Marathon Partners With Beowulf Energy, Announces New Bitcoin Mining Data Center

On October 13, Marathon Patent Group announced the co-location of its new Bitcoin Mining Data Center in Big Horn, Montana comprised of 20 acres of land. The position has been specifically chosen to match Beowulf’s Hardin Generating Station, which is a 105 megawatts (MW) power facility right next to the parcel.

According to the announcement, Beowulf will provide power from the Hardin plant to the Data Center at $0.028/kWh, becoming an equity shareholder of Marathon as a result of the joint venture.

Moreover, Marathon is said to deploy 11,500 next-generation S19 Pro Ant miners with a mining rate of 110 TH/s, previously acquired in the partnership with Bitmain Inc. The company claimed that the mining equipment will generate 1.265 EH/s after it is fully deployed, with the data center being able to sustain up to 30,000 Antminer S19 Pros that can generate up to 3.320 EH/s.

“In pursuing the co-location of a Bitcoin mining operation at Hardin, we sought to capture the inherent value to the Data Center of securing a long-term supply of reliable, secure, and low-cost power while benefitting from the significant on-site technical expertise to ensure efficient operations. Our expert in-house engineers and technicians have designed the Data Center to support the immense computing speeds of the latest generation S19 Pro Antminers,” said Nazar Khan, Executive Vice President of Beowulf.

According to Marathon’s CEO Merrick Okamoto, the partnership between the companies will enable Marathon to maintain control of its energy and operational costs at extremely low rates. The new Data Center is said to lower mining costs for electricity and data center management to $0.034/kWh, reducing breakeven costs to produce Bitcoin from approximately $7,500 per token to $4,600 and steadily increasing profitability.

“Located in Eastern Montana, the Data Center has a meaningful competitive advantage on energy pricing, moderate climate, and regulatory stability. Beowulf has also earmarked an additional 500 megawatts of generation capacity for subsequent blockchain and data center expansion,” Khan added.

By best estimation, the U.S. comprises about 7% of the total Bitcoin mining hashrate, which currently equates to 10 EH/s. The additional increase in hash power due to the new mining operations will further cement the country’s position as the second-largest bitcoin miner in the world, after China’s 65% dominant stake.