Why Marathon Digital and Other Crypto Mining Stocks Surged Today

The crypto mining industry consolidated a bit on Tuesday, and in reaction, investors bid up not only Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA 10.51%) — the company doing the consolidating — but other notable stocks in the business.

Marathon itself saw its stock price rise by almost 11%, while the smaller Cipher Mining (CIFR 14.33%) saw a more than 14% gain. TerraWulf (WULF 9.39%) and SOS Limited (SOS 10.08%) were also winners on the day, advancing a respective 9% and 10%. For perspective, the broad S&P 500 index inched up only 0.6%.

Marathon makes a nearly $180 million deal

Before market open, Marathon shook up the crypto miner scene by announcing that it had agreed to acquire a pair of Bitcoin (BTC -0.90%) mining sites. It bought the pair from subsidiaries of finance company Generate Capital at a price of $178.6 million. This purchase price is to be paid entirely in cash.

Together, the two sites — one located in Texas, the other in Nebraska — boast a total of 390 megawatts of capacity. That boils down to $458,000 per megawatt for the deal.

It’s a historic buy for Marathon, as the pair will become its first fully owned sites. After the deal closes, the company’s capacity will amount to 910 megawatts. Of this, 45% will consist of fully owned facilities, with the remainder held by third-party business partners.

In its press release on the acquisition, Marathon said that it expects to reduce the cost per coin of its Bitcoin mining operations at the new sites by 30%.

It also quoted CEO Fred Thiel as saying the deal is going to be transformative, morphing the company into “a more sophisticated and mature organization with a diversified portfolio of Bitcoin mining technologies and assets.”

Investors were clearly buying that argument, judging by how eagerly they pounced on Marathon stock post-announcement. The deal also led to speculation about other buyouts (and of the generally solid demand for Bitcoin mining facilities), hence the price appreciation of fellow miners like TerraWulf and SOS.

Going bananas for Bitcoin

Sentiment on Bitcoin miners, of course, generally depends on how the market feels about Bitcoin. While the price of the leading crypto has eased over the past few days, it’s still very high on a historic basis. In fact, it’s only topped the current $42,000-plus level during two bull runs earlier this decade. And if Bitcoin is a hot item, you can bet that any miner making a consolidation move is going to be rewarded accordingly.