Marathon Patent Group (MARA) PT Raised to $17 at H.C. Wainwright

H.C. Wainwright analyst Kevin Dede raised the price target on Marathon Patent Group (NASDAQ: MARA) to $17.00 (from $9.00) while maintaining a Buy rating.

The analyst commented, "Early last week, Marathon Patent announced yet another forward purchase agreement with Bitmain Technologies, the father of Antminer mining machines, but this one clearly establishes the front running industrial bitcoin miner in North America, even among the leading private companies we know. Per the company's announcement, an additional 70,000 next-generation miners are joining Marathon's fleet starting in July with the last of the shipments due in Dec. 2021, more than tripling Marathon's existing 33,000 next-gen miners and raising the fleet hash rate to 10.36 EH/ s from 3.56 EH/s—see our Dec. 14 note (yes, just four weeks ago, Marathon announced a 10,000 miner purchase) Miner Purchase Maxes Hardin Output—$20K Bitcoin Means More to Come; PT Up, Reit Buy. For competitive context, Core Scientific (private) announced a 59,000 miner purchase Dec. 17, also from Bitmain, that triples its fleet to roughly 77,000 miners generating 7.26 EH/s using 250MW, while Riot Blockchain (RIOT; Buy) announced a 10,000 Antminer purchase Dec. 21, raising its fleet capacity to 3.8 EH/s from 2.3 EH/s, and lastly, Foundry (a subsidiary of privately held DCG) announced an intent to invest $100M in crypto mining, which we estimate could translate to roughly 4.5 EH/s (in bitcoin terms), but we are scratching our head on where Foundry might be able to find machines at this juncture. Bitmain is sold out, contractually, as we understand it, but MicroBT, the manufacturer of WhatsMiner, might be an option as yesterday's HIVE Blockchain (HIVE-TSX; not rated) announcement serves, and there are other lesser known manufacturers. Another publicly traded Canadian bitcoin miner announced plans to deploy machines totaling 3 EH/s in South America, but the company has yet—publicly announced —to secure location or power to meet that strategic goal."

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