Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital (MARA) has acquired $100 million of bitcoin (BTC) from the open market while stating it plans on going back to holding the BTC it makes from its mining efforts. It began offloading the BTC from its reserve to cover operational expenses as the asset’s price dropped last year.

In a statement, MARA relayed that “it has purchased $100 million of bitcoin and currently holds over 20,000 BTC on its balance sheet. Furthermore, effective immediately, MARA will adopt a full HODL approach towards its bitcoin treasury policy, retaining all bitcoin mined in its operations, and will periodically make strategic open market purchases.”

The switch comes as BTC prices are up again. Many, if not all, miners adopted the HODL strategy in the previous bull run. However, they began selling their mined assets to weather through the depths of the crypto winter. MARA was one of the last miners to sell its assets in early 2023.

MARA’s CEO and chairman, Fred Thiel, spoke about going back to holding BTC. “Adopting a full HODL strategy reflects our confidence in the long-term value of bitcoin.” He continued, “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.”

Salman Khan, MARA CFO, added, “Given Bitcoin’s current tailwinds, including increased institutional support and an improving macro environment, we are once again implementing this strategy and focusing on growing the amount we hold on our balance sheet.”

He further explained, “Bitcoin’s recent price decline, coupled with the strength of our balance sheet, afforded us an opportunity to add to our holdings. We look forward to continuing to leverage our technological expertise to support Bitcoin and distributed digital asset ecosystems.”

MARA holds $1.3 billion in BTC and $268 million in cash on its balance sheets, according to previous filings.

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