Marathon Digital, the US-based Bitcoin (BTC) mining giant, has announced the purchase of additional Bitcoin mining hardware from Bitmain.
It has been reported that Marathon has completed a purchase deal for 30,000 Antminer S19j Pro at a reported cost of $120.7 million. The news marks a continued increase of Marathon’s Bitcoin mining inventory, with Bitmain expected to complete the delivery of the new rigs by June 2022.
However, with the 30,000 rigs in tow, Marathon’s total Bitcoin miner count will go north of 133,000, delivering an estimated hash rate of 13.3 exahashes per second (EH/s). To put the figure into perspective, data from BTC.com puts the top three BTC mining pools at between 13.16 EH/s and 18.67 EH/s.
The report said that at 13.3 EH/s per second, Marathon will effectively control over 12% of the current Bitcoin mining hash rate.
Fred Thiel, the CEO of Marathon Digital, said:
“Increasing our percentage of the total network’s hash rate increases our probability of earning Bitcoin, and given the uniquely favorable conditions in the current mining environment, we believe it is an opportune time to add new miners to our operations.”
Likewise, China’s Bitcoin mining crackdown has upended the global hash rate distribution, with North American participants expected to control a larger portion of the industry. Even before Beijing’s actions against crypto mining, American and Canadian mining giants upscaled their capacity with new inventory from the two major Bitcoin makers - Bitmain and MicroBT. The East-to-West hash rate migration may also serve to improve the carbon footprint associated with Bitcoin mining.
Marathon is among a growing list of US miners reportedly committed to “green mining.”
Thus, in the meantime, Chinese miners have reportedly begun to set up shop in Kazakhstan, with the immediate impact being an increase in the Bitcoin mining hash rate.
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: Nikkei Asia
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