Marathon Digital Announces Large-Scale Immersion Mining Operations in Abu Dhabi
- Marathon Digital has partnered with digital asset company Zero Two to establish immersion mining operations in Abu Dhabi.
- Two of the facilities are expected to go online by 2024 and will be based in the cities of Mina Zayed and Masdar City.
- The larger 200 MW site will be located in Masdar City, while the smaller 50 MW site will be located in the port city of Mina Zayed.
- The ownership of the project, called the Abu Dhabi Global Markets JV Entity, will be split between Marathon and Zero Two.
- The mining company will control 80% of the project, while Zero Two gets 20% of the ownership.
Marathon Digital, one of the largest Bitcoin mining companies around the globe, attempts to expand its operations following the crypto market slump noted in 2022. Interestingly, the Las Vegas headquartered company, which is also publicly listed on the Nasdaq, is trying to make its operations profitable after suffering significant losses in 2022. As per the announcement, the company has plans to establish new large-scale immersion Bitcoin mining operations in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
According to the official press release, Marathon Digital will partner with digital asset infrastructure company Zero Two to establish its large-scale Bitcoin (BTC) mining operations in Abu Dhabi, and the company expects two of its facilities in the region to go online by 2024. Moreover, the joint venture will be based in Mina Zayed and Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates. The combined capacity of the two sites would be 250 megawatts.
“For this project, our team successfully co-developed and implemented a full immersion solution, as well as developed proprietary mining software from the ground up to provide flexibility, resilience, and optimization,” said Marathon Digital chair and CEO Fred Thiel.
Marathon Digital further revealed that the larger 200-megawatt site will be located in the sustainability hub of Abu Dhabi, Masdar City, and the 50MW site will be located in the port zone of Mina Zayed, established in 1969. Furthermore, the notice confirmed that in order to power the sites, the mining company and its partner Zero Two “intend to leverage excess energy in Abu Dhabi, increasing the base load and sustainability of the Abu Dhabi grid.”
Marathon and Zero Two will “offset any non-sustainably produced electricity with clean energy certificates,” stated the announcement while revealing that the ownership of the project, which has been titled the Abu Dhabi Global Markets JV Entity, will be split between the two companies controlling 80% and 20%, respectively.
The two facilities, as noted above, are expected to be online by 2024 and produce a combined hash rate of roughly 7 EH/s. The announcement further explained:
“During the 2023 development period, capital contributions, in proportion to the equity interest in the ADGM entity, are anticipated to total approximately $406 million in aggregate. These contributions will consist of both cash and in-kind (i.e., equipment, infrastructure, etc.) amounts. The digital assets mined (i.e., bitcoin) by the ADGM Entity will be distributed twice per month and in accordance with the equity ownership between Zero Two and Marathon, respectively.”
Marathon noted that the idea of mining Bitcoin in a desert climate has often been criticized for the heat generated by the miners and the surrounding temperatures, which average 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit). However, the company claims to have developed a “custom-built immersion solution” to cool mining rigs at the proposed facilities with the help of a liquid cooling system.
Interestingly, as reported earlier by BitcoinWisdom, Marathon Digital suffered heavy losses in the 2022 crypto market bear run and posted a net loss of $686 million compared to a net loss of $37.1 million in 2021. The full year revenue declined by 26% to $117.8 million, while the fourth-quarter revenue fell 58% to $28.4 million when compared to the same period in 2021.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
