The Nasdaq-listed mining company Marathon Patent Group allocated $150 million from its reserves to purchase its first cryptocurrency, The Block reports.
According to CEO Merrick Okamoto, on January 21 it purchased 4,813 BTC through the cryptocurrency fund manager New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG).
The purchase was made at an average price of $31 135 “within a few hours” from idea to execution, NYDIG reported. According to CoinGecko, at the time of writing the Bitcoin price stood at $34 330.
This is the first cryptocurrency purchase among publicly traded mining companies. Okamoto stressed that Marathon plans to increase its position.
“As with MicroStrategy, we believe that holding part of our reserves in Bitcoin will be a better long-term strategy than in US dollars,” said the executive.
Earlier, Marathon opened the sale of 12.5 million shares to raise $250 million to purchase new devices for cryptocurrency mining. According to Okamoto, the company had $425 million in reserves before this deal.
Earlier, on January 22, the analytics software provider MicroStrategy also purchased its first cryptocurrency for $10 million at an average price of $31 808.
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