The shares of bitcoin miner Marathon Digital (MARA) fell as much as 8% on Thursday post-market trading after the company’s second quarter revenue missed Wall Street’s expectations. The shares have recouped some of their losses since then.
Marathon reported revenue of $145.1 million versus an estimate of $157.9 million, according to FactSet data. The company’s sales took a hit in the second quarter due to several operational challenges which hindered its ability to mine bitcoin as well as recent halving weighing on the mining sector, Marathon said in its earnings release.
“During the second quarter of 2024, our BTC production was impacted by unexpected equipment failures and transmission line maintenance at the Ellendale site operated by Applied Digital, increased global hash rate, and the April halving event,” said Fred Thiel, the firm’s CEO, in a statement.
However, Marathon said that the issues have since been remedied and the company reached an all-time high mining power of 31.5 exahash per second (EH/s) in the second quarter.
The miner also said that its second quarter adjusted EBITDA swung to a loss of $85.1 million from a gain of $35.8 million in the previous year, mainly due to unfavorable fair value adjustments of its digital assets and lower BTC being mined in the quarter.
Despite the challenges, the miner continues to see reaching hashrate of 50 EH/s by the year-end and plans to growth it further next year.
Marathon sold 51% of the bitcoin it mined in the second quarter to fund its operating costs. However, it recently announced that it bought $100 million worth of bitcoin in the open market and re-adopted strategy to fully hold all BTC in its balance sheet. The miner now holds more than 20,000 BTC in its balance sheet.
“During the quarter, we organized the internal structure of the business to better align with our growth opportunities, sharpen our strategic focus, bolster accountability, and accelerate our speed and agility as we scale,” said Thiel.