比特幣開採如此艱難，礦工採用了 Michael Saylor 成功的 BTC 策略

Marathon Digital 出售債券來為購買比特幣提供資金，就像 Saylor 的 MicroStrategy 在挖礦利潤減少時在股市上大漲一樣。

Bitcoin mining company Marathon Digital (MARA) is adopting a strategy pioneered by billionaire Michael Saylor, using borrowed money to buy large amounts of bitcoin (BTC) while pausing purchases of new mining equipment.

比特幣挖礦公司 Marathon Digital (MARA) 正在採用億萬富翁 Michael Saylor 首創的策略，利用借來的資金購買大量比特幣 (BTC)，同時暫停購買新的挖礦設備。

Marathon announced this month that it sold $300 million of convertible notes, a type of debt that can be turned into the company's shares, and used most of the proceeds to buy 4,144 bitcoin. Rather than purchase more mining rigs, "given the current mining hash price, the internal rate of return (IRR) indicates that purchasing bitcoin using funds from debt or equity issuances is more beneficial to shareholders until conditions improve," the largest publicly traded miner posted recently on X. "Hash price" is a measure of mining profitability.

Marathon 本月宣布，出售了 3 億美元的可轉換票據（一種可以轉換為公司股票的債務），並用大部分收益購買了 4,144 個比特幣。最大的上市礦商表示，“考慮到當前的挖礦哈希價格，內部收益率（IRR）表明，在情況改善之前，使用債務或股票發行的資金購買比特幣對股東來說更有利”，而不是購買更多的礦機。

Saylor, the CEO of software developer MicroStrategy (MSTR), began making large-scale corporate purchases of bitcoin in 2020, using borrowed money to turn his company into one of the world's largest holders of the cryptocurrency. While MicroStrategy's bitcoin accumulation strategy was widely criticized last year as prices crashed, putting the company's stake underwater, no one is laughing now, given MicroStrategy's bitcoin hoard is now worth billions more than the company paid.

軟體開發商 MicroStrategy (MSTR) 的執行長 Saylor 在 2020 年開始進行大規模的企業購買比特幣，利用借來的資金將他的公司變成了全球最大的加密貨幣持有者之一。儘管去年MicroStrategy 的比特幣累積策略因價格暴跌而受到廣泛批評，導致該公司的股份陷入水下，但現在沒有人笑了，因為MicroStrategy 的比特幣儲備現在價值比該公司支付的價值高出數十億美元。

Both MicroStrategy and Marathon are essentially proxies for bitcoin's price – an attractive quality in the era before bitcoin ETFs were approved earlier this year. But this year, there's been a massive divergence. MicroStrategy's stock soared 90% as it continued to track bitcoin's price, while Marathon has plummeted about 40% as the mining business got much harder.

MicroStrategy 和 Marathon 本質上都是比特幣價格的代理商——在今年早些時候比特幣 ETF 獲得批准之前的時代，這是一個有吸引力的品質。但今年，情況出現了巨大的分歧。 MicroStrategy 的股價因繼續追蹤比特幣價格而飆升 90%，而 Marathon 則因挖礦業務變得更加困難而暴跌約 40%。

The Bitcoin halving in April slashed the reward for mining bitcoin in half, substantially reducing miners' primary source of income. Amid that plunge, Marathon adopted a "full HODL" strategy of keeping all the bitcoin it mines – and raising money to buy more.

4月份的比特幣減半將比特幣挖礦獎勵削減了一半，大大減少了礦工的主要收入來源。在這次暴跌中，馬拉松採取了「完全持有」策略，保留其開採的所有比特幣，並籌集資金購買更多比特幣。

"Adopting a full HODL strategy reflects our confidence in the long-term value of bitcoin," said Marathon's Chairman and CEO Fred Thiel in a statement last month. "We believe bitcoin is the world's best treasury reserve asset and support the idea of sovereign wealth funds holding it. We encourage governments and corporations to all hold bitcoin as a reserve asset."

Marathon 董事長兼執行長 Fred Thiel 在上個月的聲明中表示：“採取全面的 HODL 策略反映了我們對比特幣長期價值的信心。” “我們相信比特幣是世界上最好的國庫儲備資產，並支持主權財富基金持有比特幣的想法。我們鼓勵政府和企業都持有比特幣作為儲備資產。”

Not long after debuting that HODL strategy, it announced the $300 million debt offering. Marathon now owns more than 25,000 bitcoin, second only to MicroStrategy among publicly traded companies.

