Bitcoin
Marathon Digital (NASDAQ:MARA) Shares Plunge After Bitcoin Production Drops 40%
Marathon Digital Holdings shares (NASDAQ:MARA) is down 6% at the time of writing after Bitcoin (BTC-USD) miner provided a production update. Indeed, June’s Bitcoin production was down 40% year-over-year to 590 BTC due to the April Halving (an event that reduced the reward for Bitcoin mining). However, there were some positives.
For starters, the company saw a 2% month-over-month increase in its average hash rate (the number of calculations a miner can perform per second) to 26.3 EH/s. CEO Fred Thiel mentioned that the improvements and the fully operational Ellendale facility helped double its hash rate compared to last year.
Additionally, Marathon aims to reach a hash rate of 50 EH/s by the end of the year by upgrading its new sites. It has also started a 2-megawatt pilot project in Finland to use heat from its digital operations to heat a community in order to cut carbon emissions and save costs.
The company now holds 18,536 BTC, worth approximately $1.1 billion at the time of writing, and plans to sell some of it in the future to support its operations and manage finances.
Is MARA a good stock to buy?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a consensus Hold rating on MARA stock based on one Buy, three Holds, and one Sell assigned over the past three months, as indicated by the chart below. After a 33% rise in its share price over the past year, the MARA’s average target price of $20.50 per share implies that shares are valued fairly.