Shares of Bitcoin miners Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. ( MARA ) and Riot Platforms, Inc. ( RIOT ) are moving Wednesday as the price of Bitcoin pulls back.

The Details:

Bitcoin is trading around the $68,000 mark at the time of publication after topping $72,500 earlier in the week.

Bitcoin miners are preparing for the upcoming halving event, projected to take place on April 20. The CEOs of Riot Platforms ( RIOT ) and Marathon Digital ( MARA ) shared insights on their strategies exclusively with Benzinga. 

"The Halving immediately cuts revenue in half while doubling costs for miners," Riot CEO Jason Les said. "Depending on your power cost and machine efficiency, some miners will be uneconomic and will be forced to shut off, decreasing network hash rate by at least 5% and possibly more depending on the trend for BTC prices."

"We continued building infrastructure during the last downturn, and are positioned to grow our self mining hash rate by over 150% this year. As such, Riot is one of the few, if not only public miner that will exit this year mining more BTC daily than it was prior to the halving," Les added.

Marathon Digital ( MARA ) CEO Fred Thiel  said miners will need to become more energy efficient post-halving in order to remain profitable. He noted Marathon's fleet has an average energy efficiency of approximately 24J/TH and is expected to decline further with the addition of even more efficient miners. 

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MARA Stock Prediction 2024:

When buying a stock for a longer time horizon, it is important for investors to assess where they think the stock is headed in the future.

When mapping a stock's future trajectory, investors should consider factors including the future earnings expectations and expected performance against a benchmark.

Marathon Digital's ( MARA ) revenue has grown at an average rate of 937.9% annually over the past 5 years. The average 1-year price target from analysts is $28.92, representing an expected 63.9% upside in 2025.

While past performance is not a guarantee of future results, investors should also look at a stock's historical performance when compared to both a benchmark index and the company's peers. Shares of Marathon Digital Holdings ( MARA ) have seen an annualized return of -28.92%, under-performing the S&P500 index by 36.99%. This compares to 21.9% growth in the overall Information Technology sector. Marathon Digital Holdings ( MARA ) has a beta of 2.14.

MARA, RIOT Price Action: According to Benzinga Pro, Marathon Digital ( MARA ) shares are flat at $17.98 and Riot Platforms ( RIOT ) shares are up 0.55% at $10.05 at the time of publication Wednesday.

Image: Darwin Laganzon from Pixabay