Bitcoin miner MARA sold $1.5 billion worth of the cryptocurrency in the first quarter of 2025 — more than nine times what it mined — and reported a net loss of roughly $1.3 billion. Revenue fell 18% year-over-year to $174.6 million, dragged down by a $1 billion negative swing in the fair value of its digital assets. The company ended the quarter with 35,303 coins, down from 38,689, and slipped from the second- to the fourth-largest publicly traded Bitcoin holder.
The $1.5 billion sale
MARA produced 2,247 Bitcoin in Q1 but sold 20,880. That's a sell rate that far outstrips production. The company's energized hashrate rose 33% year-over-year to 72.2 exahash per second, but management signaled it won't buy many new ASIC miners going forward. In the earnings call, executives described Bitcoin as 'ammunition' on the balance sheet — not an untouchable reserve. The implication: they're willing to spend it to fund the next chapter.
From mining to AI
That next chapter involves a $1.5 billion acquisition of the Long Ridge Energy & Power campus in Ohio, which includes a 505-megawatt gas-fired power plant. MARA also struck a partnership with Starwood Capital to convert select mining sites into AI and high-performance computing data centers. About 90% of MARA's non-hosted mining capacity could eventually be repurposed for that kind of infrastructure. The move is a sharp turn from the pure-play mining strategy that defined the company for years.
What comes next
The Ohio deal hasn't closed yet, and MARA will need to demonstrate it can actually operate a power plant and run HPC workloads — two things it hasn't done at scale. The company is betting that cheap, on-site power and existing real estate give it a leg up over data center developers starting from scratch. Whether that bet pays off depends on execution. For now, the balance sheet is lighter on Bitcoin and heavier on ambition.
