比特币开采如此艰难，矿工采用了 Michael Saylor 成功的 BTC 策略

Marathon Digital 出售债券来为购买比特币提供资金，就像 Saylor 的 MicroStrategy 在挖矿利润减少时在股市上大涨一样。

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.

比特币挖矿公司 Marathon Digital (MARA) 正在采用亿万富翁 Michael Saylor 首创的策略，利用借来的资金购买大量比特币 (BTC)，同时暂停购买新的挖矿设备。

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 亿美元的可转换票据（一种可以转换为公司股票的债务），并用大部分收益购买了 4,144 个比特币。最大的上市矿商表示，“考虑到当前的挖矿哈希价格，内部收益率（IRR）表明，在情况改善之前，使用债务或股票发行的资金购买比特币对股东来说更有利”，而不是购买更多的矿机。最近在X上。“哈希价格”是衡量挖矿盈利能力的指标。

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.

软件开发商 MicroStrategy (MSTR) 的首席执行官 Saylor 在 2020 年开始进行大规模的企业购买比特币，利用借来的资金将他的公司变成了全球最大的加密货币持有者之一。尽管去年 MicroStrategy 的比特币积累策略因价格暴跌而受到广泛批评，导致该公司的股份陷入水下，但现在没有人笑了，因为 MicroStrategy 的比特币储备现在价值比该公司支付的价值高出数十亿美元。

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 本质上都是比特币价格的代理——在今年早些时候比特币 ETF 获得批准之前的时代，这是一个有吸引力的品质。但今年，情况出现了巨大分歧。 MicroStrategy 的股价因继续跟踪比特币价格而飙升 90%，而 Marathon 则因挖矿业务变得更加困难而暴跌约 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月份的比特币减半将比特币挖矿奖励削减了一半，大大减少了矿工的主要收入来源。在这次暴跌中，马拉松采取了“完全持有”策略，保留其开采的所有比特币，并筹集资金购买更多比特币。

"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 董事长兼首席执行官 Fred Thiel 在上个月的一份声明中表示：“采取全面的 HODL 策略反映了我们对比特币长期价值的信心。” “我们相信比特币是世界上最好的国库储备资产，并支持主权财富基金持有比特币的想法。我们鼓励政府和企业都持有比特币作为储备资产。”

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 策略后不久，它就宣布发行 3 亿美元的债券。 Marathon 目前拥有超过 25,000 枚比特币，在上市公司中仅次于 MicroStrategy。

Mining Woes

采矿困境

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.

考虑到采矿业的困境，MicroStrategy 和 Marathon 之间的股价差异并不令人意外。该行业过度拥挤，竞争更加激烈，并且面临着成本增加的问题。更糟糕的是，比特币网络的哈希率和难度（衡量创造新比特币难度的两个指标）正在变得越来越高。

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，随着 8 月前两周网络算力上升，挖矿盈利能力跌至历史最低点，而 hashprice（矿工用于挖矿的每单位算力获得的平均奖励）仍比 2019 年低 30% 左右。与 2022 年 12 月的水平相比，比减半前的水平低约 40%。矿工们现在压力如此之大，以至于他们被迫从纯粹的矿工——曾经是一种高利润的战略——转向多元化发展，进入人工智能等其他企业，只是为了生存。由于短期内缺乏收入，矿商 Swan Bitcoin 甚至刚刚取消了首次公开募股，并关闭了部分挖矿业务。

"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 日的一份报告中表示：“按照目前的哈希价格水平，网络中很大一部分仍然盈利，但盈利幅度很小。”“一些持观望态度的矿工可能会继续运营，因为他们可以产生正的毛利润。但是报告补充说，当考虑到运营费用和额外现金成本时，许多矿商发现自己无利可图，并且现金慢慢耗尽。

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，一月份在美国推出的比特币交易所交易基金为不想购买加密货币但仍希望进行加密投资的机构投资者提供了比购买比特币矿商股票更直接的途径。 ETF推出后，卖空矿商、做多ETF成为机构投资者普遍的交易策略，基本上限制了矿商股价的升值。

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.

为了保持竞争力并在挤压中生存，矿商除了多元化之外别无选择。即使像 Marathon 这样拥有强大资产负债表的矿商希望继续成为一家纯粹的矿业公司，它也需要向本已资本密集型业务投入更多资本，或者收购竞争对手。这两种选择都需要时间并且伴随着巨大的风险。

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,

有鉴于此，就不难理解 Marathon 为何效仿 MicroStrategy 的成功策略并在公开市场购买比特币了。 “在价格大幅上涨的时期，我们可能会只专注于挖矿。然而，随着比特币的横盘趋势和成本的增加，最近的情况就是这样，