Marathon Appoints Fred Thiel to Chief Executive Officer
April 26 2021 - 8:00AM
Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc.
(NASDAQ:MARA) ("Marathon"
or "Company"), one of the largest enterprise Bitcoin
self-mining companies in North America, today announced that its
board of directors has appointed Fred Thiel as its new chief
executive officer, effective today. Thiel will succeed Merrick
Okamoto, who has served as the Company’s chief executive officer
since 2018, and who will serve as executive chairman of the board
of directors following the transition.
“It’s been a great privilege to lead Marathon as its Chairman
and CEO since the Fall of 2017, and to have overseen the company’s
transformation into one of the leading Bitcoin mining operations in
North America,” said Merrick Okamoto, Executive Chairman of
Marathon Digital Holdings. “Now that we have successfully
implemented our strategy, recasting Marathon’s mission, and setting
the company on a clear path to scale to 10.37 EH/s by early 2022,
the board of directors and I concluded that it was an appropriate
time to adjust the responsibilities of our management team to be
more in line with a company of our size. Therefore, going forward,
I will be focusing my attention on my responsibilities as executive
chairman of the board, while Fred Thiel will take the helm as
CEO.
“Fred joined our company as a director in 2018. He has a long
history of successfully leading and growing organizations in a
variety of industries, and he has a uniquely pertinent and deep
understanding of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. Fred has
proven to be an incredibly valuable resource as a director, and we
are confident that our business and our shareholders will further
benefit from his perspective and expertise as he will be able to
influence Marathon’s development and growth more directly through
his new role as CEO.”
Thiel is a globally experienced public and private company CEO,
board member, strategic advisor, private equity firm principal,
senior advisor, and operating partner with over 30 years of
experience building high performance businesses and creating value
through innovation and revenue growth – both domestically and
internationally.
Fred Thiel, Marathon’s incoming chief executive officer,
commented, “When Merrick took the reins as Marathon’s CEO, he
inherited a business that was near insolvency, and to have
transformed that company into one of the largest, most efficient,
and most stable Bitcoin miners in North America is nothing short of
remarkable. His prescient decision-making and capital markets
experience were integral to building Marathon into what it is
today, and we look forward to continuing to benefit from his
industry knowledge and expertise as he focuses on his role as
chairman of the board.
“With the momentum Marathon has built over the past year, it’s
an incredibly exciting time to be stepping into a more active
leadership position. This is a transformative year for our business
as we are increasing our mining fleet to approximately 103,120
miners, which will produce 10.37 EH/s by the end of the first
quarter of 2022. I look forward to working alongside the rest of
the team to lead Marathon through the next phase of its evolution
for the benefit of our organization and our shareholders.”
Prior to serving as Marathon’s chief executive officer, Thiel
co-founded and served as chairman of Sprocket, a blockchain and
cryptocurrency technology and financial services company whose
mission is to reduce the risk and friction of cryptocurrency
trading across marketplaces, regions and exchanges by establishing
a federation of exchanges that together create a single aggregated
global trading marketplace with large scale liquidity, rapid
execution, minimal counter-party risk, and price transparency.
Prior to that, Thiel served as chairman and chief executive officer
of Local Corporation, an $80 million Nasdaq-listed leader in online
local search and digital media, mobile search monetization and
programmatic retargeting markets with over 240 million unique
annual visitors.
During his career while holding the title of CEO across multiple
companies, Thiel successfully created in excess of $750 million in
shareholder value, efficiently raised more than $150 million
through both public (IPO and secondary offerings) and private
capital sources, led multiple successful corporate transformations
resulting in highly accretive exits, built high output agile
product development organizations, and established corporate
innovation groups resulting in the creation of new product
businesses that generated significant new revenues in their first
year.
Investor NoticeInvesting in our securities
involves a high degree of risk. Before making an investment
decision, you should carefully consider the risks, uncertainties
and forward-looking statements described under "Risk Factors" in
Item 1A of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K for the
fiscal year ended December 31, 2020. If any of these risks were to
occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations
would likely suffer. In that event, the value of our securities
could decline and you could lose part or all of your investment.
The risks and uncertainties we describe are not the only ones
facing us. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we
currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations.
In addition, our past financial performance may not be a reliable
indicator of future performance, and historical trends should not
be used to anticipate results in the future. Future changes in the
network-wide mining difficulty rate or Bitcoin hashrate may also
materially affect the future performance of Marathon's production
of Bitcoin. Additionally, all discussions of financial metrics
assume mining difficulty rates as of April 2021. See "Safe Harbor"
below.
About Marathon Digital HoldingsMarathon is a
digital asset technology company that mines cryptocurrencies with a
focus on the blockchain ecosystem and the generation of digital
assets.
Marathon Digital
Holdings Company Contact:Jason AssadTelephone:
678-570-6791Email: Jason@marathondh.com
Marathon Digital Holdings Investor
Contact:Gateway Investor RelationsMatt Glover and Charlie
SchumacherTelephone: 949-574-3860Email: MARA@gatewayir.com
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/607dd884-86ac-46f5-929a-a7c08ec7a30c
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