A little over a month after the halving, the major mining companies have reported their monthly results: a 43% drop in revenue for Riot Platforms and a 27% reduction in production for Marathon.
On June 4th, Riot Platforms reported its monthly results through its website. In May, Riot saw a decline in bitcoin production, generating 215 BTC compared to 375 BTC mined in April. The drop is attributed to the recent halving of the block reward that occurred on April 20th.
To mitigate the effects of the halving, Riot Platforms inaugurated a new 1 gigawatt facility in the city of Corsicana, Texas. The facility is currently operational at 100 MW and aims to reach 1 GW in the coming months. The new center increased the company’s hash rate by 3.1 EH/s, bringing the total to 14.7 EH/s – a 17% increase from the previous month.
Riot Platforms aims to achieve a total hash rate of 31 EH/s by the end of 2024 and 41 EH/s by 2025. To achieve this goal, the company has established a long-term strategic partnership with MicroBT for the supply of latest-generation mining devices at a fixed price. An initial order of 33,280 miners has already been placed.
Additionally, Riot’s long-term energy contract allows it to return unused energy to the grid and receive energy credits. In May, the company received $7.3 million in energy credits.
The results come a week after Riot’s offer to acquire its competitor Bitfarms. The $950 million proposal was rejected as being too low. According to Reuters, on June 5th, Riot increased its stake in Bitfarms from 9.25% to 12% by purchasing approximately 1.5 million shares at a price of $2.45 per share.
The mining company Marathon Digital has also unveiled its monthly results. Marathon revealed that it sold around 63% of all the bitcoins mined since the halving. In May, the company sold 390 of the 616 BTC produced during the month.
The CEO of Marathon Digital, Fred Thiel, stated:
“In May, we mitigated the impact of April’s halving by increasing the number of blocks mined, resulting in the production of 616 bitcoins, a decline of only 27%.”
In May, Marathon mined 170 blocks, a 32% increase compared to April.
Following the halving, Marathon aims to increase its overseas expansion. The company recently announced a partnership with Kenya‘s Ministry of Energy and Petroleum to monetize the country’s underutilized energy and develop a series of renewable energy projects based on Bitcoin mining. Thiel stated that he aims to achieve 50% of revenues from abroad by 2028.
