{"id":19891,"date":"2026-05-12T20:00:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/mara-holdings-sold-1-5b-bitcoin-to-fund-ai-pivot\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T20:00:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T20:00:06","slug":"mara-holdings-sold-1-5b-bitcoin-to-fund-ai-pivot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/2026\/05\/12\/mara-holdings-sold-1-5b-bitcoin-to-fund-ai-pivot\/","title":{"rendered":"MARA Holdings sold $1.5B Bitcoin to fund AI pivot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.crypto.news\/2025\/11\/crypto-news-Bitcoin-backed-option01.webp\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"is-style-lead\">MARA Holdings sold $1.5 billion in bitcoin in Q1 2026, dropping to the fourth largest public BTC holder.<\/p>\n<div id=\"cn-block-summary-block_4b308d71aef3fdc1f0ea6ceb7370337a\" class=\"cn-block-summary\">\n<p>\n        <span class=\"tabs__item is-selected\">Summary<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n<div class=\"cn-block-summary__content\">\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>MARA sold 20,880 bitcoin at an average of $70,137 in Q1 2026, generating $1.5 billion and using $1.1 billion to repurchase convertible notes.<\/li>\n<li>The company now describes itself as a digital infrastructure company, with up to 90% of non-hosted mining capacity under review for AI and HPC conversion.<\/li>\n<li>MARA agreed to acquire Long Ridge Energy and Power, a 505-megawatt Ohio gas plant, in a $1.5 billion transaction to anchor its AI data center buildout.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- .cn-block-summary --><\/p>\n<p>MARA Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) <a href=\"https:\/\/crypto.news\/mara-shares-sink-as-1-3b-q1-loss-tests-ai-pivot\/\">sold<\/a> 20,880 bitcoin during Q1 2026 at an average price of $70,137 per coin, generating approximately $1.5 billion in proceeds. The company used $1.1 billion of that near quarter-end to repurchase convertible notes and improve its liquidity position as it repositions away from pure bitcoin mining.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, MARA dropped from the second to the fourth largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin, ending March with 35,303 BTC worth approximately $2.4 billion. First-quarter revenue fell 18% year over year to $174.6 million, and the company posted a $1.26 billion net loss, largely driven by a 22% decline in bitcoin\u2019s price during the quarter.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How MARA is repositioning itself<\/h2>\n<p>In its Form 10-Q filing, MARA now describes itself as \u201ca digital infrastructure company built to convert energy into high-value compute workloads,\u201d placing AI and high-performance computing alongside bitcoin mining rather than treating it as a secondary focus. <\/p>\n<p>Management <a href=\"https:\/\/crypto.news\/mara-shares-sink-as-1-3b-q1-loss-tests-ai-pivot\/\">said<\/a> up to 90% of its non-hosted mining capacity could ultimately be redirected to AI and critical IT workloads, and confirmed the company has no current plans to purchase additional bitcoin mining hardware.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p>\n<p>The Starwood Capital joint venture, announced in Q4 2025, is progressing toward active development, with MARA contributing power-rich sites and Starwood leading design, tenant sourcing, and construction. The structure allows MARA to preserve mining operations on available capacity while scaling AI infrastructure selectively.<\/p>\n<p>After quarter-end, MARA also agreed to acquire Long Ridge Energy and Power, a 505-megawatt combined-cycle gas plant in Ohio, in a $1.5 billion transaction. The campus sits on 1,600 contiguous acres and could support more than one gigawatt of total AI and computing capacity over time.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Context: mining-to-AI pivot across the sector<\/h3>\n<p>MARA\u2019s shift reflects <a href=\"https:\/\/crypto.news\/bitcoin-miners-ai-but-may-be-overvalued-jpmorgan\/\">a broader trend<\/a> among publicly traded miners. Core Scientific is converting its Pecos, Texas, site into a 1.5-gigawatt AI data center campus, while IREN completed a $3.4 billion deal with Nvidia in May. Public miners have collectively signed more than $70 billion in AI infrastructure contracts since late 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Fred Thiel, MARA\u2019s chairman and CEO, has framed the pivot as an extension of the company\u2019s core competency. \u201cBitcoin mining is not a legacy business we are moving away from. <\/p>\n<p>It is the operational foundation on which we are building,\u201d he <a href=\"https:\/\/crypto.news\/mara-shares-sink-as-1-3b-q1-loss-tests-ai-pivot\/\">said<\/a>. MARA also acquired a controlling interest in French AI and HPC data center operator Exaion for $174.5 million during the quarter.<\/p>\n<p>    <!-- .cn-block-related-link --><\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/crypto.news\/mara-holdings-sold-1-5b-bitcoin-to-fund-ai-pivot\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MARA Holdings sold $1.5 billion in bitcoin in Q1 2026, dropping to the fourth largest public BTC holder. Summary MARA sold 20,880 bitcoin at an average of $70,137 in Q1 2026, generating $1.5 billion and using $1.1 billion to repurchase convertible notes. The company now describes itself as a digital infrastructure company, with up to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":19844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"kronos_expire_date":[],"class_list":["post-19891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crypto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19891"},{"taxonomy":"kronos_expire_date","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cryptoted.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kronos_expire_date?post=19891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}