Marathon Digital Holdings, a prominent digital asset technology firm and one of the largest Bitcoin miners in North America, has recently ventured into Kaspa mining operations. This strategic move aims to diversify Marathon’s revenue streams by capitalizing on their expertise in digital asset compute while moving away from Bitcoin.
As of June 25, 2024, Marathon has successfully mined 93 million KAS tokens, which are currently valued at around $15 million. This shift in focus allows Marathon to explore new revenue opportunities beyond Bitcoin mining, taking advantage of the unique attributes offered by Kaspa. Notably, Kaspa boasts an active address count ranging from 700,000 to 1 million, a significant figure when compared to Bitcoin’s much larger user base.
Marathon’s involvement in Kaspa began in May 2023 with the deployment of their first dedicated ASICs for the altcoin. This was followed by the acquisition of 60 petahash of KS3, KS5, and KS5 Pro ASICs. With projected profit margins of up to 95%, depending on the price of KAS and network difficulty, Marathon is well-positioned to capitalize on this venture.
At present, Marathon operates 30 petahash of Kaspa mining capacity at its self-owned facilities in Texas, with plans to reach full operational capacity by the third quarter of 2024.
Looking ahead, Kaspa, a decentralized Layer-1 protocol that utilizes a proof-of-work mechanism, offers distinct advantages over Bitcoin. Its ability to process one block every second enables faster transactions and increases block rewards for miners.
Following Marathon’s announcement, investor optimism has led to an 11% surge in Kaspa’s price, reaching $0.1773. The market capitalization currently stands at $4.26 billion, with a daily trading volume of $153 million, representing a significant 156% increase.
In other news, there is mixed sentiment surrounding ETH as the launch of a Spot Ethereum ETF in July approaches. 
