The world’s second-largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, MARA, also known as Marathon Digital Holdings, has lent out around 16% of its treasury.

In a production and mining operation update released on Jan. 3, the firm revealed that 7,377 BTC, worth around $730 million at current prices, has been “temporarily loaned to third parties.”

Its total stash, including the loan, is 44,893 BTC as of Dec. 31 and is worth a whopping $4.4 billion.

“As a miner that mines and buys Bitcoin, the hybrid approach provides us significant flexibility to acquire Bitcoin at attractive prices,” the firm stated before adding:

“It further allows us to capitalize on market conditions by buying BTC during price declines, optimizing our acquisition cost.”

‘Significant Interest’ in BTC Loans

MARA did not disclose the identities of the BTC loan recipients, but Director of Investor Relations Robert Samuels said that the loans are “short-term arrangements with well-established third parties.”

The company is generating a “modest single-digit yield” and has been actively engaged in such lending throughout 2024, he added.

He said there was “significant interest” in MARA’s Bitcoin lending program. “The long-term objective is to generate sufficient yield to offset operating expenses,” he explained.

There has been significant interest in @MARAHoldings BTC lending program, so heres a bit more detail:

It focuses on short-term arrangements with well-established third parties.

Generates a modest single-digit yield.

It has been active throughout 2024.

The long-term…

The company also reported that it mined 9,457 BTC and acquired an additional 22,065 BTC at an average price of $87,205 throughout 2024.

“We surpassed our year-end hash rate target of 50 EH/s while improving our fleet efficiency to 20 J/TH, said Fred Thiel, MARAs chairman and CEO.

Company stock (MARA) surged 14% on Friday to reach $19.73 in after-hours trading. However, aside from a few spikes, it remained range-bound throughout 2024.

In December, MicroStrategy founder Michael Saylor tipped MARA to be next in line among Bitcoin firms to join the Nasdaq 100.

Mining Ecosystem Outlook

Bitcoin mining is a fundamentally tough business with a lot of competition and block subsidies being cut in half every four years, the last occurring in April, dropping the block reward to 3.125 BTC.

Bitcoin hashrate, or network computing power, hit an all-time high of 817 EH/s on Jan. 3, according to Blockchain.com.

Meanwhile, hashprice, a metric that quantifies how much a miner can expect to earn from a specific quantity of hash power, remains low at $0.057 per Terahash per second per day, according to Hashrate Index.