Despite the sale, Nasdaq-listed miner Marathon continues to hold one of the world’s largest public bitcoin treasuries.
Marathon Digital, a publicly traded bitcoin mining company, has announced its first bitcoin sale in two years.
“We intend to continue selling a portion of our bitcoin holdings in 2023 to fund our monthly operating costs,” Marathon’s monthly mining update said. “Even with these sales, our unrestricted bitcoin holdings increased from 7,815 bitcoins on December 31, 2022, to 8,090 bitcoins on January 31, 2023, as our production improved and the appreciation of bitcoin prices in January reduced the amount of bitcoins we had. Sent as collateral. Additionally, we ended the month with $133.8 million of unrestricted cash.
Marathon Digital has acquired one of the largest public bitcoin holdings in the industry, second only to Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy. According to the firm update, the sale was not made out of any form of distress, but as a strategic financial measure.
“In previous press releases and earnings calls, Marathon has indicated that the Company intends to sell a portion of its bitcoin holdings to cover operational costs as production begins to ramp up,” the update said. “With production improving, Marathon chooses to sell 1,500 BTC during January 2023.”
Marathon, like other bitcoin miners, will have to experience 2022 that is experiencing a variety of industry challenges, from increasing electricity prices to spreading contagion that reduces the price of bitcoin.
Despite these challenges, the update explains the optimistic position of the company, saying, “As we look forward, our focus this year is to energize more miners and optimize performance. We remain confident in our ability to scale Marathon into one of the mining operations Bitcoin is the largest and most energy efficient in the world by installing around 23 exahashes of computing power by the middle of 2023.