Bitcoin Miner Marathon Digital Is Moving Higher Thursday: What's Going On?

Marathon Digital Holdings Inc MARA shares are trading higher Thursday after the company provided a Bitcoin BTC/USD production update for December.

What Happened: Marathon reported record production of 1,853 bitcoin last month bringing total bitcoin production for 2023 up to 12,852. The company now owns more than 15,000 bitcoin.

Marathon also said it increased its average operational hash rate 18% month-over-month to 22.4 exahashes, which helped drive the record production numbers. 

"In December, we increased our energized hash rate 4% to 24.7 exahashes and extended our lead as the largest publicly traded bitcoin miner in North America. We continue to target 30% growth in energized hash rate in 2024," said Fred Thiel, chairman and CEO of Marathon Digital.

"The recently announced acquisition of the sites in Granbury, TX and Kearney, NE, which is expected to close in January 2024, is expected to improve our cost structure and increase our near-term growth potential. This transaction is on track to close in mid-January and with new miners already on order, we expect to be able to quickly fill available capacity."

Marathon ended 2023 with $1 billion in cash and bitcoin. 

Marathon Digital shares also appear to be moving higher alongside the price of bitcoin. At the time of publication, bitcoin was up 2.07% over a 24-hour period at $43,319. Bitcoin is up more than 150% over a one-year period.

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MARA Price Action: Marathon Digital shares were up 3.22% at $24.19 at the time of publication, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: Eivind Pedersen from Pixabay.