According to Blockworks, Marathon Digital is expanding its operations with a new 27-megawatt hydro-powered bitcoin mining project in Paraguay. This marks the Florida-based company's second international deployment, as it partners with Penguin Infrastructure Holding to establish a new operation near Paraguay's Itaipu Dam. Marathon aims to achieve 1.1 exahash per second (EH/s) of computing power by the beginning of next year.
Charlie Schumacher, Marathon's vice president of corporate communications, stated that diversifying geographically offers the opportunity to improve margins, reduce concentration risk, and further decentralize the Bitcoin network's hash rate. Earlier this year, Marathon expanded into the United Arab Emirates through a joint venture with FS Innovation, reporting 2.3 EH/s of mining capacity in Abu Dhabi as of the end of October. The company plans to increase this to 7 EH/s by year's end.
Marathon's international expansion follows its agreement with Nodal Power last week to launch a mining project in Utah powered by landfill methane gas. These continuous expansion efforts come months before the next bitcoin halving, slated for April 2024, which will reduce mining rewards and add financial stress to certain companies in the segment. Schumacher explained that geographic expansion is a core part of Marathon's growth strategy, as the company focuses on reducing costs by finding new sites or developing new methods of mining that are less expensive than traditional methods.
