Despite the sale, Nasdaq-listed miner Marathon continues to have one of the largest public bitcoin treasuries in the world.
Marathon Digital, a publicly traded bitcoin mining company, has announced the sale of bitcoin for the first time in two years.
“We intend to continue selling a portion of our bitcoin holdings in 2023 to fund monthly operating costs,” Marathon said. monthly mining update reads “Even with these sales, our unrestricted bitcoin holdings increased from 7,815 bitcoin as of December 31, 2022 to 8,090 bitcoin as of January 31, 2023, as our production improved and bitcoin price appreciation in January reduced the amount of bitcoin we had. posted as collateral. Additionally, we ended the month with $133.8 million in cash on hand without restrictions.”
Marathon Digital has amassed one of the largest public bitcoin holdings in the industry, second only to Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy. According to the firm’s update, the sale was not made out of any sort of heartbreak, but was instead a strategic financial move.
“In previous press releases and earnings calls, Marathon has indicated that the Company intends to sell a portion of its bitcoin holdings to cover operating expenses as production begins to ramp up,” the update reads. “With the improvement in production, Marathon opted to sell 1,500 BTC during January 2023.”
Marathon, like other bitcoin miners, had to weather a 2022 that saw various industry challenges, from rising electricity prices to widespread contagion that decimated the bitcoin price.
Despite these challenges, the update explains the company’s optimistic position, saying: “Looking ahead, our focus for the year is to energize more miners and optimize their performance. We remain confident in our ability to build Marathon into one of the largest and most energy efficient Bitcoin mining operations globally by installing approximately 23 exhashes of computing power by mid-2023.”
