Marathon Digital Holdings, one of North America’s largest bitcoin miners, recently reported its third quarter 2023 results. While the company saw massive year-over-year increases in bitcoin production and mining power, its revenue came in slightly below analysts’ estimates.
Marathon produced over 3,490 bitcoin in Q3 – a massive jump from just 616 in the same period last year. This 467% increase in production was driven by an equally impressive 403% rise in its mining “hash rate” – a measure of computational power used in bitcoin mining.
TWEET: https://twitter.com/MarathonDH/status/1722286224189096257
Marathon’s hash rate is now an immense 23.1 exahashes per second (EH/s), slated to increase to 26 EH/s by year’s end. This mining muscle would make Marathon the largest publicly traded miner in the world.
Clearly, Marathon’s fleet of miners have been churning out bitcoin like never before. However, its quarterly revenue of $97.8 million narrowly missed analyst estimates of $99.6 million.
Some analysts point to bitcoin’s lower price during Q3 versus the prior quarter as a likely factor. To cover costs, Marathon sold over 66% of newly minted bitcoin – possibly missing out on gains had it held onto the coins longer.
Upbeat Outlook Despite Missed Target
Looking ahead, Marathon’s CEO Fred Thiel remains bullish. Thiel anticipates a 30% hash rate boost in 2024 on top of this year’s gain. He also dramatically slashed Marathon’s long-term debt load via a bond exchange, strengthening its balance sheet long-term.
While revenue dipped below forecasts, Marathon still swung to a profit of $64.1 million after losses in 2021. Earnings of $0.36 per share also beat estimates by nearly 50 cents.
It seems like small potatoes to miss projections by under $2 million on nearly $100 million in revenue. With Marathon rapidly scaling up operations, some pundits liken the revenue miss to bumps in the road for a hyper-growth company.