Marathon, others set to keep up BTC buying momentum

MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor alluded to Marathon’s CEO during a X Spaces on Tuesday

November 21, 2024 04:43 pm

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Marathon Digital clearly plans to keep up its BTC buys amid a rally that has sent the asset’s price to new highs. And they’re not alone.

The bitcoin miner revealed Thursday that it completed its offering of 0.00% convertible senior notes (due 2030). Net proceeds from the sale amounted to roughly $980 million — a majority of which will be used to buy more bitcoin and for “general corporate purposes.”

Marathon held 27,562 BTC on its balance sheet, as of Oct. 31. That represents roughly 8% of the 331,200 BTC held by MicroStrategy, the largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin.

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MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor alluded to Marathon’s CEO during a Tuesday X space when asked whether there’s an amount of BTC MicroStrategy could buy that would be detrimental to the bitcoin network.

“As much as I would like to buy all the bitcoin, I don’t think Fred Thiel’s going to let me buy all the bitcoin,” Saylor said.

He added: “And if Cynthia Lummis’ bill gets taken by the Senate and House — and signed in the White House — then the US government’s going to be bidding against me.”

More companies have started to name BTC as a reserve asset. Singapore-based Genius Group said Thursday morning it added another $4 million of bitcoin to its treasury and is targeting a reserve holding at least $120 million worth of BTC.

Tech giant Microsoft has a proposal in front of them to consider diversifying its balance sheet with bitcoin. Saylor said the “activist” behind it invited him to give a three-minute presentation to the board next month; the MicroStrategy executive accepted.

“It’s tricky to actually find a board that gets aligned with the management team and moves forward, and that’s why you haven’t seen as many companies act as aggressively as they could,” he said on the X space.

But, Saylor noted he expects that to change in 2025: “I think this will be an exponential process that’s going to pick up speed here.”

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