Key Points
- Marathon Digital Holdings (MDH) has planned to purchase a 200-megawatt data center in Texas for $87.3 million.
- The acquisition will increase the company’s mining capacity, offsetting potential profit losses from the upcoming halving of bitcoin rewards.
Marathon Digital Holdings is expanding its cryptocurrency mining resources. The expansion comes in anticipation of a scheduled change to the Bitcoin blockchain’s programming that could potentially impact its profits.
Acquisition of a Data Center
On Thursday, the company revealed its plans to acquire a 200-megawatt data center in Texas for $87.3 million. This move is expected to significantly alter Marathon’s mining operations.
Upon completion of this acquisition and the expected site expansion in 2024, Marathon will have boosted its mining portfolio to 1.1 gigawatts. Notably, 54% of this will be located on sites directly owned and operated by Marathon. Currently, only 3% of its mining takes place on facilities owned and operated by the company.
Preparing for Bitcoin Halving
The increased mining capacity will enable Marathon to mine larger volumes of Bitcoin. This is a strategic move to counterbalance potential profit losses due to the upcoming drastic halving of Bitcoin rewards for miners in April.
Marathon’s stock is currently trading at $19.64, showing an increase of nearly 8%.
Marathon is one of the few large public mining companies that have survived the recent “crypto winter” and continues to operate as Bitcoin prices hit new all-time highs in 2024. Over the past few years, competitors such as Celsius Mining and Compute North have filed for bankruptcy, opening the way for Marathon to take the lead in what was once a crowded field.
Bitcoin was trading at $68,798 on Friday at 3:53 p.m. EDT, marking a 1.5% decrease from the previous day.
