Marathon Digital Expands Bitcoin Holdings with $100 Million Purchase

MARA, formerly known as Marathon Digital, has increased its strategic bitcoin reserve to 20,000 BTC (approximately $1.3 billion) following an additional $100 million investment by the public mining company.

Today, we are announcing that MARA has purchased $100,000,000 worth of BTC. And effective immediately, we are once again adopting a full HODL strategy. Learn more about our #Bitcoin Strategic Reserve: pic.twitter.com/pYxiclOtQa

— MARA (@MarathonDH) July 25, 2024

The management announced their readiness to implement a “full HODL” strategy regarding their digital gold reserves.

This approach involves retaining mined bitcoins with further strategic acquisitions of coins, funded through cash and capital raising.

“The first cryptocurrency is the best asset for treasuries worldwide. We support the idea of sovereign funds acquiring the asset and urge governments and corporations to hold digital gold as a reserve asset,” commented MARA Chairman and CEO Fred Thiel to The Block.

Among public companies, MARA ranks second after MicroStrategy in terms of bitcoin holdings. The firm owns 0.095% of the available supply.

MARA does not disclose the average cost of the acquired coins.

CFO Salman Khan noted that the organization leveraged “the strategic advantage of favorable market conditions for opportunistic purchases.”

Khan emphasized that the majority of the coins reflected on the balance sheet were obtained through MARA’s own mining efforts.

“Given the current favorable conditions, including increased institutional support for the asset and an improving macroeconomic situation, we are once again implementing this strategy and focusing on replenishing digital gold,” explained the top manager.

The recent decline in bitcoin prices provided an opportunity to replenish reserves, Khan indicated.

The company began investing in the first cryptocurrency in January 2021, initially allocating $150 million for this purpose.

Earlier, Bernstein highlighted the promising prospects for shares of Marathon, Riot, and CleanSpark, which are poised to increase their share in the bitcoin mining market, partly through capital raising.