Marathon Patent Group, became the second publicly traded firm to convert a portion of their treasury cash into bitcoin after the NASDAQ-listed company bought $150 million in Bitcoin at $31,135 apiece using its treasury cash.

The decision to convert a portion of treasury cash into Bitcoin was similar to that of MicroStrategy who has bought over $1.4 billion in bitcoin till today.

“By leveraging our cash on hand to invest in bitcoin now, we have transformed our potential to be a pure-play investment into a reality. We also believe that holding part of our treasury reserves in bitcoin will be a better long-term strategy than holding U.S. dollars, similar to other forward-thinking companies like MicroStrategy," Marathon CEO Merrick Okamoto said.

The bitcoin price has moved between the range of $30,000 – $33,000 over the last week before the recent breakout to above $34,000 as of press time.

Marathon Patent Group has been mining the top cryptocurrency since 2017, with over 2560 miners under its ownership. The firm is reportedly mining 2-3 bitcoins per day and is already looking to expand its operation by investing in 100,500 units of advanced S19 miners from Bitmain for $270 million.

“When fully deployed and installed, the company’s total hashrate capability will exceed 10.34 exahash [from the current about 256 petahash], which we believe could make Marathon the largest bitcoin miner in the world.” Okamoto added.