Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:MARA) shares are moving higher after the bell on Thursday after the Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) miner announced an increase to its hash rate target.

What Happened: After the market close on Thursday, Marathon Digital said it's increasing its hash rate target for fiscal-year 2024 from a previous range of 35 EH/s to 37 EH/s to a new target of 50 EH/s.

The bitcoin mining company began the year with approximately 24.7 EH/s and had been targeting growth of approximately 46% by year's end. Marathon said it's raising its new target based on current machine orders and available capacity following recent acquisitions.

"Given the amount of capacity we have available following our recent acquisitions and the amount of hash rate we have access to through current machine orders and options, we now believe it is possible for us to double the scale of Marathon's mining operations in 2024 and achieve 50 exahash by the end of the year," said Fred Thiel, chairman and CEO of Marathon Digital.

"With our current liquidity position, this growth target is also fully funded and there is no need for us to raise additional capital to achieve our objective."

Marathon noted that it will provide further information on its new hash rate target when it reports earnings on May 9. Analysts expect the company to report earnings of 22 cents per share on revenue of $180.69 million, according to estimates from Benzinga Pro.

MARA Price Action: Marathon Digital shares were up 5.15% after hours at $19.98 at the time of publication, according to Benzinga Pro.

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