Marathon to Double Bitcoin Hashrate to 50 EH/s

Mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings has raised its target hashrate for the leading cryptocurrency network to 50 EH/s by the end of 2024.

Today, we announced that we are increasing our hash rate target for fiscal year 2024 from 35-37 EH/s to 50 EH/s. Read the full press release: https://t.co/w5QHQIVsu7

— MARA (@MarathonDH) April 25, 2024

The company began the year with 24.7 EH/s and initially planned to increase this by approximately 46% to 35-37 EH/s by year-end.

“Given the amount of capacity we have following our recent acquisitions and the hashrate we can access through current orders and equipment options, we now believe we can double our mining operations in 2024 and reach 50 EH/s,” said Marathon Chairman and CEO Fred Thiel.

According to him, the company will fully fund the expansion from its own resources without external capital.

As of March 31, Marathon’s accumulated bitcoin reserves amounted to 17,381 BTC (~$1.12 billion at the time of writing).

The firm will announce its first-quarter financial results in early May. According to the annual report, as of December 31, 2023, cash and equivalents on the balance sheet were $357.3 million, with debt obligations estimated at $331 million.

The recent acquisitions mentioned by Thiel include:

• two bitcoin farms with a capacity of 370 MW from Generate Capital in Nebraska and Texas;
• a 200 MW data center from Applied Digital Corporation in Texas.

In November 2023, the company began mining operations at a facility in Paraguay and launched a pilot project for mining digital gold using landfill gas energy. Marathon operates a joint venture in Abu Dhabi and has considered expanding into Africa.

The company boasts the largest hashrate among public bitcoin miners, significantly ahead of Core Scientific (16.9 EH/s) and Riot Platforms (12.4 EH/s).

CleanSpark, ranking in the top five, announced plans to double its current 10 EH/s by the end of June.

“We started the year right around 10 EH/s… We are on a trajectory to more than double our operating capacity, and therefore our bitcoin production by the end of June… We actually have some big plans leading into the end of the year. Optimally, what we’re going to do is look to…

— CleanSpark Inc. (@CleanSpark_Inc) April 25, 2024

“We actually have some big plans leading into the end of the year. Optimally, we’re going to triple [the hashrate],” stated the firm’s CEO, Zach Bradford, in an interview with Larry Jones.

The global computational power of the bitcoin network stands at 642 EH/s (7DMA), according to Glassnode. The figure is gradually returning to the peak of 649.6 EH/s, reached just before the halving on April 20.

On April 24, following the latest adjustment, the mining difficulty of the leading cryptocurrency reached a record high of 88.1 T.