MD: Here’s the Wikipedia article on the company.
Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. is a digital asset technology company, which engages in mining cryptocurrencies, with a focus on the blockchain ecosystem and the generation of digital assets. The company was founded on February 23, 2010 and is headquartered in Las Vegas, NV.[1]
MD: So… we know they ‘re clueless about money. And located in Las Vegas, NV… maybe know something about gambling… which is what Bitcoin is… betting on the sure thing until the music stops.
The company was formerly known as Marathon Patent Group and was the patent holding company that is the parent of Uniloc, allegedly a patent troll company.[2][3] Marathon purchased patents related to encryption in the 2010s[citation needed] and in 2021 it was known for its purchases of bitcoin[4] and bitcoin mining equipment[5] and a joint venture to use 37 MW from the Hardin Generating Station Montana coal plant to power an adjacently-constructed Marathon bitcoin data center.[6]
MD: So they’re leveraging leverage. A “patent holding company”. What’s not to love about the patent system. If there was anything that should be repealed, it’s definitely that part of the Constitution. But it is an open lesson into creative abuse of any system. These guys give patents value… when 99% of them clearly have no value, even if they do work. Looks like they actually got into the electricity wasting business which “is” Bitcoin mining. Why are they using coal in Montana? Has all the water in the Columbia River Gorge already been wasted?
The company changed its name to Marathon Digital Holdings, effective March 1, 2021. Its chief executive officer is Fred Thiel.[7]
MD: Fred Thiel. Wonder if he’s any relation to Peter Thiel… the claimed co-inventor of PayPal with Elon Musk… a trivial application to write BTW. We’ll look into that. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about Thiel (… and doesn’t seem to have anything to do with Peter Thiel).
| Fred Thiel | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1960 |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Businessman |
| Board member of | Marathon Digital Holdings NoCell Technologies Oden Technologies Sequent Software OptConnect Inc. Gatekeeper Systems |
Fred Thiel (born 1960) is an American business executive and the current CEO of Thiel Advisors and Marathon Digital Holdings.[1][2] Thiel is the former CEO of GameSpy, Local Corporation, and Lantronix.
MD: How’s that for some big names and strong background?
Thiel serves as past chairman of the board of the Young Presidents’ Organization‘s technology network and is chairman of the Fintech subnetwork. He also serves on the boards of several other companies including Oden Technologies, OptConnect, Gatekeeper Systems, and Sequent Software.
MD: Sequent Software: Finally something I’ve heard of.
Career
Thiel was vice president and general manager of the business storage unit of CMD Technology in 1997.[3] From 1998 to 2002 Thiel was the CEO of Lantronix,[4] where he doubled the company’s revenue growth and led to its initial public offering in 2000.[5] Thiel was the CEO of GameSpy from 2003 to 2004 before GameSpy merged with IGN.[6] Thiel was the managing partner of the software group at Triton Pacific Capital Partners from 2007 to 2012.[7]
Thiel met Heath Clark, founder and CEO of Local Corporation though the Young Presidents’ Organization,[5] and joined Local Corporation’s board of directors in January 2013.[8] He became the chairman of the board of Local Corporation in January 2014, and CEO in May 2014 following Clark’s resignation due to health reasons.[9] Thiel was CEO until 2015, and was responsible for Local Corporation’s partnership with FraudLogix to prevent advertising fraud.[10]
MD: Two years at Local. And into fraud. The plot thickens.
Thiel has headed Thiel Advisors, an advisory firm, since 2013.[11] Through Thiel Advisors, Thiel advises organizations such as EQT Partners and Graham Partners, their portfolio companies, and various mid-sized companies on value creation strategies. Thiel was appointed to the board of directors of Marathon Patent Group in April 2018[12] and became CEO of Marathon Digital Holdings in April 2021[13]
MD: “Value Creation Strategies”: Money “is” value creation. I’ll bet Thiel has no clue what money is. But look… we still have no clue about any value proposition yet. How can that be?
Education
Thiel attended classes at the Stockholm School of Economics and executive classes at Harvard Business School. Thiel is also fluent in English, Spanish, Swedish and French.[14] Thiel is a frequent speaker on digital trends, IT,[15] and the transformation of industries by the “internet of things“.[16][11]
MD: I took an executive class at MIT once. Didn’t know that was a big deal. Well, looks like another dead end. I wonder what ChatGPT knows about this?
MD: What can you tell me about Fred Thiel?
ChatGPT
As of my last update in September 2021, Fred Thiel is a business executive and entrepreneur. However, please note that my information might not be up to date, and developments may have occurred after my last update.
