KAS, the native token of the proof-of-work cryptocurrency Kaspa, surged 13% after major Bitcoin miner Marathon Digital revealed it had mined over $16 million worth of the token to diversify from Bitcoin.
On June 26, Marathon Digital announced that this move allows the firm to “capitalize on the higher margins” achievable with Kaspa mining machines, which can reach up to 95% in some cases.
At the time of writing, KAS has experienced a 145% surge in trading volume and a 10% rise in price over the past 24 hours. The crypto asset has increased by 20% over the last 7 days and 26% over the last 30 days, indicating a positive outlook for the altcoin this month.
According to CoinMarketCap, Kaspa now ranks 24th globally among cryptocurrencies, with a trading price of $0.1759, a circulating supply of approximately 24.035 billion KAS tokens, and a market capitalization of $4.2 billion.
Kaspa is a cryptocurrency designed to deliver a high-performing, scalable, and secure blockchain platform.
The Layer-1 protocol’s key feature is the GhostDAG protocol, a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism that enables faster block times and higher transaction throughput compared to traditional blockchains.
Unlike Bitcoin, GhostDAG allows for the simultaneous production of multiple blocks. This approach accelerates transactions and increases block rewards for miners, as noted by Marathon Digital.
Adam Swick, Marathon’s chief growth officer, mentioned that mining Kaspa allows the company to diversify its revenue stream from Bitcoin, emphasizing it is “directly tied to [our] core competencies in digital asset compute.”
Marathon began mining Kaspa in September last year after bringing the first mining computer online.
The Bitcoin mining giant has purchased approximately 60 petahashes of KS3, KS5, and KS5 Pro ASICs to mine Kaspa tokens. Currently, half of that capacity is operational, with the remainder set to be deployed in the third quarter.
The company has mined 93 million KAS, estimated to be worth approximately $16 million.
The price of the Kaspa token has surged about 50% this year, while Bitcoin’s price has risen by 44%.
During the crypto winter and amid increased competition following the latest Bitcoin halving, Bitcoin miners have been seeking ways to diversify their revenue. Many have switched to utilizing their existing infrastructure to support artificial intelligence (AI) and other computational demands.
Meanwhile, some miners, like Marathon, have chosen to capitalize on additional layers of Bitcoin to boost their earnings.
