Marathon to purchase 200MW Bitcoin mining center from Applied Digital for $87.3M

Marathon Digital is closing in on the “Flux Capacitor” when it comes to sheer watts.

Marathon Digital Holdings announced on March 15 that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Applied Digital to purchase a 200-megawatt (MW) Bitcoin mining facility located in Texas for $87.3 million. 

The agreement specifies that Marathon will pay the purchase price in cash from its holdings, making the transaction final once all price adjustments are settled.

Per a post on Marathon Digital’s blog, the acquisition will bring the company’s total Bitcoin (BTC) mining capacity to approximately 1.1 gigawatts of capacity — just shy of the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity needed to power the fictional “Flux Capacitor” from the Back to The Future film franchise.

Fred Thiel, Marathon’s chairman and CEO, commented:

“This transaction increases our influence over our current operations, reduces our cost per coin by approximately 20% at the site, and provides us with an additional 100 megawatts of capacity in which to expand. […] Following the close of this transaction and the anticipated expansion of the site this year, our Bitcoin mining portfolio will consist of approximately 1.1 gigawatts of capacity, 54% of which will reside on sites we directly own and operate, and all of which are diversified across eleven sites on three continents.”

As Cointelegraph reported recently, Marathon Digital had its best-performing revenue year in 2023, raking in $387.5 million — up 229% from the previous year and 452% for the fourth quarter.

The increase in revenue was attributed to the Bitcoin rally of late 2023 and a 147% increase in Bitcoin production year-over-year for Marathon Digital.

In late February, Marathon unveiled a new direct Bitcoin transaction submission service. Called “Slipstream,” the new service was designed and implemented to facilitate and speed up large and/or non-standard transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain.

Next up, mining companies such as Marathon Digital will have to navigate the impending Bitcoin halving. This event, which will occur once a certain amount of blocks have been mined on the Bitcoin blockchain — currently, it’s anticipated to occur in mid-April — could have an outsized effect on large-scale mining organizations. The rewards for mining a block will be reduced by 50% from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.

Related: Bitcoin Halving: Latest News, Full Coverage by Cointelegraph