By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 26th, 2024
Bitcoin mining firms have been racing to expand their businesses ahead of an expected approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF.
Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: MARA) has announced a new BTC production record. In a recent X post, the firm confirmed that it mined a whopping 1,853 Bitcoin (BTC) in December 2023 – its highest-ever production within a month.
Interestingly, however, the production record was not just a personal record for the Florida-based firm. Although Marathon Digital has never before mined that much BTC in a single month, the firm also believes that no mining firm ever did the same either. Part of its statement reads:
“We believe this to be the highest monthly total ever recorded by a public Bitcoin mining company.”
Interestingly, Marathon’s claims of mining the most Bitcoin in a month might not be far from the truth. In January 2023, Core Scientific held that position after producing 1,527 BTC at the time. So, if Marathon’s latest announcement is anything to go by, it has surpassed Core Scientific by more than 300 BTC produced.
For Marathon, last month’s mining results mean that it saw a 56% production increase in just a month. That is from November. The firm also saw a massive 290% increase in production from the figures of December 2022.
Marathon Digital Keen on Improving Hash Rate and Growth
It appears that Marathon is not exactly surprised at its latest feat. According to the company chairman and CEO Fried Thiel, last December’s record-breaking production may be directly linked to the fact that the firm also saw an 18.4% increase in its hash rate. Although it currently operates with an output of 22.4 exahashes per second, the firm has been focused on boosting its mining capacity.
To this end, it revealed, on December 19, that it plans to acquire two more mining centres. The acquisition deal would reportedly cost around 179 million and will add another 390 megawatts of mining capacity to Marathon Digital. That is on top of its current 584-megawatt output. Thiel noted:
“We continue to target 30% growth in energized hash rate in 2024 […] we expect to reach 50 exahashes in the next 18 to 24 months.”
It might be worth mentioning that Marathon’s growth efforts have recently been paying off. As Coinspeaker reported on December 28, its MARA stock topped the US trading charts. That was after the company saw a huge daily trading volume of $3.3 billion on the day, which was enough to beat out market giants such as Tesla, Apple, and Amazon on the day.
More so, most Bitcoin mining firms have been racing to expand their businesses ahead of an expected approval of a spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF). Additionally, they also want to establish an advantage over their competitors ahead of the Bitcoin halving scheduled for April.
In line with these, rival miner Riot Platforms similarly acquired extra Bitcoin mining rigs for $291 million in early December.
