Marathon Digital Sold Nearly All Bitcoins Mined in February

Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: MARA), a leading Bitcoin mining company with about 9.5 exahashes, announced its unaudited February production and miner installation updates on March 02. The $760 million-valued Marathon Digital produced 683 Bitcoins in February 2023 and approximately 1,370 BTC quarter-to-date. During the second month of 2023, the company energized about 18,800 Bitcoin Miners, thereby increasing its total hash rate by 30 percent.

The Las Vegas, NV- based company increased unrestricted cash and Bitcoin Holdings to $219.7 Million and 8,260 BTC, respectively. Following the announcement, Marathon Digital shares have gained approximately 1.12 percent in the after-hours trading session to trade around $6.33.

According to Fred Thiel, Marathon Digital’s chairman, and CEO, the company energized over 8,000 units of S19 XPs during the second month of the year. As a result, Marathon Digital increased the average Bitcoin production per day by 10 percent in February.

However, the company opted to sell almost the entire Bitcoins produced in February following the relief cryptocurrency rally in January. Moreover, on-chain data provided by Glassnode indicate short-term Bitcoin holders and miners offloaded their bags in the past two months following the year-long bear market.

“We opted to sell 650 bitcoin this month to offset operating expenses and for general corporate purposes. Even with these sales, we increased our unrestricted bitcoin holdings from 8,090 bitcoin as of January 31, 2023, to 8,260 bitcoin, valued at $191.2 million as of February 28, 2023. Additionally, we increased our unrestricted cash on hand to $219.7 million,” Thiel noted.

Closer Look at Marathon Digital and the Cryptocurrency Market Outlook

With increased crypto regulatory scrutiny from the United States financial agencies, including the SEC and the CFTC, the cryptocurrency industry is not expected to rally until clear regulations are stipulated. Nevertheless, Marathon Digital remains bullish in the long term despite the short-term headwinds.

The company announced that it would continue adding more Bitcoin miners this year to hit over 20 exahashes.

“To continue advancing our operations and improve efficiency, our primary focus this year is to energize more miners and to optimize our fleet’s performance. We remain confident in our ability to scale Marathon into one of the largest and most energy-efficient Bitcoin mining operations globally by installing approximately 23 exahashes of computing power near the middle of 2023,” Thiel added.

By the end of last month, the installation of Marathon’s miners at Applied Digital’s facility in Garden City, TX, was fully completed. Additionally, approximately 4,100 of Marathon’s S19 XPs were installed at Applied Digital’s facility in Ellendale, ND, during the month.