Bitcoin Miner Marathon Digital to Buy New Mining Sites for $179M

Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital (MARA) said it will buy two new mining sites from subsidiaries of lending firm Generate Capital for $178.6 million.

The acquisition, which will add 390 megawatts of capacity, will be paid in cash from Marathon’s balance sheet, the company announced on Tuesday. Across the two sites, around 21% is vacant and available for expansion, 63% is occupied by bitcoin mining tenants and 16% is already occupied by Marathon. Marathon said it expects the acquisitions to reduce the cost per coin mined by around 30%.

Generate Capital acquired stakes in two mining sites from bankrupt miner Compute North for $5 million in November last year.

Bitcoin’s (BTC) anticipated halving in April 2024 is leading mining firms to reassess their operations to ensure they are prepared for the rewards for creating new BTC being cut by 50%. One such way is by acquiring smaller firms to bring greater scale to their mining activities. Marathon said earlier this month it had $800 million to use to that end.

Marathon’s Nasdaq-listed shares are currently up about 7% on the day at $21.29, in line with its mining peers. The bitcoin price has risen about 1.66% in the last 24 hours.