At the time of my knowledge cutoff, Fred Thiel was known for his involvement in the technology and cybersecurity sectors. He served as the CEO of various cybersecurity companies and had extensive experience in managing and advising technology-focused organizations.
If you are looking for more recent and accurate information about Fred Thiel, I recommend conducting an online search or checking reliable news sources for the latest updates.
MD: How about Marathon Digital HoldingsChatGPT
As of my last update in September 2021, Marathon Digital Holdings (formerly known as Marathon Patent Group) is a digital asset technology company focused on cryptocurrency mining. Please note that my information might be outdated, and developments may have occurred after my last update.
At that time, Marathon Digital Holdings was primarily engaged in mining Bitcoin and had been working to expand its mining operations. They aimed to leverage their expertise in blockchain technology and data center operations to become a significant player in the Bitcoin mining industry.
It’s important to remember that the cryptocurrency space is highly dynamic and can experience rapid changes. For the most current and accurate information about Marathon Digital Holdings, I recommend checking their official website, recent news articles, or financial reports.
MD: Well, we come up empty again. Let’s look further for something concrete. Well, they have a very pretty website. That’s usually a negative for me. Let’s dissect it.
MD: Looks like they’re well lawyered up. You need to acknowledge this disclaimer to see inside their website:
Marathon Digital Holdings (“Marathon,” “MARA”) does not offer financial services, nor direct investment opportunities to the general public. We have no consumer facing products or services. We will never ask you to send money or open an account. Please remain vigilant and be wary of bad actors who may be misappropriating our brand and corporate identity.
MD: What does it mean when the boogeyman cautions you to watch out for the boogeyman?
About Us
Marathon Digital Holdings is one of the largest, most energy efficient, and most technologically advanced Bitcoin mining companies, as well as one of the largest holders of Bitcoin (“BTC”) among publicly traded companies in North America.
We differentiate by investing in the most advanced technologies and leveraging innovative techniques to convert energy into economic value while helping keep Bitcoin’s ledger up to date and secure, one block at a time.
MD: How can they consider themselves energy efficient when Bitcoin is a “pure waste of energy”. A “real money process” costs virtually nothing to operate. There is no mining involved. Good thing they’re doing it one block at a time… cause that’s how blockchain (or even chains without blocks) works.
Operations
Bitcoin is decentralized, and so are we. We use various strategies and business models, including outsourcing to third-party hosting providers or hosting our own operations, to maintain a diversified portfolio of Bitcoin mining sites in multiple states and countries.
MD: Wow… how innovative. These days with so many server farms out there this is pretty easy to do.
Investors
Marathon Digital Holdings is a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: MARA). Our investor relations website includes detailed information on our financial performance, our latest corporate updates, SEC filings, and more.
MD: Has anyone ever seen one of these “investor” thingies? We’ll go a little further and then see if we can find their annual report and dissect that.
Partner With Marathon
We work alongside companies, municipalities, and institutions that have stranded power, expertise in energy and microgrids, cutting edge Bitcoin mining technologies, and a keen interest in researching or supporting Bitcoin. We offer our partners access to our unique expertise in building and scaling Bitcoin mining operations as well as the opportunity to help support the Bitcoin network.
MD: “Stranded power”? That’s a new one. “Microgrids”? That’s another new one. “Keen interest in researching or supporting Bitcoin”? Why is that?
OK, so that’s their shingle. Let’s go in. They call it “Getting started”. They’ve got five more bullet points. I’ll scan them, but I think my assignment is to look at their annual report… so I need to move along
Funding & Mentorship
We support builders. We invest in smart people, who are passionate about leveraging technology to solve Bitcoin’s and the Bitcoin mining industry’s largest problem.
MD: Whoops. That eliminates me!
Company Profile
Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) is one of the largest, most agile, and most sustainably operated Bitcoin miners in North America. The company converts energy into economic value by processing Bitcoin transactions, creating newly minted Bitcoin (“BTC”), and keeping Bitcoin’s distributed ledger up to date and secure.
MD: Address is now in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, not Las Vegas. Most Florida cons are operated over on the Tampa/St. Pete side. They say they process Bitcoin transactions. That means they know how to add and subtract. They create new Bitcoins (waste energy) and they keep Bitcoin’s distributed ledger up to date and secure (now that’s huge, because the whole Bitcoin concept says nobody can do that… because everybody does that. It’s kind of like the internet DNS). Before we look at their financials, we’ll look at the operations… it’s good to know what somebody claims to do.
Diversified Portfolio Approach to Bitcoin Mining
Each Bitcoin mining deployment comes with its own set of constraints, and each requires a curated approach. We adapt accordingly. Overtime, we have used different strategies and structures to build a portfolio of Bitcoin mining operations that is designed to diversify risk across our organization.
