Nasdaq-listed Marathon Patent Group (MARA), one of the largest enterprise bitcoin mining companies in North America, announced its pre-order purchase of 70,000 Antminer S-19 ASIC miners from Bitmain for $170 million, more than tripling the size of Marathon's fleet.
- “This purchase is the largest order in dollar terms as well as the single largest order for S-19 ASIC miners that Bitmain has ever received," said Marathon Chairman and CEO Merrick Okamoto.
- Marathon said it sees receiving an initial batch of 7,000 S-19 miners in July 2021 and the final shipment in December 2021.
- Marathon said its mining fleet will include more than 103,000 machines after this latest order has been received and deployed with a total mining capacity of 10.36 exahashes per second (EH/s).
- Shares of Marathon opened Monday trading nearly 30% higher than their Friday close, trading hands just below $14. But some gains were given back as the share price dipped roughly 5% around 15:30 UTC.
- The monster order comes after a holiday weekend in which the price of bitcoin hit a succession of new all-time highs.
Update (Dec. 28, 15:43 UTC): Updated with Marathon stock prices.