Marathon Digital, a prominent Bitcoin miner, has announced an upward revision to its 2024 hash rate growth target in response to Bitcoin’s recent halving event. The reduction of miners’ block subsidy rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC has prompted the company to scale up its operations aggressively.
Beginning the year 2024 with a total hash rate of approximately 24.7 exahash per second (EH/s) across its mining facilities, Marathon initially aimed to increase its hash rate by around 46%, targeting 35-37 EH/s. However, due to increased machine orders and capacity following recent acquisitions, the company now anticipates reaching a fully funded hash rate of around 50 EH/s by the end of 2024.
Marathon’s Chairman and CEO, Fred Thiel, emphasized the feasibility of this growth target, stating, “Given the amount of capacity we have available following our recent acquisitions and the amount of hash rate we have access to through current machine orders and options, we now believe it is possible for us to double the scale of Marathon’s mining operations in 2024 and achieve 50 exahash by the end of the year.”
Thiel further highlighted that the growth target is fully funded, leveraging the company’s current liquidity position without the need for additional capital. He expressed confidence in deploying state-of-the-art equipment and proprietary technology to enhance fleet efficiency and achieve approximately 21 joules per terahash as the company scales up to 50 exahash.
Charlie Schumacher, Marathon Digital’s VP of Corporate Communications, emphasized that the mining industry effectively experienced a halving event last year. He noted that despite the challenges, the industry performed well, with Marathon and other leading miners prepared for the halving event through strategic planning and technology upgrades.
Analysts at research and brokerage firm Bernstein echoed this sentiment, indicating that despite recent underperformance in mining stocks, some miners are still achieving all-time highs in U.S. dollar revenue post-halving, bolstering their balance sheets.
While concerns about hash rate centralization persist due to consolidation among large public miners, the analysts anticipate further consolidation towards leading firms, including Marathon Digital, CleanSpark, Riot Platforms, and Cipher Mining.