Marathon Digital plans to double capacity

Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital said it is revising its 2024 hash rate target from 35-37 EH/s to 50 EH/s, which would represent a 100% increase for the fiscal year.

Hash rate is a measure of a miner’s computational power on a Proof-of-Work blockchain like that of Bitcoin.

Marathon began the year at about 24.7 EH/s and had planned to increase that by 46% to 35-37 EH/s by the end of the year, but its position seems to have improved.

“Given the amount of capacity we have available following our recent acquisitions and the amount of hash rate we have access to through current machine orders and options, we now believe it is possible for us to double the scale of Marathon’s mining operations in 2024 and achieve 50 exahash by the end of the year,” said Fred Thiel, Marathon’s chairman and CEO.

Thiel added that “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.”

DL News reported in February that Marathon bought two Bitcoin mining plants, in Texas and Nebraska, in a $178 million deal.

In March, Marathon paid Applied Digital $87.3 million in cash for a Bitcoin mining facility during the run-up to the recent halving event.

Marathon has an ample war chest to tap for such acquisitions with about $1.1 billion in cash and Bitcoin on its balance sheet, according to its latest financial report in February.

Wasabi Wallet leaves US market amid crackdown

ZkSNACKs’ Wasabi Wallet is discontinuing services for US customers following a recent crackdown on two self-custodial cryptocurrency wallet providers, Metamask creator Consensys and crypto mixer Samourai Wallet.

“In light of recent announcements by U.S. authorities, zkSNACKs is now strictly prohibiting U.S. users from using its services,” the company said in a blog post.

Blockchain developer Movement Labs raises $38m

Movement Labs, a San Francisco-based blockchain development team, said it raised $38 million in a Series A financing round led by Polychain Capital.

The company said the funding will help support its aim to bring Facebook’s Move Virtual Machine to Ethereum, as well as to address smart contract vulnerabilities, and enhance transaction throughput.

Crypto market movers

  • Bitcoin is up 0.35% today at $63,645.00.

  • Ethereum is up 1.78% today at $3,310.94.

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