Marathon Digital (MARA) observed declining stock price as it did not meet Wall Street’s profit expectations. The price fell as much as 8% on Thursday with the announcement of its second-quarter revenues. It reported $145.1 million, falling short of the $157.9 million estimate.
Marathon faced numerous obstacles, including operational ones that hampered its ability to mine at its usual capacity and the reduced mining rewards caused by April’s halving event. In a statement, Marathon CEO Fred Thiel mentioned, “During the second quarter of 2024, our BTC production was impacted by unexpected equipment failures and transmission line maintenance at the Ellendale site operated by Applied Digital, increased global hash rate, and the April halving event.”
Regardless, Thiel added that the Ellendale transmission line maintenance was completed at the end of the quarter, letting Marathon clock an all-time high hash rate of 31.5 exahash. Now, it targets reaching 50 exahash by the end of the year to mine as much bitcoin as possible and register increased profits in the face of the post-halving block rewards.
On Marathon’s positioning going forward, Thiel said, “We are beginning to lay the foundation for MARA to become a globally diversified company that leverages digital asset compute to build a more sustainable and inclusive future. During the quarter, we organized the internal structure of the business to better align with our growth opportunities, sharpen our strategic focus, bolster accountability, and accelerate our speed and agility as we scale.”
He also mentioned the areas Marathon will focus on, “MARA is now a streamlined organization consisting of three specialized business teams: Utility Scale Mining, Energy Harvesting, and Technology.” Furthermore, Marathon recently shifted to a HODL strategy, buying $100 million worth of bitcoin from the open market and pledging to hold the rewards it receives from the network by mining.
It had sold 51% of the bitcoin it earned in the second quarter to cover its operational expenses.
