Marathon Digital Holdings (the world’s second-largest corporate Bitcoin owner, also known as MARA) has borrowed out approximately 16% of its reserve funds.

According to an update published on January 3rd, the company disclosed that they have temporarily lent out 7,377 Bitcoins, which currently have a value of approximately $730 million.

The combined bitcoin holdings (including loans) amounted to approximately 44,893 BTC by December 31st, translating to an impressive value of around $4.4 billion.

The company, which both mines and purchases Bitcoin, finds the hybrid strategy offers us great adaptability to procure Bitcoin when the prices are favorable, as they previously mentioned.

This also enables us to take advantage of fluctuations in the market by purchasing Bitcoin when its price drops, thereby reducing our overall purchase price.

‘Significant Interest’ in BTC Loans

MARA chose not to reveal the individuals who received Bitcoin (BTC) loans, however, Robert Samuels, the Director of Investor Relations, mentioned these loans were “temporary agreements with reputable external entities.

The company is producing a “relatively small, one-digit return” and has been actively involved in this type of lending during the year 2024, he noted.

He mentioned that there’s a lot of “strong demand” for MARA’s Bitcoin lending scheme. As he put it, the ultimate aim is to earn enough returns to cover the operational costs over time.

There’s been a lot of curiosity surrounding the BTC lending program offered by @MARAHoldings. Here are some additional details:

1. This program primarily involves short-term collaborations with trusted third parties.
2. It offers a relatively low, yet decent single-digit return.
3. The program has been operational throughout the year 2024.
4. In the long term, its objectives and potential benefits are under continued evaluation.

— Robert Samuels (@RobSamuelsIR) January 3, 2025

In the year 2024, the business disclosed that they extracted 9,457 Bitcoins and purchased another 22,065 Bitcoins at a median cost of approximately $87,205 each.

Fred Thiel, the chairman and CEO of MARA, stated that we not only reached but exceeded our year-end goal of a hashrate of 50 EH/s, but also boosted fleet efficiency to 20 J/TH,” said Fred Thiel, the head of MARA.

2024 saw Mara’s stock price mostly staying within a specific range, with only occasional increases. Nevertheless, on Friday, there was a significant jump of around 14%, causing the closing price to hit $19.73 in post-market trading.

Back in December, I found myself intrigued by Michael Saylor’s prediction that MARA, the company he founded, could potentially be the next Bitcoin firm to make it onto the Nasdaq 100.

Mining Ecosystem Outlook

Mining Bitcoin is essentially a challenging endeavor that faces fierce competition, as the rewards for creating blocks are halved approximately every four years. The most recent adjustment took place in April, reducing the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.

The computational strength behind the Bitcoin network achieved a new peak of 817 Quintillion Hashes per Second (EH/s) on January 3rd, as reported by Blockchain.com.

Currently, the earnings potential per unit of mining power (hash rate) is quite low, sitting around $0.057 for every Terahash processed per second daily, as reported by Hashrate Index.

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2025-01-07 01:36