(Bloomberg) — Cryptocurrency miner Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. has hired restructuring specialists to provide advice on its exposure to bankrupt counterparty Compute North Holdings, Marathon Chief Executive Officer Fred Thiel said.
(Bloomberg) — Cryptocurrency miner Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. has hired restructuring specialists to provide advice on its exposure to bankrupt counterparty Compute North Holdings, Marathon Chief Executive Officer Fred Thiel said.
Marathon is weighing a bid for Compute North, a crypto miner which has been shedding small parts of its business during bankruptcy, Thiel told Bloomberg News. The company tapped Guggenheim Partners and law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges for advice, he said.
A representative at Weil didn’t respond to request for comment, while Guggenheim declined to comment.
Las Vegas-based Marathon is among the largest publicly traded Bitcoin miners. The firm employs an asset-light strategy, buying pricey mining machines and paying third-party hosting sites to operate them, avoiding the need to build their own infrastructure.
Compute North hosted a significant portion of Marathon’s mining operation. Marathon posted a wider loss for the third quarter and an impairment charge of $39 million tied to Compute North’s bankruptcy filing. More recently, Marathon estimated that roughly $22 million of its $42 million in remaining deposits to the host are recoverable.
Low Bitcoin prices, soaring energy costs and stiff competition have battered the crypto mining industry. Crypto-mining giant Core Scientific has warned of a potential bankruptcy, while Argo Blockchain in October said it will have to cease or limit operations if the firm can’t secure further funding.
Marathon had $61.7 million cash on hand at the end of last month and 69,000 active mining rigs as of December 1.
The company’s 1% convertible notes due 2026 hit a recent low of roughly 24.8 cents on the dollar, according to Trace data.
(Updates with bond prices in the last paragraph.)
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