Marathon Patent Group, a NASDAQ-listed digital assets technology company, today announced that it has completed the purchase of 4,812.66 BTC at an aggregate purchase price of $150 million.
In an official press release published on Monday, the company revealed that it had made this huge bitcoin purchase with the help of the leading technology and financial services firm dedicated to Bitcoin, New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG).
NYDIG took advantage of the favorable market conditions and was able to complete this large transaction in such an efficient way that it did not adversely affect the market.
Speaking on the purchase, Marathon’s chairman and CEO, Merrick Okamoto said,
“By purchasing $150 million worth of Bitcoin, we have accelerated the process of building Marathon into what we believe to be the de facto investment choice for individuals and institutions who are seeking exposure to this new asset class. We also believe that holding part of our Treasury reserves in Bitcoin will be a better long-term strategy than holding US Dollars, similar to other forward-thinking companies like MicroStrategy.”
It is also interesting to note that Marathon is a bitcoin mining company, one of North America’s largest bitcoin self-mining companies.
The company had recently contracted to purchase about 103,060 new bitcoin miners, however, due to shortages resulting from the lockdown, not all of the miners are fully operational.
Therefore, Marathon decided to use the cash at hand to invest in bitcoin and this purchase is one of the largest bitcoin purchases made by a publicly-traded company.
Commenting on the purchase, Robby Gutmann, CEO of NYDIG said, “We deeply admire Marathon’s commitment to the Bitcoin ecosystem, and we are very pleased to add them to the list of companies who utilize NYDIG as the institutional choice for Corporate Treasury Solutions.”
Growing Institutional Interest
In recent months, the cryptocurrency industry has witnessed an influx of large institutional investors, with bitcoin as their entry point.
MicroStrategy is one institutional investor that made Bitcoin its primary reserve asset and has not turned back since then. The company recently made a purchase of 310 bitcoins worth around $10 million at the time of purchase.