MD: Says they crank out 23 EH/s. Anybody know what an EH is? We’re about to find out. Poor Google. It thinks it’s about “Environment Health and Safety”. But gotta love ChatGPT. Here’s what she says:
In the context of Bitcoin, EH/s stands for “exahashes per second.” It is a unit used to measure the total combined computing power of the Bitcoin network, specifically in terms of how many cryptographic calculations (hashes) it can perform in one second.
Bitcoin mining is the process by which new transactions are added to the blockchain and new bitcoins are created. It involves solving complex mathematical puzzles, known as cryptographic hash functions, which require significant computational power. Miners compete to find the correct solution to the puzzle, and the first one to do so gets to add a new block to the blockchain and is rewarded with newly minted bitcoins and transaction fees.
The network’s total hash rate is the sum of all the miners’ computing power, and it is measured in EH/s. As technology advances and more powerful mining hardware is introduced, the total hash rate of the Bitcoin network increases. A higher hash rate implies a more secure and robust network, as it becomes increasingly difficult for any single entity or group to control the majority of the network’s computing power (known as a 51% attack).
MD: For those of you who aren’t into the really big numbers game, an exa is a quadrillion gigas. If you started right now, you probably wouldn’t be there by lunch tomorrow.
ChatGPT does pretty good, don’t you think? It’s not intelligent at all, but it sure has a good memory. MARA enumerates 6 sites where they do this wasting… and that is among “others”. It seems they are concerned with somebody getting more that 51% of the hashes. Trust me folks, you can’t waste enough energy in the whole universe… and all its black and grey and pink holes… to do that. I guess we know enough. We can now see how much money they claim to be making.
MD: I have obtained their earnings report dated May , 2023. Anybody can find their numbers. Here’s them applying creativity:
Q1, we grew our energized hash rate 64% from 7.0 exahashes to 11.5 exahashes. By
growing our hash rate faster than the rest of the network and improving our uptime, we also increased our bitcoin production. We produced a record 2,195 bitcoin during the first three months of this year, which is a 74% increase from the prior year.
MD: If they’re growing at 74% a year they’re doing better than the banking scam. The bank scam grows at just 40% a year. But I don’t think that’s fast enough to corner the Bitcoin market. They either have to quietly do that, or be among the first to bail out… and looks like they’ll have lots of bailing to do.
“In addition to our energized progress, we also improved our financial position during the quarter. We increased our cash position by $12 million, reduced our debt by $50 million, and increased our unrestricted bitcoin holdings by 3,132 bitcoin after we prepaid our term loan and terminated our credit facilities with Silvergate Bank.
MD: What in the world is an “unrestricted bitcoin holding?”. Who’s restricting? Takes these financial thieves almost no time at all to make something simple ridiculously complicated.
We exited the quarter with approximately $124.9 million in unrestricted cash and cash equivalents and 11,466 bitcoin, the market value of which was approximately $326.5 million on March 31.
MD: If Bitcoin is such magic, why in the world would they have cash and cash equivalents? Buy Bitcoin with it… mui pronto.
“With more hash rate coming online in the months ahead, Marathon remains on track to
reach our 23 exahash goal near the middle of this year. We remain optimistic that we can
achieve our primary growth targets and establish Marathon as one of the largest, most
energy efficient, and most technologically advanced Bitcoin mining operations globally.
MD: I asked ChatGPT who generates the most EH/s.
ChatGPT:
As mentioned earlier, the distribution of mining power in the Bitcoin network can change over time due to various factors. Some of the largest and most well-known mining pools in the past have been companies like Antpool, F2Pool, BTC.com, and Poolin. However, it’s important to note that the mining landscape is dynamic, and other pools or entities could have risen to prominence since my last knowledge update in September 2021.
To find the current information on the entities generating the greatest number of EH/s or the distribution of hash rate in the Bitcoin network, you can refer to real-time data provided by reputable sources that track the mining pools and hash rate distribution. Websites like Blockchain.com, BTC.com, and other blockchain explorers often provide such data. Additionally, specialized cryptocurrency news websites and forums might have updated information on this topic.
MD: Let’s see what Blockchain.com can tell us. It appears the current hash rate is 332.95 EH/s (https://www.coinwarz.com/mining/bitcoin/hashrate-chart). That’s more than 10 times MARA’s goal. I groped around a little while to see who the other big players were. I didn’t find what I was looking for… and of course I’m not interested in wasting more time on the subject. Would I invest in MARA? Stupid is as stupid does. I could have bought Bitcoin at $0.10. Instead I tried to explain to Andreson why it wasn’t, and never would be, money. Now he’s a gizzionaire… and I’m high, dry, looking for a ball player at the carnival.
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