Marathon Digital Holdings, a cryptocurrency mining company, has sold a portion of its Bitcoin (BTC), making it the second largest publicly-listed Bitcoin holder.
In a February 2nd update, the firm stated that it had sold 1,500 bitcoins during January. This is equivalent to $35.3 Million at current pricing.
Charlie Schumacher is the vice president of corporate communications at Marathon. He stated that although some crypto miners may have felt compelled by current market conditions to sell Bitcoin, Marathon does not feel this way.
Schumacher claimed that Marathon was diamond-handling its Bitcoin to this point due to the fact that the company did not want it to go under while production was low. Marathon is optimistic about the long-term prospects for the most well-known cryptocurrency.
Marathon however plans to enter 2019 with a “war chest”, which will include both cash and bitcoin. In addition, the company will continue to reduce its debt and increase its cash reserves.
Schumacher also stated that the recent bitcoin price rise was another factor that led to Schumacher’s decision to sell a portion of its assets.
Bitcoin prices broke above the $24,000 threshold for only the second time since August. This was the same month as January.
Marathon was still able to raise its total unconstrained Bitcoin holdings for the month to 8,090 BTC, equivalent to $189.8million, even after the transaction.
Marathon stated that it has significantly increased Bitcoin output during January, creating 687 BTC. This is a 45% increase over the previous month’s production. In the most recent update, Fred Thiel, chairman and CEO at Marathon, stated that “the improvement in our Bitcoin production was primarily due to our team’s ability in tandem with McCamey, Texas to address the maintenance-related technical issues at King Mountain data center that had suppressed bitcoin production in quarter four of 2022.” This information was updated in May 4, 2018, from the year before. Marathon claimed that the last time it sold Bitcoin was in May 2014.
Schumacher, when asked how it managed to sell the primary product of its business operations avoided selling, referred to the company’s small staff of 32 people as of today and said that it was due to strong long-term financial planning.
CoinGecko says Marathon is the second-largest publicly traded holder of Bitcoin. MicroStrategy, an analytics firm that specializes in software analytics, is the largest publicly traded holder. MarketWatch reported that the company’s stock value has increased 135% this year to $8. This has caused a dramatic increase in its share price, as it has been reporting for the past few days.
