Ahead of the bitcoin halving, efforts to expand crypto miner operations are continuing at a rapid pace. Marathon Digital, a major player in the industry, has announced plans to acquire a Texas bitcoin mining facility from Applied Digital for approximately $87 million in cash. The facility, which is located near a wind farm, has a capacity of 200 megawatts (MW). Marathon Digital not only intends to take over the current operations at the site, but also aims to increase its presence there by an additional 100 MW by the end of the year. With an impressive self-mining hash rate of 28.7 exahashes per second (EH/s) as of February, Marathon Digital is already a significant player in the mining sector. This acquisition aligns with the company’s strategy to grow its operations before the upcoming bitcoin halving, expected around April 20. Every four years, there is an event that causes per-block rewards to decrease from 97.43 BTC to 3.125 BTC. This will likely create financial difficulties for companies in the industry, especially smaller, less efficient miners who have limited access to capital and face high energy expenses. Consolidation among Bitcoin miners is expected to happen as the halving approaches. During the company’s earnings call last month, Marathon executives mentioned plans to utilize its balance sheet, which includes approximately $1 billion in unrestricted cash and bitcoin as of January. 31 — plans to increase its hash rate to 50 EH/s by the end of 2025, almost doubling the current rate. Marathon CEO Thiel stated that Bitcoin mining is a situation where there are equal gains and losses. There is a limited supply of bitcoins available each day. If you’re not actively increasing our hash rate, you’re losing ground. Marathon completed the purchase of two mining facilities located in Texas and Nebraska in January. The company paid $179 million for 390 MW of mining capacity in a recent deal and ended Hut 8’s involvement in managing the facilities. This new purchase will increase Marathon’s mining capacity on its owned sites to 54%. Other mining companies, like Riot Platforms and CleanSpark, are also making strategic acquisitions. Hut 8’s CEO stated that while growth is a priority, they will focus on cost-effective scaling. Subscribe to our newsletter so you don’t miss out on important news.