Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms, Bitcoin mining firms, reported their highest monthly production levels since the halving event in April, pointing to a robust recovery in hash rates and operational productivity.
In October, Marathon Digital mined 717 bitcoins worth roughly $48.8 million. Accordingly, Marathon's energized hashrate increased by more than 14% and exceeded 40 EH/s, as the company's CEO, Fred Thiel, noted. This increased hashrate allowed Marathon to achieve significant gains in its Bitcoin output, although a 3% decline in block wins was due to heightened network difficulty.
The firm also reported higher transaction fees, contributing about 5% of its total Bitcoin production in October. Marathon's private mempool, Slipstream, and its mining pool, MARAPool, earned $400,000 of Bitcoin from two high-fee monthly transactions. Marathon noted that these milestones were achieved despite the ongoing challenges in the mining industry following the reduction in miner rewards due to the Bitcoin halving.
Riot Platforms also experienced a substantial increase in production during October, mining 505 bitcoins—an increase of 22.6% from the previous month. The firm reported that its hashrate grew to 29.4 EH/s, up from 28.2 EH/s in September, following installing new MicroBT miners at its Corsicana facility in Texas.
Moreover, due to the increased Bitcoin production, Riot expanded its holdings by 5 %, up to 10,928 BTC in October. The company reiterated its policy of not selling Bitcoins to its clients but rather building up its stock. CEO Jason Les referred to the October production surge as a "new post-halving milestone," attributed to the firm's increased operational efficiency and ongoing growth in deployed hash rate.
Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms both outlined their future hashrate targets. Marathon wants to achieve a hashrate capacity of 50 EH/s by 2025, while Riot has forecasted to have 34.9 EH/s by year-end 2024 and 100 EH/s by 2027 if it exercises its option to buy more miners. Riot Gaming's earlier forecast of 36.3 EH/s was brought down to 34.9 EH/s because expansion at the newly acquired facilities in Kentucky was gradual compared to the earlier estimations made by Riot.
These developments signal a resilient recovery among Bitcoin mining giants following the April halving, which halved the Bitcoin block subsidy from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. Both Marathon and Riot remain committed to expanding their hash rates and enhancing operational efficiency to navigate the challenges posed by the reduced block reward.