在推出 HODL 策略後不久，它就宣布發行 3 億美元的債券。 Marathon 目前擁有超過 25,000 枚比特幣，在上市公司中僅次於 MicroStrategy。

Mining Woes

採礦困境

The share price divergence between MicroStrategy and Marathon isn't a surprise, given the woes in mining. The industry is overcrowded, more competitive and facing increased costs. To make matters worse, the Bitcoin network's hashrate and difficulty – two measures of how hard it is to create new bitcoin – are getting higher.

考慮到採礦業的困境，MicroStrategy 和 Marathon 之間的股價差異並不令人意外。該行業過度擁擠，競爭更加激烈，並面臨成本增加的問題。更糟的是，比特幣網路的哈希率和難度（衡量創造新比特幣難度的兩個指標）正在變得越來越高。

JPMorgan recently said that mining profitability fell to all-time lows as the network hashrate rose in the first two weeks of August, while hashprice (the average reward miners get per unit of computing power they direct toward mining) is still around 30% lower than the levels seen in December 2022 and about 40% below pre-halving levels. Miners are now so stressed that they've been forced to pivot from purely being miners – once a highly profitable strategy – to diversifying into other ventures such as artificial intelligence just to survive. Swan Bitcoin, a miner, even just canceled its initial public offering and shut down some of its mining business due to a lack of revenue in the near term.

摩根大通最近表示，隨著8 月前兩週網絡算力上升，挖礦盈利能力跌至歷史最低點，而hashprice（礦工用於挖礦的每單位算力獲得的平均獎勵）仍比2019 年低30% 左右。礦工們現在壓力如此之大，以至於他們被迫從純粹的礦工——曾經是一種高利潤的策略——轉向多元化發展，進入人工智慧等其他企業，只是為了生存。由於短期內缺乏收入，礦商 Swan Bitcoin 甚至剛取消了首次公開募股，並關閉了部分挖礦業務。

"At current hashprice levels, a meaningful proportion of the network is still profitable, but only marginally," said Galaxy Research in a note on July 31. "Some miners on the fence may continue to operate because they can generate positive gross profits. However, when factoring in operating expenses and additional cash costs, many miners find themselves unprofitable and slowly running out of cash," the report added.

Galaxy Research 在7 月31 日的報告中表示：「按照目前的哈希價格水平，網路中很大一部分仍然盈利，但盈利幅度很小。」「一些持觀望態度的礦工可能會繼續運營，因為他們可以產生正的毛利。

Moreover, the January launch of bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S. gave institutional investors that don't want to buy cryptocurrencies, yet still want crypto investment exposure, a more direct route than buying stock in bitcoin miners. After the rollout of ETFs, short selling the miners and going long on ETFs became a prevalent trading strategy among institutional investors, essentially capping the share price appreciation of the miners.

此外，一月在美國推出的比特幣交易所交易基金為不想購買加密貨幣但仍希望進行加密投資的機構投資者提供了比購買比特幣礦商股票更直接的途徑。 ETF推出後，賣空礦商、做多ETF成為機構投資人普遍的交易策略，基本上限制了礦商股價的升值。

To stay competitive and to survive the squeeze, miners have few choices besides diversifying. Even if a miner with a strong balance sheet like Marathon wants to stay a pure-play mining company, it needs to either invest more capital into an already capital-intensive business or buy competitors. Both options take time and come with significant risk.

為了保持競爭力並在擠壓中生存，礦商除了多元化之外別無選擇。即使像 Marathon 這樣擁有強大資產負債表的礦商希望繼續成為純粹的礦業公司，它也需要向本已資本密集型業務投入更多資本，或收購競爭對手。這兩種選擇都需要時間並且伴隨著巨大的風險。

In light of that, it's not hard to see why Marathon took a page out of MicroStrategy's successful playbook and bought bitcoin in the open market. "During periods of significant price appreciation, we may focus solely on mining. However, with bitcoin trending sideways and costs increasing, which has been the case recently,

有鑑於此，就不難理解 Marathon 為何效仿 MicroStrategy 的成功策略並在公開市場購買比特幣了。 「在價格大幅上漲的時期，我們可能只專注於挖礦。然而，隨著比特幣的橫盤趨勢和成本的增加，最近的情況就是這樣，