On January 25, 2020, Marathon announced that it had bought 4812.66 Bitcoin worth $150 million. Marathon, which is one of the biggest enterprise Bitcoin self-mining firms in North America, now joins a special class of companies. It has secured its position as one of the only Nasdaq-listed pure-play investment options for investors seeking BTC exposure.
How They Purchased Bitcoin
To ensure the purchase was successful, Marathon collaborated with NYDIG, a leading company in the tech and financial services sector whose sole focus is BTC. The expertise of NYDIG in the trading, execution, and asset management field helped Marathon execute the transaction as effectively as possible.
What the Leaders Are Saying
According to Merrick Okamoto, the Marathon CEO, the $150 million BTC purchase would accelerate the company’s growth into what they believe will be a defector investment choice for investors seeking BTC exposure. He added that the company believed holding BTC as part of their reserves was a better strategy in the long term compared to holding USD. He pointed to a similar strategy employed by companies such as MicroStrategy, which recently bought over $400 million worth of BTC.
Discussing the firm’s BTC mining business, Okamoto said that the company had contracted to buy 103,060 miners thus far. He noted that all the miners were expected to be delivered and deployed by the end of Q1 2022. Okamoto added that if their expected miners were deployed, they would have been producing around 55-60 BTC per day based on the current difficulty rate. He added that by investing their available cash in BTC now, they had transformed their potential of being a pure-play investment into a reality.
Commenting on the development, the CEO of NYDIG, Robby Gutmann, said that they admired the commitment of Marathon to the BTC ecosystem. He added that they were pleased to add them to the list of companies using NYDIG services for corporate treasury solutions.
Gutmann added that NYDIG was uniquely positioned to assist corporations that are trying to navigate challenges such as execution and holding large sums of BTC. He concluded by stating,
“Our ability to deliver Marathon a tailored and custom solution, with a quick turnaround, and no market impact, is why corporations and insurance companies choose NYDIG.”
About NYDIG
NYDIG is a company founded in 2017 as the digital asset subsidiary of Stone Ridge Holdings Group. The company meets the highest regulatory, audit, and governance standards. It is amongst the select group of companies that have BitLicense as well as a limited purpose trust charter from the New York State Department of Financial Services.
The decision by Marathon to hold large amounts of treasury reserves in Bitcoin is quite commendable. By doing so, it will allow institutional investors to gain exposure to BTC via a trusted company with experience in the crypto ecosystem. The company joins a select group of companies that are providing some level of Bitcoin exposure to mainstream investors. It is seen as one of the reasons behind the recent BTC Bull Run. Many view it as a sign that the crypto market is finally becoming a mainstream investment. However, there is still a lot of work before that becomes a reality.
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