MARA Holdings Mines Trump Portrait on Bitcoin Blockchain

MARA Holdings, a Nasdaq-listed bitcoin mining company, has hashed a portrait of Donald Trump, the incoming 47th president of the United States, onto the Bitcoin blockchain. The image is now permanently stored on-chain at block 879613 and can be viewed on indexers such as Mempool.space.

> “Today, MARA mined the ‘Trump 47’ block, a historic visual marker on the Bitcoin blockchain to honor the inauguration of President-Elect @realDonaldTrump, the first Bitcoin President of the United States,” MARA announced via a post on X this past Friday.

Trump, who was previously skeptical of cryptocurrencies, has committed to advancing industry interests during his forthcoming presidency. This includes the creation of a “Crypto Czar” cabinet position, with David Sacks to fill the role, aimed at enhancing regulation and establishing a strategic bitcoin reserve.

Furthermore, Trump has expressed support for the domestic Bitcoin mining industry, advocating for the U.S. to capture 100% of the global network’s hashpower, while the country currently represents approximately 25%.

With the inauguration approaching on Monday, mining stocks have surged. During the first two weeks of the year, the market capitalization of 16 mining stocks tracked by JPMorgan rose by 16% to $4.5 billion. On Friday, MARA shares increased nearly 13%, trading at $20.67.

During his campaign, Trump garnered favor from the crypto community by promising to dismiss Gary Gensler, the head of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and to pardon Silk Road creator Ross Ulbricht on his first day in office.

His stance has attracted endorsements from many within the mining sector. For example, Riot Platforms CEO Jason Les met Trump during a fundraising event, while Hive Digital relocated from Vancouver, Canada, to Texas, largely due to Trump’s policies and the allure of lower energy costs.

MARA also included a version of the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution in the mined block and employed a method of organizing transactions to create images visible on specific block indexers without using a Bitcoin ordinal or minting an NFT. This technique was first used in March in an advertisement featuring their logo.

Each transaction in a Bitcoin block can be represented visually on block explorers, where the color and size of each square indicates the transaction size and fee rate. Owning its own mining pool allows MARA to control transaction selection, even opting for less profitable transactions to craft their image.

According to onchain data, MARA earned $443,148 for mining the “Trump 47” block, which included $126,148 in fees.