Bitcoin Miner MARA Buys Texas Wind Farm to Boost Capabilities

Publicly traded Bitcoin mining firm MARA (formerly Marathon) completed its acquisition of a wind farm in Hansford County, Texas on Tuesday, adding 240 megawatts of interconnection capacity and 114 megawatts of operational wind generation to its capabilities.

The acquisition, which was first announced in December, is part of MARA’s objectives to “convert underutilized sustainable resources into economic value.”

Under MARA’s Advanced ASIC Retirement Initiative—an initiative to extend the ability for Bitcoin mining hardware to operate profitably beyond its typical lifecycle—the site will utilize resources that otherwise would have been discarded or sold on the secondary market.

“With this added renewable energy asset, MARA now owns and operates 136 megawatts of generating capacity, strengthening our position across the entire energy generation and Bitcoin mining process,” said MARA Chairman and CEO Fred Thiel, in a statement. “This acquisition not only extends the economic life of our ASIC miners, but also drives reduction in operational costs, bringing us closer to achieving near net-zero operating costs”

Beyond extending the hardware lifecycle of older Bitcoin mining machines, the acquisition is also expected to “enhance MARA's return on capital employed while reducing our operating costs and mitigating shareholder dilution,” according to the firm’s CFO Salman Khan.

The firm produced 750 Bitcoin via its mining operations in January, while upping its holdings to 45,659 Bitcoin. That’s more than $4.3 billion at current prices, making it the second largest holder of the top crypto asset among publicly traded companies. 

Shares of MARA are trading at $16.13 as of this writing, down 4.5% in the last 24 hours and 17.5% in the last month

Edited by Andrew Hayward