In the first quarter of 2022, the American mining company Marathon Digital Holdings mined 1258.6 BTC. This is 556% more than the same period of the previous year.

As part of its strategy to hoard the mining cryptocurrency, the firm has increased its reserves to 9373.6 BTC. This amount includes 4,813 BTC purchased in January 2021 at an average price of $31,168.

Marathon last sold digital gold in October 2020.

As of March 31, the company’s hash rate reached approximately 3.9 EH/s, with QoQ up 15%. In its last month alone, Marathon has acquired approximately 5,600 Antminer S19 ASIC miners from Bitmain and has completed a deployment of 1,320 units.

The total operating equipment fleet reached 36,830 miners.

Marathon has confirmed its plans to increase the hash rate to 23.3 EH/s by deploying approximately 199,000 ASIC devices in early 2023. However, their implementation was deemed lagging behind schedule after about 45 days.

The company’s CEO, Fred Thiel, explained this with the challenges posed in implementing the company’s policy of transitioning to fully carbon-neutral mining before the end of the year. They are connected with the need to ensure a stable energy supply, which requires the coordination of the parties and additional permits.

“Behind the deployment of meters in renewable energy facilities there are many benefits for our business, network and local communities. But this innovative approach comes with unique challenges that we must overcome: in particular, feeding electricity back from the grid to the power plant on a large scale.”

Miner installation at Compute North’s new west Texas facility is progressing at an “accelerated pace” after full approval in late March, according to a press release.

Marathon also announced that it will cease operations at its data center in Hardin, Montana, which is powered by a coal-fired power plant, by the end of 2022.

Recall that in August 2021, the USA became the leader in terms of share in the bitcoin hashrate, replacing China, which banned mining.

According to Arcane Research, in 2022, American miners will further increase their market share.