crypto mining companies this week, with a focus on how the company is going to house more than 70,000 new mining rigs and source capital for growth, according to Wall Street analysts.
The earnings report is slated to be released after the stock market closes on Wednesday. Marathon will also be hosting its first-ever earnings call at 4:30 p.m. ET on that day.
Analysts will be looking for updates on its roughly 70,000 new miners that will need to be housed and deployed. “MARA has taken delivery of ~70k new Bitmain S19s, but delays in finalizing PPAs (power purchase agreements) with Ercot (Electric Reliability Council of Texas) have resulted in ~45 days' delay for Compute North (the hosting provider) to have the facility ready for MARA's miners,” Jefferies analyst Jonathan Petersen wrote in a research note on Monday. “We are interested to hear an update about the status of and timeline for deploying these miners.”
Petersen has a buy rating on Marathon and a 12-month average price target of $36, which was lowered from $51 to reflect the delay in rig deployment and lower bitcoin price estimates for the year. Petersen now expects bitcoin's price to average $49,529 this year, down from his previous estimate of $54,722.
Compass Point Research & Trading echoed the questions around Marathon’s strategy for housing its new miners. “We will also be looking for commentary around where the company expects to house its 78k S19 XP miner coming later this year, as MARA has not indicated where they will be hosted,” analyst Chase White wrote in a research note on Monday.
Chase also has a buy rating on Marathon, and his 12-month average price target is $50, down from his previous estimate of $66. The average price target of the six analysts who cover Marathon is about $51, according to FactSet data. The stock was recently trading at $16.23.
Marathon said on April 4 that it 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. Hashrate is measure of computing power.
Funding and relocation
Compass Point’s White will also look for a discussion of how Marathon plans to raise funds for future growth. “We will be looking for any commentary around how the company plans to finance its buildout going forward, and specifically what sources of capital might be available,” White wrote. “We expect MARA will likely indicate a willingness to start selling some of its monthly mined BTC to fund a portion of its opex (operating expenses) and capex (capital expenditures).”
Read more: Battered Bitcoin Miners Increasingly Turn to Debt Financing
For his part, Jefferies’ Petersen is looking for updates on how the company plans to relocate its mining machines away from a site in Hardin, Mont., that is powered by coal, to a site with more renewable energy sources.
“On the earnings call, we hope to learn more about whether MARA intends to use Compute North or is considering other hosting providers to house the Hardin miners and any future orders,” Petersen wrote.
Another topic that could be a point of discussion is recent chatter about mergers and acquisitions among miners. With some speculation swirling around Marathon as a possible target, the company told CoinDesk last month that it's not interested in selling the company now, citing what it considers to be its undervalued stock.
On average, analysts estimate Marathon will post adjusted earnings per share of 23 cents, sales of $51.5 million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $38 million, according to FactSet.
Marathon shares have fallen 50% this year, while those of rivals Core Scientific (CORZ) and Riot Blockchain (RIOT) have dropped 44% and 54%, respectively. Bitcoin has fallen 19% so far this year.
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Exchange Review - March 2025

CoinDesk Data's monthly Exchange Review captures the key developments within the cryptocurrency exchange market. The report includes analyses that relate to exchange volumes, crypto derivatives trading, market segmentation by fees, fiat trading, and more.
What to know:
Trading activity softened in March as market uncertainty grew amid escalating tariff tensions between the U.S. and global trading partners. Centralized exchanges recorded their lowest combined trading volume since October, declining 6.24% to $6.79tn. This marked the third consecutive monthly decline across both market segments, with spot trading volume falling 14.1% to $1.98tn and derivatives trading slipping 2.56% to $4.81tn.
- Trading Volumes Decline for Third Consecutive Month: Combined spot and derivatives trading volume on centralized exchanges fell by 6.24% to $6.79tn in March 2025, reaching the lowest level since October. Both spot and derivatives markets recorded their third consecutive monthly decline, falling 14.1% and 2.56% to $1.98tn and $4.81tn respectively.
- Institutional Crypto Trading Volume on CME Falls 23.5%: In March, total derivatives trading volume on the CME exchange fell by 23.5% to $175bn, the lowest monthly volume since October 2024. CME's market share among derivatives exchanges dropped from 4.63% to 3.64%, suggesting declining institutional interest amid current macroeconomic conditions.
- Bybit Spot Market Share Slides in March: Spot trading volume on Bybit fell by 52.1% to $81.1bn in March, coinciding with decreased trading activity following the hack of the exchange's cold wallets in February. Bybit's spot market share dropped from 7.35% to 4.10%, its lowest since July 2023.
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