Marathon Buys Additional 10,000 Antminers to Become Largest US Bitcoin Miner

Nasdaq-listed Marathon Patent Group is buying 10,000 of the more efficient Antminer S19 Pro bitcoin miners from Bitmain in a deal worth millions of dollars.

▪ Marathon said the deal would boost the company’s operations to 23,560 next-generation miners, “making it the largest self-miner in North America”.

▪ When fully installed, the new machines will bring the firm’s total hashrate to 2.56 exahash per second (EH/s) – one of the world’s top 15 bitcoin miners.

▪ In August, Marathon bought another 10,500 miners of the same make for $23 million. Bitmain will deliver all the miners in batches starting in January through June.

▪ Marathon CEO Merrick Okamoto said the company’s mining operations had continued to grow “against the backdrop of recently increasing bitcoin prices.”

▪ The latest purchase comes just two weeks after Marathon, an $81.6 million-valued company, announced a joint venture agreement that reduces its electricity costs for extracting bitcoin by 38%.

▪ Shares of Marathon rose nearly 11% to $2.82 in pre-trading on Tuesday. Over the past 52 weeks, the stock touched a high of $5.25 and a low of $0.35.