Mining company buys ASICs for a record amount

The mining giant Marathon says goodbye to 2021 with a bang: The company orders mining hardware for almost 900 million US dollars.

The deal will cost almost 900 million US dollars: the US mining giant Marathon Digital Holdings (Ticker: MARA) has the hardware manufacturer Bitmain ASIC miner ordered in record height. As from the official Announcement to the SEC shows, the companies have signed a supply contract for 78,000 Antminer S-19 XPs. The devices are to be delivered in six tranches of 13,000 pieces each – at a price of 151 million US dollars each. The first batch should be delivered as early as August next year; the last delivery should then take place in December 2022.

With the conclusion of the contract, Marathon intends to increase its hashrate to up to 23.3 EH / s – a total of 199,000 mining devices will then be in the possession of the listed company. With a hashrate of 23.3 EH / s, Marathon should become by far the largest mining company in the United States, if not the world. For comparison: The total hashrate of the BTC network is 167 exahashes per second at the hour. According to the current status, around 13 percent of the total hashrate would then be attributable to marathons.

In terms of hashrate, it’s the largest order Bitmain has ever received, says Marathon CEO Fred Thiel:

Given our strong balance sheet and asset-light model that allows us to invest our capital in mining machines rather than infrastructure, we were in a unique position to grab the largest single order of S19 XPs as measured by the total hash rate that BITMAIN has ever received.

Marathon CEO Fred Thiel

Marathon Digital Holdings puts a total of $ 879 million on the table. The company intends to operate the newly acquired devices primarily with renewable energy.

The shareholders, however, take the deal calmly: Before the market opens in the USA, the company is only trading 0.2 percent up.

The money for the investment probably came from the last $ 500 million loan.