Marathon Digital Beats Q1 Sales, EBITDA Estimates

Marathon Digital (MARA), one of the largest publicly traded bitcoin (BTC) mining companies, reported first-quarter sales of $51.7 million, rising 465% from the year-ago quarter and just ahead of the consensus analyst estimate of $51.5 million, according to FactSet data.

• Marathon’s first-quarter adjusted EBITDA was $39.4 million versus the consensus estimate of $38 million, according to FactSet.
• Its GAAP net loss for the first quarter was $13 million, or 13 cents per share, versus net income of $83.4 million, or 87 cents per share, in the prior year quarter.
• The first quarter included $19.6 million in impairment charges related to its self-mined bitcoin, and a $5.5 million decrease in the fair market value of the company’s investment fund.
• “Given the progress we have made to date in deploying behind the meter, we believe we will be through our backlog of miners and fully back on track with deployments before the end of this year, keeping us on pace to reach 23.3 [exahashes per second] by early 2023,” said Fred Thiel, Marathon’s chairman and CEO.
• Marathon produced 1,259 self-mined bitcoin during the first quarter, an increase of 556% from the year-ago quarter and up 15% from last quarter.
• The miner’s cash on hand was $118.5 million as of March 31, while total liquidity, defined as cash on hand plus available revolving credit facilities, was $218.5 million.
• Earlier on Wednesday, the company said it's still “cautiously optimistic” about meeting early-2023 hashrate guidance and said monthly bitcoin production fell about 31% in April due to weather and maintenance issues.
• Shares of the miner were down about 0.5% to $17.68 in post-market trading Wednesday. Its stock has fallen by more than 45% this year but rose 5.8% during the day’s session on Wednesday. The price of bitcoin rose 5.4% over the last 24 hours after the U.S. Federal Reserve officials decided to raise the benchmark interest rate by a half percentage point.
• Marathon is hosting its first-ever earnings conference call on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. ET.