Miner Marathon makes the first sale of Bitcoin in its history
CriptoFácil – For the first time in its history, mining company Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ:) made a sale of (BTC). The announcement came during the company’s earnings call, which revealed a sale of 1,500 BTC.
Based on current quotations, the sale generated R$179 million in revenue for the mining company, which also mined 687 BTC in January. This is a record amount and 45% more than the total amount of BTC mined in December.
Profits and Expenses
According to the company, the purpose of the sale was simply to make a profit from the strong appreciation of BTC in January. That is, the company took advantage of the recent rally in the cryptocurrency market to monetize part of these gains.
In addition, the sale of BTC will also serve to cover part of your expenses. Marathon points out that BTC production is still on the rise and, therefore, the current moment represents a good selling window.
“With Bitcoin production increasing and becoming more consistent, we made the strategic decision to sell some of our Bitcoins, as previously planned. We will use the proceeds to cover some of our operating expenses and for general corporate purposes,” said Marathon President and CEO Fred Thiel.
Prior to the sale, the miner had 12,918 BTC in its reserves. This means that Marathon has sold around 11.6% of its BTC. Finally, Marathon still has around 11,418 BTC in its reserve.
The move aligns the miner’s strategy with some of its peers, including Riot Platforms (RIOT), which started selling some of its mined BTC last year. In fact, Marathon was among the few miners that did not make a profit from selling the cryptocurrency.
The decision likely came after the price of BTC surged by around 40% in January. At the conference, the miner stated that it intends to continue to sell part of its new BTC this year, to finance its monthly operating costs.
network data
In terms of network participation, Marathon claimed it reached an operational hash rate of 11 exahash per second (EH/s) in January. For the first half of 2023, the company expects and plans to reach 23 EH/s.
According to BTC.com, Bitcoin’s network hashrate is currently around 282.55 EH/s, implying that Marathon has around 4% share. The company said it mined a record 687 bitcoins, up 45% from December last year.
“The improvement in our BTC production came as a result of our team’s ability to work closely with the new hosting provider in McCamey, Texas to resolve maintenance and technical issues at the King Mountain data center that had suppressed our BTC production. in the fourth quarter of 2022,” said Thiel.
The mining company’s shares rose on Thursday (2), accompanying the rest of the sector. However, the stock was down around 4% in aftermarket trading as BTC lost some of its momentum and also opened the day lower.
By CriptoFacil