NASDAQ-listed Marathon Patent Group has just announced that it has purchased 4,812.66 bitcoins for a total of $ 150 million.
The firm’s CEO and chairman, Merrick Okamoto, said the move puts his company in competition with investors seeking Bitcoin exposure. But, just as relevant: Okamoto also referred to Bitcoin’s hedge properties, which he sees as critical to the company’s long-term success.
“By purchasing $ 150 million worth of Bitcoin, we have accelerated the process of making Marathon what we believe is the de facto investment choice for individuals and institutions to invest in this new asset class search. We also believe that holding some of our treasury reserves in Bitcoin is a better long-term strategy than holding US dollars, much like other forward-thinking companies like MicroStrategy. “
The Marathon Patent Group mines cryptocurrencies from a mining facility in Hardin, in the western US state of Montana. They also work from a co-hosting facility in North Dakota.
Publicly traded companies that hold Bitcoin
Marathon joins a small but growing group of public companies that are holding Bitcoin as a treasury strategy.
Overall (marathon not included) these companies hold 150k BTC with a current valuation of $ 4.7 billion. The biggest holder is MicroStrategy, which accounts for just over a third of that amount.
In August 2020, MicroStrategy became the first public company to invest a large part of its assets in Bitcoin. Since then, it has topped its BTC reserves through a corporate bond of $ 650 million. And recently again with another $ 10 million purchase.
MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has since become something of a Bitcoin evangelist. He has spoken numerous times about his reasons and his decision-making process.
Everything can be summed up as „the belief in Bitcoin’s potential to eat up all of the market capitalization of all other asset classes“.
MicroStrategy wants to share approach
Since August 2020, Bitcoin is up + 190% while MicroStrategy’s stock is up + 280%.
What many skeptics thought was a risky move by MicroStrategy has, in hindsight, turned out to be good for Saylor. And that’s an observation that has not escaped the notice of CEOs and executives around the world.
With respect to the virtual event „Bitcoins for Corporations“, which is scheduled for 3 February, says Saylor, is that thousands of participants have signed up to learn how MicroStrategy when Bitcoin purchase (For Bitcoin buy Instructions ) procedure is.
“They all want to find out how to get Bitcoin on their balance sheet or PNL. We’re going to be releasing our playbook, all of our accounting policies, our legal policies, all of the work we’ve done over the months to prepare to do this as a publicly traded company. And we’re going to make it open source with the idea of saving millions of dollars in weeks or months to make that transition easier. „
Marathon isn’t the first company to include Bitcoin in its books. And based on Saylor’s efforts, it may not be the last either.