Benzinga | Nov 19, 2021 11:21AM EST

Marathon Digital CEO: Bitcoin Would Have To Drop 80% For The Company To Become Unprofitable

Fred Thiel, the CEO of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) mining company Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:MARA), said Bitcoin's price would have to undergo an 80% correction before things become challenging for Marathon Digital.

What Happened: In an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Thiel appeared to be unphased by the recent pullback in Bitcoin's price.

Bitcoin retraced from a high of $66,000 earlier this week to a low of $55,700 on Thursday. The leading digital asset's negative price action doesn't seem to be a cause for concern for Marathon Digital.

"We can ride this market for quite a long time. Bitcoin would have to drop 80% before it starts getting to be a challenging situation for us. So ... we're quite comfortable with where our costs are today and we're very optimistic about the future potential for Bitcoin to increase in value over the next few years," said Thiel.

At the current difficulty rate, Marathon's average cost to mine one Bitcoin is around $6,500, including energy and hosting costs.

"So with Bitcoin at $60,000 or thereabouts, it's obviously a very profitable business," said Thiel.

The CEO also stated that Marathon is a long-term holder of Bitcoin and is not taking any profits on its $150 million investment made in January.

MARA Price Action: Marathon's stock price declined by over 25% in the last week after the company disclosed it had been subpoenaed by the SEC. As of Friday morning, the stock is up 6.68% at $54.90.

Photo: Dmitry Demidko on Unsplash