MARA announces a major strategic transformation, selling $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in the first quarter. The company stops purchasing new mining rigs and instead develops AI and high-performance computing using existing power resources.

MARA Holdings (MARA), a mining giant that once “held on tight” to Bitcoin, is now making a major strategic turn. Even though the mining rigs are still running day and night, it may no longer be convincing to call “mining” the company’s absolute core.

MARA disclosed in its financial report on Monday that during the first quarter of this year, the company sold $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and said it will no longer make large-scale purchases of ASIC mining machines in the future. Instead, it will shift its focus to AI (artificial intelligence) and high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure.

Over the past years, whether mining companies buy large amounts of ASICs has long been seen by the market as an important indicator for expanding mining capacity. Now that MARA is proactively hitting the brakes, it also clearly signals that the company’s growth expectations for its mining business have cooled significantly.

Full Shift to AI and High-Performance Computing

By contrast, MARA is now paying more attention to “power resources” itself. The company said that its future energy and infrastructure strategy will gradually shift toward the needs of AI and high-performance computing, with plans to deploy AI data centers and IT infrastructure alongside existing mining sites. In other words, MARA hopes that the same power system can both mine Bitcoin and redirect power to AI computing as market demand changes.

MARA also revealed that currently about 90% of its self-operated mining capacity could potentially be converted in the future to support AI and IT infrastructure. As the AI boom sweeps the globe, electricity demand for data center operations and large language model (LLM) training has surged. Bitcoin miners with abundant low-cost energy and data center resources have suddenly become “strategic assets” in the eyes of tech giants.

The financial report data shows that MARA’s revenue in the first quarter fell 18% year over year to $174.6 million, while net losses widened to $1.3 billion, mainly due to unrealized losses caused by the decline in Bitcoin.

To activate assets and reduce financial pressure, MARA sold large amounts of Bitcoin valued up to $1.5 billion in the first quarter to replenish cash flow and repay debt. By the end of the quarter alone, it sold $1.1 billion worth of Bitcoin, specifically to repurchase the company’s convertible bonds.

According to BitcoinTreasuries data, after this round of sell-off, MARA fell from 2nd place to 4th place among publicly listed companies holding the most Bitcoin worldwide.

This article is reprinted with permission from: 《Block Beast》
Original title: 《Bitcoin miner MARA dumps $1.5 billion worth of coins, pivots to AI and high-performance computing》
Original author: Block Sister MEL

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