According to Marathon's chairman and CEO, Fred Thiel, it's taken longer than expected for Compute North's electricity company to receive approval from the IRS. But, they're still putting miners in the Texas sites. The setbacks have been frustrating. But their present belief is that miners will begin to continue later this month. The Marathon team is working closely and aggressively with Compute North. It aims to acquire a better understanding of the power company's timeframe. It also wants to ensure that, once fixed, these setbacks wouldn't affect its future operations.
For now, regardless of the energization timeline, it has completed its BTC miner installations. It installed 19K miners, or 1.9 EH/s, who are ready to start in addition to its operational fleet. The first big plant in West Texas has almost 9K of these units (0.9 EH/s). The rest will be deployed at other locations. It will be constructing the first major facility in 4 stages with the first stage having already been completed. The facility will accommodate 68K miners. lts construction will be complete by the end of Q3 2022.
Marathon's mining network generated 1,826 BTC so far this year. It accounts for a 214% rise over last year's BTC mining output around the same time in 2021. Upgrades and maintenance at Hardin, MT's power-producing station impacted Marathon's BTC production in November 2021. Maintenance concerns resulted in a 47% decrease in the amount of BTC produced in May. Marathon's BTC output was similarly disrupted by repairs to the power-producing facility in Hardin, MT in April and May 2022.
Since October 2020, Marathon has been gathering or "hodling" BTC and hasn't sold any. As of 1st June 2022, Marathon had 9,941 BTC, including BTC bought in January 2021 for $31,168 per BTC. The valuation of 1 BTC was roughly $31,641 on 1st June, 2022. It means that Marathon's existing BTC holdings are worth around $315.1M.