For years, many publicly traded Bitcoin miners promoted a simple identity: mine BTC, keep BTC, and let long-term appreciation do the rest. That “never sell” approach helped position miners as leveraged public-market vehicles for Bitcoin exposure. But that mindset is clearly changing. MARA Holdings disclosed in its latest annual filing that it has expanded its crypto management strategy for 2026 to permit the sale of bitcoin held on its balance sheet. The company is not saying it will immediately liquidate its treasury, but it has formally opened the door to doing so.
This change matters because it represents more than a small accounting adjustment. In 2025, MARA’s policy allowed sales only from newly mined bitcoin production. Under the revised 2026 approach, the company may sell BTC already sitting on its balance sheet as part of broader capital allocation decisions. For a miner that was long associated with holding mined bitcoin as a strategic reserve, the shift signals a more flexible and more finance-driven approach to treasury management.
Why MARA is rethinking its bitcoin treasury
As of Dec. 31, 2025, MARA held 53,822 bitcoin. Using a year-end spot price of $87,498, those holdings were worth about $4.7 billion. That is an enormous treasury by any standard, but size cuts both ways. During 2025, the company recorded a $422.2 million decrease in the fair value of its bitcoin holdings as market prices fluctuated. In other words, holding a large BTC reserve can amplify upside during strong markets, but it can also put visible pressure on the balance sheet when prices retrace.
The filing also shows that MARA is already treating part of its bitcoin stack as an actively managed financial asset rather than as untouchable inventory. Roughly 28% of its BTC was deployed in lending, trading, or collateral arrangements. That included 9,377 bitcoin loaned to counterparties and 5,938 bitcoin pledged against $350 million in outstanding credit facilities. According to the filing, those lending activities generated $32.1 million in interest income during the year. That detail is important because it shows the company had already moved beyond a simple “mine and hold” posture.
The revised policy gives MARA discretion to buy or sell BTC depending on market conditions and capital allocation priorities. This does not obligate the company to dump reserves immediately. Instead, it creates a formal framework for using treasury assets in a more dynamic way. For a large public miner, optionality has real value. If capital requirements rise, if financing markets become less friendly, or if expansion opportunities improve, bitcoin reserves can become a source of funding rather than a passive long-term bet.
MARA’s operating scale helps explain why flexibility is becoming more valuable. By the end of 2025, the company operated roughly 490,000 mining rigs and reported 66.4 exahashes per second of energized hashrate. Total energy capacity stood near 1.9 gigawatts, while purchased energy costs reached $179.0 million during the year. At the same time, the company mined 8,799 bitcoin in 2025, down from 9,430 in 2024. That decline reflects the impact of the April 2024 halving as well as rising network difficulty. Production pressure and fixed operating costs make treasury liquidity far more relevant than it was in earlier cycles.
MARA is also developing data centers designed for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads. The company has described its power-rich sites as suitable for customers that need reliable access to energy at scale. Those projects typically require heavy upfront investment, long planning horizons, and sustained funding capacity. In that context, monetizing part of a bitcoin treasury can look more attractive than relying exclusively on equity issuance or additional debt financing.
Core Scientific is also moving toward bitcoin sales
MARA is not alone. Core Scientific said this week that it expects to monetize substantially all of its bitcoin holdings in 2026 as part of a broader transition toward AI and high-density colocation services. That statement suggests the shift is not just company-specific. It reflects a wider strategic evolution across the mining industry, where operators are increasingly trying to convert their power infrastructure and real estate footprint into platforms for higher-value compute businesses.
Core Scientific has already started down that path. In January, the company sold about 1,900 BTC for approximately $175 million, implying an average sale price near $92,000 per coin. At the end of 2025, it still held 2,537 bitcoin worth about $222 million. Compared with MARA, that treasury is smaller, but Core Scientific’s actions are more explicit: bitcoin is being treated as a funding source for a larger operational transition rather than as a reserve to be preserved indefinitely.
The company has indicated that its mining segment is being maintained primarily to meet power commitments while sites are converted into facilities built to support AI and other compute-intensive workloads. That framing is important. It means mining may remain operational, but increasingly as a bridge use case rather than the final strategic destination. In this model, bitcoin holdings become monetizable assets that help fund the conversion from traditional mining campuses to diversified data center infrastructure.
Core Scientific ended 2025 with about $530 million in liquidity and pointed to multibillion-dollar financing potential tied to data center contracts. Even so, selling BTC still makes practical sense. In a higher-rate environment, monetizing bitcoin can reduce dependence on issuing new equity or taking on additional borrowing. It also increases cash on hand, which is especially valuable for a company managing large-scale infrastructure projects with long development timelines.
After the halving, treasury strategy is becoming central
The deeper reason behind these policy changes is that the economics of mining have become tougher. After the halving, block rewards are lower, but electricity costs, infrastructure spending, maintenance, and financing expenses do not fall in parallel. At the same time, network competition and mining difficulty continue to rise. Revenue remains tightly linked to the market price of bitcoin, while many costs stay fixed or trend upward. That combination makes miners more vulnerable to price drawdowns and less able to rely on a single treasury philosophy.
Holding large BTC reserves still has obvious appeal. In a bull market, treasury gains can dramatically improve reported asset values and reinforce the idea that public miners offer direct upside to Bitcoin’s price. That exposure has historically been one of the main attractions for equity investors. But the downside is just as real. A falling bitcoin price can squeeze the balance sheet, weaken collateral positions, and complicate liquidity management. As a result, miners now have to decide not just whether to hold or sell, but whether to lend, pledge, trade, or otherwise optimize treasury assets.
This is why bitcoin treasury strategy now sits alongside power procurement, site development, fleet deployment, and expansion into adjacent compute markets. In previous cycles, discussions about miners focused heavily on hashrate, machine counts, and coin production. Those metrics still matter. But increasingly, the more decisive question is how a company manages the bitcoin it already owns—and whether that BTC functions as a reserve, a collateral base, an income-generating asset, or a source of growth capital.
What miners gain—and lose—by selling BTC
From a corporate finance perspective, selling bitcoin offers an obvious benefit: it turns a volatile digital asset into immediately usable cash. That cash can be used to pay electricity bills, fund capital expenditures, build or retrofit data centers, and reduce dependence on external financing. In a higher-rate environment, a treasury sale may be cheaper and cleaner than issuing more shares or layering on additional debt. For miners trying to evolve into AI infrastructure or colocation businesses, liquidity can matter more than preserving maximum upside exposure.
The trade-off is equally clear. Once a company sells BTC, it reduces its direct participation in any future Bitcoin rally. Historically, one reason investors liked publicly traded miners was that they combined operating leverage with treasury leverage: they mined bitcoin and often held large amounts of it. If miners steadily reduce their BTC holdings, their equities may begin to resemble infrastructure or data center plays more than high-beta Bitcoin proxy stocks. That could change how markets value them.
At the time of writing, BTC is trading below $67,000 after briefly topping $70,000 yesterday. The current price is $66,741.91. That volatility helps explain why treasury policy has become such a major issue. For miners today, the key question is no longer simply whether they believe in Bitcoin’s long-term future. It is how to convert bitcoin reserves, power access, and physical infrastructure into a more durable and adaptable business model.