North American bitcoin mining giant Marathon Digital is acquiring two operational sites in a move pivoting into a hybrid mining model with asset-light and proprietary mining.
The company said in an announcement on Tuesday that it has entered into a definitive purchase contract to buy two sites totaling 390 megawatts in Texas and Nebraska from Generate Capital for $178.6 million.
The new sites will add to the existing 584 MW power capacity that Marathon draws from third-party colocation providers such as Applied Digital. Following the transaction, Marathon expects to run 45% of its mining fleet in self-owned facilities and host the remaining 55% at third-party facilities.
Marathon said that it is already drawing 16 MW of the 390 MW capacities with its mining equipment while 244 MW are currently occupied by other bitcoin mining tenants. Generate Capital bought the sites from Compute North after the colocation provider filed for bankruptcy protection in 2022.
It appears that those hosting customers occupying the 244 MW are expected to depart after the transaction is closed. Marathon plans to fulfill those capacities with its proprietary miners for future expansion.
“The transaction is expected to reduce the cost per coin of Marathon’s current operations at these sites by approximately 30%,” the company said in the announcement, adding that it has 7 EH/s of miners on order with the first tranche arriving in January.
As previously reported, Marathon is poised to mine more than 1,500 BTC in December through its proprietary MaraPool, strengthening its position as the largest public bitcoin mining operation by production and realized hashrate.