Marathon Digital to remove rival bitcoin miner Hut 8 from newly acquired sites

Marathon Digital is set to become the sole manager of two newly acquired bitcoin mining sites, effectively terminating competitor Hut 8’s current involvement in overseeing these facilities.

Located in Kearney, NE and Granbury, Texas, the sites boast a combined operational capacity of 390 megawatts.

Prior to this announcement, Hut 8’s managed services subsidiaries have led all aspects of the Kearney and Granbury site operations, including accounting, curtailment and customer relations.

But Marathon CEO Fred Thiel said in a statement that by the firm operating the sites on its own, “we will be able to fully recognize the operational and economic benefits of owning these assets.”

Read more: Marathon’s monthly BTC production hits new peak, far ahead of competitors

By cutting out Hut 8 from the sites, Marathon “expects to more effectively participate in energy hedging and other energy management services, and to streamline the implementation of its proprietary technology to improve operational efficiency,” the firm added in a news release.

A spokesperson for the company did not immediately comment further. 

Marathon is set to pay Hut 8 a termination fee of roughly $13.6 million, Hut 8 said in a Friday news release.

The move by Marathon — with an installed hash rate of 25.2 exahashes per second (EH/s) as of Dec. 31 — comes after the company revealed its intent in December to buy these sites as part of a $179 million cash deal. The deal closed on Jan. 16.   

Read more: Crypto miners keep busy ahead of halving with accelerated machine buys

Hut 8’s merger with US Bitcoin Corp. in November expanded the combined company’s reach, achieving 7.5 EH/s of installed self-mining capacity across six sites. This spanned locations in Canada, New York, Nebraska and Texas — including the two sites it will soon no longer operate.

Hut 8 will maintain its operations and continue self-mining bitcoin at the Kearney and Granbury  properties until April 30. The company stated that the nearly $13.6 million settlement from Marathon is expected to be paid within 30 days following that date.

“We anticipate an orderly transition of operations in the coming months and look forward to providing updates about our future plans as we are able to,” Hut 8 President Asher Genoot said in a statement.

A Hut 8 representative declined to comment further.

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