coindesk.com
Aiming to reach its targeted hashrate guidance of 23.3 exahash per second (EH/s) in 2023, Marathon Digital (MARA) – one of the largest bitcoin miners – has signed about 254 megawatts (MW) of new hosting deals.
The miner had previously said it expected to have 23.3 EH/s hashrate capacity installed by early 2022, but continued delays in Texas and ongoing maintenance issues at the company’s Hardin, Montana facility had raised doubts about reaching that guidance.
“With these new arrangements, we believe we have now secured enough hosting capacity to support our target of achieving approximately 23.3 exahashes per second of computing power for Bitcoin mining in 2023,” Fred Thiel, Marathon’s chairman and CEO, said in a statement on Monday.
Among the deals, Marathon signed a roughly 200MW agreement with hosting company Applied Blockchain (APLD). Applied will supply Marathon with 90MW of hosting capacity at its Texas location and at least 110MW at a second facility in North Dakota, allowing for a total of about 66,000 miners representing approximately 9.2 EH/s, according to the statement. The deal will mark the largest agreement for the hosting company, which went public in April last year.
Applied’s facilities are currently under construction and installation is expected to start during the fourth quarter of 2022 and be completed by mid-2023. The company has power secured and ready for all of Marathon’s mining rigs upon construction completion, CEO Wes Cummins told CoinDesk.
Marathon will also have the option to increase its hosting capacities with Applied, for up to 70MW at the North Dakota facilities.
Read more: Marathon Digital Continues to Hodl All Bitcoin but Hints at Strategy Change
Marathon has also signed additional deals with its existing partner Compute North to include 42MW of hosting capacity at Compute North’s facility near Granbury, Texas. Marathon expects to have an additional 14,000 miners installed at this facility, bringing the total number running near Granbury to about 26,000 miners, representing approximately 3.6 EH/s. All of the miners are expected to be installed at this facility before the end of 2022, according to the statement.
Additionally, Marathon has also signed for 12MW of additional hosting capacity with a variety of other providers and expects to install about 4,000 miners with 0.8 EH/s of mining capacity in those locations, starting in August.
Shares of Marathon were up more than 20% on Monday alongside a bounce in the price of bitcoin to $22,000. Applied is ahead 2%. Marathon remains lower by about 70% this year as the bear market continues to take a bite out of publicly traded miners’ shares.