Marathon Digital Holdings, a crypto mining firm, announced its partnership with digital assets infrastructure company Zero Two to establish a large-scale immersion Bitcoin-mining facility in Abu Dhabi. The joint venture aims to have two mining sites with a total capacity of 250 megawatts in Mina Zayed and Masdar City.
Marathon Digital wants to leverage excess energy from Abu Dhabi’s grid
The companies plan to power the facilities with excess energy from Abu Dhabi’s grid, increasing its base load and sustainability. Marathon Digital claims that crypto mining in the desert climate of Abu Dhabi, where temperatures can reach 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit), is often infeasible, but it has developed a custom-built immersion solution to cool mining rigs at the proposed facilities.
According to Marathon Digital Chair and CEO Fred Thiel, the firm co-developed and implemented a full immersion solution, as well as developed proprietary mining software to provide flexibility, resilience, and optimization. Ownership of the project, called the Abu Dhabi Global Markets JV Entity, will be divided between Zero Two and Marathon Digital, with the two companies holding 80% and 20% respectively.
The firm expects the facilities to be operational by 2024
The firms expect both Abu Dhabi facilities to be online by 2024, producing a combined hash rate of roughly 7 EH/s. The partnership is one of several developments in the region’s cryptocurrency industry. United States-based crypto exchange Coinbase executives recently visited the UAE to explore the region’s potential as a “strategic hub” for its international operations.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong met with policymakers and spoke at the Dubai FinTech Summit. The partnership could also provide a much-needed boost for crypto mining in the region. The crypto mining industry has long been plagued by concerns over energy consumption and its impact on the environment.
However, Marathon Digital’s innovative cooling solution could help mitigate these concerns and make crypto mining more sustainable in Abu Dhabi. The Abu Dhabi Global Markets JV Entity is a significant step towards expanding the cryptocurrency industry’s footprint in the region. As more countries embrace cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, we’ll likely see more collaborations and innovations in the industry.
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