Public Keys Weekly Roundup

Public Keys is a new weekly roundup from Decrypt that tracks key publicly traded crypto companies. This includes major players like crypto exchange Coinbase, Michael Saylor’s Bitcoin strategy, Jack Dorsey’s Block, Inc., and various crypto mining companies.

Focus of This Edition

This week’s edition highlights Bitcoin miner Marathon’s significant Q4 win and the lukewarm analyst responses to their success. Also featured:
– Coinbase’s SEC lawsuit dismissal
– Hut 8’s impending full-year earnings report
– Bitfarms’ merger completion with Stronghold

Marathon’s Record Revenue

Marathon Digital, the largest publicly traded crypto miner with a market cap of $4.7 billion, reported a record-high Q4 revenue of $214 million on Wednesday.

Despite its rebranding to MARA, we’ll refer to it as Marathon to avoid confusion with its stock ticker. This Q4 revenue marks a 37% increase from the previous year, beating analyst estimates. This growth is significant, especially following last year’s Bitcoin halving, which halved the rewards for miners.

Analysts would typically hail such performance, but many are hesitant. Miners face challenges in maintaining low costs per Bitcoin mined due to the reduced block reward of 3.125 Bitcoin. Marathon is working towards becoming a vertically integrated energy and technology solutions provider, tripling its energy capacity in 2024 by utilizing excess natural gas and wind farms.

However, Marathon’s profitability is closely tied to Bitcoin’s price, which is known for its unpredictability. For instance, they saw their BTC treasury value rise by $443 million in Q4, but Bitcoin recently dipped below $80,000.

Bernstein, a research firm, has praised Bitcoin miners but has favored Marathon’s smaller competitors, Cleanspark and Riot Platforms, over Marathon itself.

Coinbase SEC Lawsuit Dismissed

Last week, the SEC agreed to dismiss its lawsuit against Coinbase, which trades on Nasdaq under the COIN ticker. Following the news, Coinbase’s share price initially climbed above $235, but later settled at around $208.37.

Coinbase and its executives have invested heavily in political donations, including $70 million to the pro-crypto super PAC, Fairshake. The current market downturn has benefitted the exchange’s trading volumes, spiking by 65% in a single day, per CoinGecko data.

Upcoming Reports: Hut 8 and Bitfarms

Hut 8, trading under the HUT ticker, will report its full-year 2024 results on Monday, March 3, with keen interest in updates about its Vega Project, which includes a substantial colocation agreement with Bitmain.

Bitmain, a private Chinese manufacturer of Bitcoin mining hardware, holds about 80% of the market share as of 2024. Meanwhile, Bitfarms, trading under the BITF ticker, has received shareholder approval to merge with Stronghold, a miner that previously fended off a takeover bid from Riot Platforms.