Marathon Digital Announces Record Bitcoin Production in Q1 2023
One of the leading cryptomining companies – Marathon Digital – mined a record 2,195 BTC during the first quarter of the year, increasing its holdings to 11,466 bitcoin (equivalent to over $321 million in current prices).
The positive result at the start of the year contrasts with the results from 2022. The company’s mining capacity was crippled by a massive storm last summer, while the multi-million exposure in the troubled data center – Compute North – caused further problems.
The “remarkable progress”
Fred Thiel – chairman and CEO of the organization – so Q1 was the most successful, with record production of 2,195 BTC. In comparison, Marathon mined 1,259 BTC in Q1 last year and 1,562 BTC in the last quarter of 2022.
This helped the company increase its hash rate to 11.5 exahashes (a 64% increase compared to 7.0 exahashes at the end of last year). The firm’s goal is to reach 23 exahashes by mid-2023 by deploying its previously purchased mining equipment:
“During the first quarter of 2023, we made remarkable progress in executing our two main initiatives for the year, which are to energize our previously purchased mining rigs to reach our target of 23 exahashes by the middle of this year and to optimize our performance so that we are both more effective and more efficient.” – Thiel added.
March was a solid month for Marathon, where it mined almost 40% of its entire quarterly load (825 BTC). In addition to its operational progress, the entity improved its financial position. It reduced its debt by $50 million and increased its unlimited bitcoin holdings by 3,132 BTC after terminating its credit facilities with Silvergate Bank.
Marathon ended Q1 with approximately $124.9 million in unrestricted cash and cash equivalents and 11,466 bitcoin. The storage’s current market value is worth nearly $321 million.
A little turbulence in 2022
A powerful storm that passed through the state of Montana last summer crippled 75% of Marathon’s total mining fleet, causing a drop in production levels.
“Bringing miners back online will take time and we are committed to doing everything we can to rebuild our hash rate and improve our bitcoin production… Separate from this incident, construction and installations in Texas continue as planned , and given the current macro environment, our pipeline of potential new host arrangements remains strong,” CEO Thield said at the time.
Marathon resumed normal operations in the following months before coming over another problem – the $80 million exposure to Compute North. While the latter installed and hosted over 68,000 of Marathon’s BTC miners in Texas, it was unable to turn on 40,000 of them due to regulatory issues.
To cope with the increased expenses in 2022, the miner scrapped its HODL strategy and sold 1500 BTC in January. The last time it parted with any of its assets was in October 2020.
