Mad Bitcoin Miners – The fact that the Bitcoin network’s hashrate is already at its all-time highs does not deter some. The Marathon Patent Group announces that it has placed a record order for specialized ASIC mining machines from Bitmain.
Marathon wants to have over 100,000 Antminer S19
Listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, the Marathon Patent Group company specializes in digital asset mining , a sector in which it is one of the main players in North America.
According to a press release issued on December 28, Marathon entered into a contract with Bitcoin Rush for the purchase of 70 000 miners type Antminer S19 .
Under the terms of the agreement, receipt of this gargantuan order will begin in July 2021 and is expected to end in December 2021.
With the 33,000 Antminer S19 miners that Marathon already owns today, the firm will therefore have a total of 103,000 latest generation bitcoin (BTC) miners .
“This purchase is (…) the largest S19 ASIC miner order Bitmain has ever received. We appreciate the hard work of their team to fulfill this order, as well as for the 30,000 S-19 miners that we have purchased since August 2020 (…) and we look forward to continuing to work with them to grow our business. “
The equivalent of more than 7% of Bitcoin’s global hahsrate
Once the order is fulfilled, the Marathon group will have a total computing power of 10.36 EH / s (exahashes per second).
If the BTC network’s proof-of-work consensus hashrate remained at 140 EH / s as it is now, Marathon alone would represent around 7.4% of this computing power.
One thing is certain in any case, with this order of 170 million dollars for its Antminers, Bitmain has already secured its 2021 season:
“The new contract for 70,000 Antminer S19 with Marathon convincingly demonstrates the major role of our S19, in providing our customers with world-class mining efficiency. (…) Marathon quickly became our biggest customer, and our partnership continues to mutually benefit both of our businesses. „
Irene Gao, Antminer Sales Director for North and South America
While listed companies, like MicroStrategy, invest in bitcoins, the Marathon group prefers to go straight to the source, to mine BTC itself (in the hope of reselling them for gold perhaps?). It will also represent a welcome geographic diversification of bitcoin mining, which will thus be a little less concentrated in China than at present.