Marathon Digital plans ‘carbon neutral’ data center for Bitcoin mining

“Once all our miners are deployed by the end of the first quarter of 2022, our hashrate will be 10.37 EH/s, and our operations will be 70% carbon neutral, with our long-term objective being to obtain a 100% carbon neutral footprint,” said Fred Thiel, Marathon’s CEO.

Marathon Digital Holdings, a United States enterprise Bitcoin (BTC) mining company, has unveiled plans to achieve 70% carbon neutrality for its cryptocurrency mining operations.

The company aims to reduce its carbon footprint by constructing a new data center that will host approximately 73,000 previously purchased Bitcoin miners as part of a new 300-megawatt operation located in Texas. To achieve this goal, Marathon plans to begin construction in October 2021 alongside Compute North, a long-standing industry partner. 

Under the terms of the agreement, Marathon will provide Compute North an 18-month bridge loan worth up to $67 million.

“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 Marathon CEO Fred Thiel, adding:

“This agreement sets us on a clear path to becoming one of the largest, most efficient, and most environmentally conscious Bitcoin miners in North America.”

Commenting on the news, MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor said “Marathon is acting decisively to expand its US-based mining capacity in a carbon neutral fashion,” adding that publicly-traded miners will “lead the way on ESG initiatives.” ESG stands for environmental, social and corporate governance.

Marathon is acting decisively to expand its US-based mining capacity in a carbon neutral fashion. Publicly traded Bitcoin miners like $MARA are going to drive standards of excellence for other miners around the world & lead the way on ESG initiatives. https://t.co/jrnWnkxqjf

— Michael Saylor (@michael_saylor) May 24, 2021

Marathon Digital’s announcement is timely, given the negative attention Bitcoin mining has received in recent weeks. With China planning to crack down on cryptocurrency mining within its borders, at least three mining pools have announced plans to halt activities in the country.

As for Marathon, the company has continually ramped up its Bitcoin mining capacity, having only recently received a shipment for 10,300 S-19 Pro ASIC miners from Bitmain.

Marathon claims to have North America’s first fully compliant Bitcoin mining operations after the company began migrating its hash power to a new mining pool on May 1, 2021. As Cointelegraph reported, the new mining pool adheres to U.S. anti-money laundering guidelines established by the Office of Foreign Asset Control.