MARA Holdings has begun to shed its famous bitcoin mining portfolio, dropping $1.5 billion in revenue in the first quarter as it refocuses on infrastructure and data centers.
Change comes as a company reports weak economic results and leaning on its bitcoin wealth to relieve debt and provide more funding for Ohio’s energy.
The company reported first-quarter earnings of $174.6 million, down 18% from a year earlier, and a net loss of nearly $1.3 billion. Management attributed the results to a $1 billion negative adjustment in the value of its digital assets after a double-digit slide in the price of bitcoin during the period.
MARA produced 2,247 bitcoins in the quarter and raised its hashrate a strong 33% year-over-year to 72.2 exahash per second, but these gains did not offset the market’s impact on its assets.
To promote its website, MARA sold about $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin during the quarter, including a $1.1 billion block near the end of the period that was also used to buy back convertible notes.
The miner sold 20,880 bitcoins and ended the quarter with 35,303 coins, down from 38,689 at the beginning of the year. That sale pushed the company from second to fourth largest bitcoin trading group, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data.
Regulators framed the move as using bitcoin as an “instrument” on the balance sheet rather than as a non-contact depository.
MARA is moving from bitcoin to AI
Although it continues to mine, MARA is showing the starting point from the dangerous growth of dedicated mines. In its earnings statement the company said that it does not expect a large purchase of new ASIC mining vendors, in contrast to the active miners used in the last period to chase the growth of hashrate.
Instead, MARA is managing energy and data management costs that can support bitcoin mining and high-performance computing.
The main goal of the plan is to wait for $ 1.5 billion find of the Long Ridge Energy & Power campus in Hannibal, Ohio, which has a 505-megawatt power plant and space for expansion.
MARA says the facility can support more than 600 megawatts of AI and critical IT assets through infrastructure, while existing mines are combined with campuses.
The company also partnered with Starwood Capital to convert selected mining sites into AI and high-performance computerized data centers, expanding its investment beyond the block reward.
About 90% of MARA’s non-mining assets can support the development of AI and IT, according to the company’s disclosure.
This strategy places MARA between two power-hungry sectors, bitcoin mining and AI computing, and gives them the opportunity to turn power to any market that offers a strong profit at a given time.
