Bitcoin Miner Marathon Digital’s Montana Operations Go Offline After Storm

Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital (MARA) said its miners in Hardin, Mont., are currently without power due to a storm that passed through the region on June 11. The company has about 30,000 miners deployed in Montana, representing over 75% of the company’s active fleet.

• The miners are likely to remain offline until the damaged power generating facility can be repaired, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.
• However, some of the mining rigs might be able to come online and run at a reduced capacity as early as the first week of July, the company said.
• “Bringing miners fully back online will take time, and we are committed to doing everything we can to rebuild our hashrate and to improve our bitcoin production,” said CEO Fred Thiel in a statement. “As part of that process, we have redirected our active miners, which represent approximately 0.6 exahash, to point towards a third-party mining pool, so that we can improve our probability of earning bitcoin while we work to bring the Hardin miners back online,” he added.
• On June 9, the miner said that it experienced energization delays in Texas in May and ongoing maintenance issues at its facility in Hardin, leading to the production of about 47% fewer bitcoins BTC$66,340.26 than initially expected.
• Marathon said in April that it was already preparing to move miners from the Montana facility to more sustainable sources of power during the third quarter of this year.
• Shares of Marathon were down 1.2% in after-hours trading after ending the day down 6% on a day when the S&P 500 fell 2% and the Nasdaq dropped 3%.