Initially, the miner aimed to boost its mining capacity by about 46% by year-end to as high as 37 EH/s from 24.7 EH/s. However, buoyed by its recent acquisition of a 200-megawatt Bitcoin mining center from Digital Applied, Marathon now anticipates a 100% increase in its mining power, reaching 50 EH/s by year-end.

Marathon’s Chairman and CEO, Fred Thiel, expressed confidence in achieving the new target, attributing it to the recent acquisition that has provided access to additional hash rate.

Thiel noted:

“With our current liquidity position, this growth target is also fully funded and there is no need for us to raise additional capital to achieve our objective. By deploying state of the art equipment and our own proprietary technology, we also believe that we can improve our fleet efficiency and approach 21 joules per terahash as we grow to 50 exahash.”

Marathon is the largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining firm in the world. According to data from the Bitcoin Treasuries, the company holds more than 17,000 BTC.

Marathon’s ambitions to boost its hash rate haven’t been deterred by the significant uptick in Bitcoin’s mining difficulty.

On April 24, the network’s mining difficulty increased by 2%, marking the first adjustment since the fourth Bitcoin halving.

Halvings reduce block subsidies, often leading to a steep decline in mining profitability. This prompts some miners to halt operations, causing the hash rate to drop.

However, CryptoSlate analysis attributed the recent hash rate spike to miners joining the network to capitalize on the 6.25 BTC block rewards before the April 20 halving. Moreover, transaction fees, particularly from Runes, have remained elevated, offering further incentives for miners to maintain their operations.

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