Marathon Digital Holdings, a Bitcoin ( BTC ) mining and digital asset technology company headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, recently unveiled a new direct Bitcoin transaction submission service called “Slipstream.”

The new service was designed and implemented to facilitate and speed up large and/or non-standard Bitcoin transactions.

Typically, Bitcoin transactions that are too large to fit on the blockchain or too complex to complete normally get delayed while simpler transactions get processed. This can be frustrating for groups or individuals who trade often and in large amounts.

According to a press release seen by Cointelegraph, Marathon Digital’s new “Slipstream” service has been designed and tested to overcome these limitations:

“While direct transaction submission services exist, most are rudimentary. Slipstream provides sophisticated users with a simple, transparent, and trusted means of adding complex Bitcoin transactions to the blockchain, provided they adhere to Bitcoin’s protocol. Marathon is uniquely capable of offering these services because of our scale, our mining pool, and our team’s technological expertise.”

Marathon Digital is among the largest, most active Bitcoin miners in the world. As Cointelegraph reported, it posted a company record in December 2023 , mining 1,853 BTC. This concluded a year where the company mined 12,852 BTC in total, representing more than half a billion dollars.

The halving

There’s a ticking clock counting down to the next Bitcoin halving, which is predicted to happen somewhere around the third week of April. This prediction is based on the remaining number of blocks and the average time it currently takes to mine them.

While most analysts are predicting a follow-on price increase for the Bitcoin asset, there’s a significant amount of uncertainty surrounding how the halving will affect miners.

Traditionally, Bitcoin has experienced periods of sharp incline post-halving. But, as the term “halving” implies, the payouts for mining a block on the Bitcoin blockchain will be reduced by 50% — taking them down from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC per block.

Mining after April

The tumultuous period surrounding previous halvings has resulted in a rebalancing for the field in the past, with some miners shifting toward other cryptocurrencies. However, it bears mention that Marathon Digital reportedly holds over 15,000 BTC as part of a war chest worth over $1 billion.

Marathon Digital Holdings’ December 2023 #Bitcoin Production Update is here:

- Record BTC Production of 1,853 BTC in December and 12,852 in 2023
- Increased Average Operational Hash Rate 18% M/M to 22.4 EH/s
- BTC Holdings Now Over 15,000, Total Cash BTC of $1.0B as of…

— Marathon Digital Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) (@MarathonDH) January 4, 2024

While some analysts predict close United States competitor Riot Platforms may be better positioned to come out ahead in the long run, Marathon has ironically taken a commanding lead in the early sprint leading up to April.