Marathon Buys $150 Million Bitcoin with Treasury Reserves

The Nasdaq traded Marathon Patent Group has bought 4,812.66 BTC at an aggregate purchase price of $150 million.

The company has purchased bitcoin through the New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) at the average price of $31,168 per bitcoin.

“By purchasing $150 million worth of Bitcoin, we have accelerated the process of building Marathon into what we believe to be the de facto investment choice for individuals and institutions who are seeking exposure to this new asset class,” said Merrick Okamoto, Marathon’s chairman and CEO, before adding:

“We also believe that holding part of our Treasury reserves in Bitcoin will be a better long-term strategy than holding US Dollars, similar to other forward-thinking companies like MicroStrategy.

To date, we have contracted to purchase 103,060 miners, all of which are currently expected to be delivered and fully deployed by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2022.

If all miners were operational today, based on the Bitcoin network’s current difficulty rate, we would produce approximately 55-60 bitcoins per day.

However, by leveraging our cash on hand to invest in Bitcoin now, we have transformed our potential to be a pure-play investment into a reality.”

Despite its name, Marathon is a bitcoin miner. The company was bought off the shelf so to speak, restructuring from a paper public company to now rising as one at the forefront of the transformation in bitcoin mining as it starts going public.

They raised about $250 million recently to buy new miners, but there’s currently a chip shortage due to the lockdowns so delays are expected.

Instead of waiting in cash thus, the company is diversifying into bitcoin, making their purchase one of the biggest by a publicly traded company.

Source: Read Full Article