Marathon Appoints Fred Thiel to Board of Directors

Globally Experienced Public/Private Company CEO, Board Member, Strategic Advisor, Private Equity Firm Principal and Senior Advisor/Operating Partner with Over 30 Years’ Experience Joins Marathon Team

LOS ANGELES, April 27, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Marathon Patent Group, Inc. (Nasdaq:MARA) (“Marathon” or the “Company”), today announced that it has appointed Fred Thiel to its Board of Directors. Mr. Thiel is a globally experienced public/private company CEO, board member, strategic advisor, private equity firm principal and senior advisor/operating partner with over 30 years’ experience building high performance businesses and creating value through innovation and revenue growth – both domestically and internationally.

Thiel currently serves as Chairman and Co-founder of Sprocket, Inc., a Blockchain/Cryptocurrency technology and financial services company whose mission is to reduce the risk and friction of cryptocurrency trading across marketplaces, regions and exchanges by establishing a federation of exchanges that together create a single aggregated global trading marketplace with large scale liquidity, rapid execution, minimal counter-party risk, and price transparency.

Prior to that, Thiel served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Local Corporation, an $80 million NASDAQ listed leader in on-line local search and digital media, mobile search monetization and programmatic retargeting markets with over 240 million unique annual visitors.

Earlier in his career, he developed and implemented turn-around strategy as CEO of Gamespy Industries, Inc., where he hired new senior management team and instituted new management controls and processes that resulted in 63% Y/Y revenue growth and turn-around from five years of losses to solidly profitable operations and successfully positioned company for sale to similarly sized competitor in all-cash deal at high multiple. Eighteen months later Fox Interactive paid $650 million for the combined companies.

During his career while holding the title of CEO across multiple companies, Thiel successfully created in excess of $750 million in shareholder value; raised more than $150 million through both public (IPO and secondary offerings) and private capital sources; led multiple successful corporate transformations resulting in highly accretive exits; built high output agile product development organizations; established corporate innovation groups resulting in the creation of new product businesses that generated significant new revenues in first year.

Merrick Okamoto, Marathon’s Interim Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors, stated, “We’re excited to welcome Fred to our Board of Directors. His proven track record of success in creating value in both the public and private markets speaks for itself, making him ideally suited to fill the position on our board. I’m confident that his hands on and no-nonsense approach to value creation will benefit our shareholders.”

Fred Thiel added, “I look forward to playing an integral role in the future of Marathon as it continues to scale its cryptocurrency mining operations. With its recent commencement of operations at its Quebec facility, room for additional expansion, and it’s pending acquisition of Global Bit Ventures, I believe the Company is well positioned to further define itself as an emerging leader in the space.” 

Pictures of the Company’s mining operations may be found at the following link: Facility pictures.  

About Marathon Patent Group, Inc.

Marathon is formerly an IP licensing company. Following the acquisition of GBV, the combined company will focus on the development of GBV’s new business involving the blockchain ecosystem and generation of digital assets. GBV is focused on mining digital assets and intends to add specialized computer equipment and plans to expand its activities to mine new digital assets. To learn more about Marathon Patent Group Inc., visit www.marathonpg.com. To learn more about Global Bit Ventures Inc., visit www.globalbitventures.com.

Investor Notice

Investing in our securities involves a high degree of risk. Before making an investment decision, you should carefully consider the risks, uncertainties and forward-looking statements described under "Risk Factors" in Item 1A of our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on April 5, 2017 and the Risk Factor section of Amendment No.1 to Form S-4 filed on January 24, 2018 which contains a discussion of possible risks related to the Company’s planned merger with Global Bit Ventures, Inc. If any of these risks were to occur, our business, financial condition or results of operations would likely suffer. In that event, the value of our securities could decline, and you could lose part or all of your investment. The risks and uncertainties we describe are not the only ones facing us. Additional risks not presently known to us or that we currently deem immaterial may also impair our business operations. In addition, our past financial performance may not be a reliable indicator of future performance, and historical trends should not be used to anticipate results in the future. See "Safe Harbor" below.

Forward-Looking Statements

Statements made in this press release include forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as “may,” “will,” “plan,” “should,” “expect,” “anticipate,” “estimate,” “continue,” or comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are inherently subject to certain risks, trends and uncertainties, many of which the Company cannot predict with accuracy and some of which the Company might not even anticipate, and involve factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected or suggested. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements and are advised to consider the factors listed above together with the additional factors under the heading “Risk Factors” in the Company's Annual Reports on Form 10-K, as may be supplemented or amended by the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. The Company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events, new information or otherwise.

Contact Information

Name: Jason Assad
Phone: 678-570-6791
Email: Jason@marathonpg.com

Released April 27, 2018