Bitcoin Dips Below $60,000 as Miners Continue to Buy

The Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital acquired an additional $249 million worth of Bitcoin after raising $300 million from a senior notes offering.

On August 14, the miners announced that they had used a portion of the proceeds from the bond sale to purchase approximately 4,144 Bitcoin at an average price of about $59,500. This brought the company’s “strategic Bitcoin reserve to over 25,000 BTC,” as mentioned by the company on X.

Marathon netted around $292.5 million from the senior convertible notes maturing in September 2031, which carry an annual interest rate of 2.125% and can be converted into cash, Marathon stock, or both. The company stated that the remaining cash from the bond sale would be used to buy additional Bitcoin and for “general corporate purposes,” which could include strategic acquisitions.

A spokesperson for Marathon stated that they consider Bitcoin “the premier strategic treasury asset” and are “implementing a multifaceted strategy to acquire Bitcoin.”

The company’s latest Bitcoin accumulation follows its purchase of 2,282 BTC in July, valued at $124 million, which Marathon CEO and Chairman Fred Thiel described as part of their “hodl strategy”—a misspelling of the word “hold” that has become popular in the cryptocurrency lexicon.

Marathon stock (MARA) closed down 2.26% on the day, at $15.14. According to Google Finance, the company’s stock price has fallen nearly 34% year-to-date. Marathon’s Q2 earnings earlier this month missed Wall Street estimates, coming in 9% lower than the projected revenue of $145.1 million, but still up 78% year-over-year compared to Q2 2023.

This development comes as cryptocurrency mining profitability hits record lows following the Bitcoin halving event, which cut mining rewards in half. The hash rate for miners, a measure of mining profitability, hit an all-time low earlier this month. Blockbridge reported that large public miners are struggling to turn a profit, particularly Marathon, which had the highest all-in mining costs last month.