Marathon Digital Adds New BTC Mining Sites as Bitcoin ETF Craze Heats Up

It hasn’t been a great start to the year for Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA), as shares of the Bitcoin (BTC-USD) mining company have already shed more than 20%. This was largely attributed to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC’s) approval of several spot Bitcoin exchange-traded products (ETPs). Following the approval, 11 Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) made their debut on the market.

Bitcoin ETFs aren’t good news for Marathon, as many shareholders had invested in MARA stock as a proxy for Bitcoin. With Bitcoin ETFs now on the market, shareholders may want to purchase the ETFs over Marathon.

Still, Marathon isn’t going away quietly. This morning, the company announced that it had closed its previously announced acquisition of two Bitcoin mining sites with a combined capacity of 390 megawatts of operational capacity.

MARA Stock: Marathon Closes Acquisition of Two Bitcoin Mining Sites

Marathon previously had a total capacity of 584 megawatts before the acquisition. The Bitcoin mining company purchased the sites from subsidiaries of Generate Capital for $178.6 million in cash, or $458,000 per megawatt.

“Our mining portfolio now consists of approximately 910 megawatts of capacity, 45% of which resides on sites we directly own, and 55% of which is hosted by third parties,” said CEO and Chairman Fred Thiel. “We look forward to integrating these assets into our portfolio, where we can leverage our cutting-edge technologies to improve efficiencies, and, over the next 18-24 months, scaling our operations to 50 exahashes of capacity.”

Additionally, 244 of the 390 megawatts are occupied by other miners. Eighty-two megawatts are vacant and ready for expansion. Meanwhile, the remaining 64 megawatts are already controlled by Marathon and available for operational improvements. Marathon intends to take control of the 244 megawatts once the hosts leave the site. In total, the transaction should reduce Marathon’s cost per coin at its current operations by about 30%.

Meanwhile, Marathon had a record December, mining 1,853 Bitcoins, bringing its 2023 total to 12,852. Its average operational hash rate increased by 18% month-over-month to 22.4 exahashes per second.

On the date of publication, Eddie Pan did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.