Marathon Digital buys $249m in Bitcoin after raising $300m from convertible notes

Marathon Digital has bought $249 million worth of Bitcoin using funds raised from a $300 million offering of convertible senior notes.

In an Aug. 14 press release, Marathon, which is the largest public Bitcoin (BTC) miner by realized hash rate, said it had raised $300 million, which was reduced to $292.5 million after deducting discounts and commissions. It then used $249 million from that amount to buy 4,144 BTC at an average price of $59,500.

The funds were raised through debt security in the form of 2.125% senior notes maturing in 2031, which were sold in an oversubscribed private offering to qualified institutional buyers.

Marathon said it would use the remaining funds, about $43 million, to buy even more Bitcoin and for general corporate purposes, including debt repayments and strategic expansions.

In July, the Bitcoin miner bought $100 million worth of BTC and announced that it would retain all the Bitcoin it mined going forward. Adding the 4,144 BTC it just bought, Marathon now holds more than 25,000 coins with a market value of $1.46 billion.

Despite news of the purchase, Marathon Digital’s stock still fell 2.26% to trade at $15.14 by the close of business on Aug. 14. Additionally, its revenues for the second quarter of 2024 fell short of expectations, reaching $145 million compared to the $165.2 million it made between January and March 2024. This may have been a result of the increased cost of Bitcoin mining, which doubled even as Marathon grew its hash rate.

However, year-on-year growth was up 78%, with the miner only making $81.8 million in Q2 2023. Furthermore, the company added about 25,000 new Bitcoin mining rigs to its operations, bringing the total to about 250,000 machines. This pushed up its hash rate to 24.7 EH/s, which bettered some of its biggest rivals, including Riot and Core Scientific.