Marathon digital holdings, inc (NASDAQ:MARA) (“Marathon” or “Company”)a leader in supporting and securing the Bitcoin ecosystem, today released unaudited bitcoin (“BTC”) mining and production facility updates for May 2023.
Management Explanation
We produced a record 1245 bitcoins in May, up 77% from last month and up 366% from May 2022,” said Fred Thiel, president and chief executive officer of Marathon. “The increase in production was due to a higher hash rate and a significant increase in transaction fees, which accounted for approximately 11.8 % of the total bitcoin we earned in the last month. The emergence of Ordinals significantly increased transaction fees in May, which in some cases were so high that they exceeded the per block reward of 6.25 BTC. With our scale and improved uptime during the month, we were able to capitalize on this opportunity. While such abnormally high transaction fees are historically rare, we believe these events can serve as a positive sign for the future of the mining economy.
In May, we increased our operating hash rate by 9% per month to 15.2 exahashes, and increased our installed hash rate by 13% per month to 20.1 exahashes. With the construction progress at Applied Digital’s Ellendale, ND facility and continued optimizations to our fleet, we believe we are on track to reach our target of 23 EH/s by the middle of this year.
Also in May, we announced that we would join forces with Brink to raise up to $1 million to support Bitcoin Core developers. In less than four days, we collectively raised nearly $800,000 for Bitcoin Core developers, $500,000 of which is Marathon’s contribution. We are incredibly grateful to the Bitcoin community for supporting this initiative to support the volunteers who maintain the open source protocol we all depend on. We encourage all Bitcoiner and Bitcoin-related companies to support Bitcoin Core developers and join us in closing the gap and raising $1 million for Bitcoin Core developers.”
Operational Highlights and Updates
In May, approximately 5500 of Marathon’s Bitcoin miners (c. 0.75 EH/s) were newly energized at Applied Digital’s North Dakota facility. Approximately 5300 S19 XP (c. 0.72 EH/s) were recently energized in Ellendale, ND. The remaining units were energized at the Jamestown, ND facility, where Marathon’s first national deployment of immersion mining is underway.
As a result, the Company’s operating fleet increased to approximately 133,600 Bitcoin 600 Bitcoin miners, theoretically capable of producing approximately 15.2 EH/s, according to the manufacturer’s specifications, as of June 1, 2023.
Once all of Marathon’s previously purchased miners are installed, approximately 66% of the company’s hash rate is expected to be generated by S19 XP, which are approximately 30% more energy efficient than the previous generation of mining rigs.
Financial Highlights and Upgrades
As of June 1, Marathon holds a total of 12 259 BTC, all of which are unrestricted. The Company elected to sell 554 BTC during the month of May and intends to sell a portion of its bitcoin holdings in future periods to support monthly operations, manage its treasury and for general corporate purposes. The Company ended the month with $97.3 million in unrestricted cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet.
By Marina Meza
