Crypto miner development initiatives forward of the bitcoin halving usually are not slowing down, as one of many area’s largest gamers continues its string of acquisitions.
Marathon Digital is ready to purchase a Texas bitcoin mining facility owned by Utilized Digital for roughly $87 million in money, the corporate stated in a Friday information launch.
The information middle — positioned subsequent to a wind farm — has a capability of 200 megawatts (MW).
Along with taking direct possession of its present operations on the web site, the agency added, Marathon intends to develop its presence on the facility by 100 MW by the top of the 12 months.
Marathon Digital is already a titan within the mining area, with 28.7 exahashes per second (EH/s) of energized self-mining hash fee on the finish of February.
The deliberate purchase is per Florida-based Marathon’s intention to scale up earlier than the subsequent bitcoin halving — slated for round April 20. Throughout this occasion, which happens roughly each 4 years, per-block rewards will drop from 6.25 BTC to three.125 BTC.
That is set to place monetary stress on firms within the sector — significantly smaller, less-efficient miners with much less entry to capital and excessive power prices.
Learn extra: Bitcoin miner consolidation seems imminent as halving looms
Marathon executives stated through the firm’s earnings name final month that they might look to make use of its steadiness sheet — comprising roughly $1 billion value of unrestricted money and bitcoin mixed, as of Jan. 31 — to almost double its hash fee to 50 EH/s by the top of 2025.
“Bitcoin mining is a zero-sum sport,” Marathon CEO Thiel stated on the time. “There are solely so many bitcoins out there per day. And for those who’re not on the market rising our hash fee, you’re falling backwards.”
Marathon closed its acquisition of two mining services in Texas and Nebraska in January. It paid about $179 million for 390 MW of mining capability in that deal and terminated competitor Hut 8’s involvement in overseeing the services.
The most recent introduced buy is ready to spice up the quantity of Marathon mining capability housed on websites it owns and operates to 54%, the corporate added.
Marathon Digital is just not the one mining firm making strikes forward of the halving.
Riot Platforms purchased 31,500 extra miners from MicroBT for $97.4 million final month — at which level competitor CleanSpark closed its acquisition of three information facilities in Mississippi.
Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot instructed Blockworks that whereas development can be on his firm’s thoughts, it might look to be cost-conscious in its scaling initiatives.
