Despite the sale, Nasdaq-listed miner Marathon continues to hold one of the largest public bitcoin treasuries in the world. Marathon Digital, a publicly traded bitcoin mining company, has announced the sale of bitcoin for the first time in two years. “We intend to continue to sell a portion of our bitcoin holdings in 2023 to fund monthly operating costs,” Marathon’s monthly mining update reads. “Even with these sales, our unrestricted bitcoin holdings increased from 7,815 bitcoin as of December 31, 2022, to 8,090 bitcoin as of January 31, 2023, as our production improved and the appreciation in bitcoin’s price in January reduced the amount of bitcoin we had posted as collateral. Additionally, we ended the month with $133.8 million in unrestricted cash on hand.” Marathon Digital has accrued one of the largest public bitcoin holdings in the industry, second only to Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy. According to the firm’s update, the sale was not made out of any form of distress, but was a strategic financial move. “In prior press releases and earnings calls, Marathon has indicated that the Company intends to sell a portion of its bitcoin holdings to cover operational expenses as production begins to ramp,” the update states. “With production improving, Marathon opted to sell 1,500 BTC during January 2023.” Marathon, like other bitcoin miners, had to weather a 2022 that saw various industry challenges, from increasing electricity prices to widespread contagion that decimated the price of bitcoin. Despite these challenges, the update explained the optimistic position of the company, saying, “As we look ahead, our focus for the year is to energize more miners and to optimize their performance. We remain confident in our ability to scale Marathon into one of the largest and most energy efficient Bitcoin mining operations globally by installing approximately 23 exahashes of computing power near the middle of 2023.”