A press release issued today by Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. has indicated that the company will house roughly 73,000 of its bitcoin mining rigs at a new 300 megawatt Compute North data center being built in Texas.
The release also noted that Marathon’s hash rate is expected to reach 10.37 exahashes per second, its average mining costs will be $0.0453 per kilowatt hour and its operations will be approximately 70% carbon neutral.
“Under the terms of the agreement and based on specified requirements being met, Marathon will provide Compute North with an 18-month bridge loan of up to $67 million, in tranches, to construct the facility,” per the release. “The initial term of the contract is three years with increases capped at 3% per year thereafter.”
Marathon said in the release that this development will help establish the firm as the largest, most efficient and most environmentally-conscious Bitcoin miner in North America.
“Compute North is a long-term partner of ours, and by expanding our working relationship with them through this new agreement, we have now secured economical hosting arrangements for all 103,120 of our previously purchased Bitcoin miners,” said Fred Thiel, Marathon’s CEO, per the release.
Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy and a significant Bitcoin influencer, commented on the announcement via Twitter, highlighting the environmental implications.
“Marathon is acting decisively to expand its U.S.-based mining capacity in a carbon neutral fashion,” he wrote. “Publicly-traded Bitcoin miners like $MARA are going to drive standards of excellence for other miners around the world and lead the way on ESG initiatives.”
Earlier this year, Compute North forged an agreement to host Bit Digital bitcoin miners. And Marathon elicited controversy from the Bitcoin community by effectively censoring Bitcoin blocks and mining an Office of Foreign Asset Control- (OFAC) compliant block.