Marathon Patent Group, a mining company traded on the Nasdaq exchange, bought 4,813 BTC for $ 150 million. This is the first time a bitcoin mining company bought them on the market.
In mid-January, Marathon managed to raise $ 250 million. When asked if the funds were used to buy bitcoin, Marathon CEO Merrick Okamoto said that the purchase was made from the company’s budget. She already had $ 425 million in cash, and some of it was invested in bitcoin.
Okamoto is convinced that by investing cash in the first cryptocurrency, the company has made a profitable investment. Storing a certain part of the reserves in bitcoins will be much more profitable than in US dollars. Okamoto believes that Bitcoin will become one of the most profitable assets in the long term. Therefore, we need to follow the lead of other forward-thinking bitcoin investing firms such as MicroStrategy. This company has already invested more than $ 475 million in bitcoin, and has issued bonds for $ 650 million to buy bitcoin. The transaction was made with the participation of the investment company New York Digital Investments Group (NYDIG) on January 21, at a price of $ 31,135. Recall that last month NYDIG helped the insurance giant MassMutual invest $ 100 million in bitcoin.
Marathon Patent Group has been mining bitcoin since the end of 2017. The company has 23,560 mining devices at its disposal, producing from 1.5 to 2 BTC per day. To scale up operations, Marathon bought 70,000 Antminer S19 Pro from Bitmain in December. The total number of ordered ASIC miners is 100,500 devices worth $ 270 million.
Okamoto said Bitmain will begin shipping hardware this week. After the launch of the entire batch, the computing power of the company will exceed 10.34 exaches. According to Okamoto, thanks to the increase in hashrate, Marathon will be able to mine 55-60 BTC per day and the company will become one of the largest bitcoin miners.
Okamoto added that Marathon is “uniquely placed to succeed” through a joint venture with energy company Beowulf Energy. This will allow receiving cheaper electricity for BTC mining. Most of the mining companies provide their area to individual miners. The average cost of such a hosting ranges from $ 0.05 to $ 0.06 per kW * h. The partnership with Beowulf will reduce the cost of electricity to $ 0.028, so the cost of mining 1 BTC will be reduced from $ 7,700 to $ 4,400. At the same time, Okamoto did not say whether Marathon plans to continue investing in bitcoin.
