MARA Holdings is shedding its pure-play bitcoin miner identity. In the first quarter of 2026, the company sold approximately $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin as it refocuses on power infrastructure and artificial intelligence data centers. The shift comes amid weaker financial results, as MARA uses its bitcoin treasury to retire debt and fund a major energy acquisition in Ohio.
For Q1 2026, MARA reported revenue of $174.6 million, an 18% decline from the same period last year, and a net loss of about $1.3 billion. Management attributed the loss to a roughly $1 billion negative change in the fair value of its digital assets following a double-digit drop in the bitcoin price during the quarter.
On the operational side, MARA mined 2,247 bitcoin in the quarter and increased energized hashrate by 33% year-over-year to 72.2 exahash per second. However, these operational gains did not offset the mark-to-market hit on its holdings.
To strengthen its balance sheet, MARA sold about $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin during the quarter, including a $1.1 billion block near the end used to repurchase convertible notes. The miner sold 20,880 bitcoin and ended the quarter with 35,303 coins, down from 38,689 earlier in the year. This sale pushed MARA from the second- to the fourth-largest publicly traded holder of bitcoin, according to Bitcoin Treasuries data.
Management framed the move as using bitcoin as “ammunition” on the balance sheet rather than an untouchable reserve.
MARA is pivoting from bitcoin to AI
Even as it continues to mine, MARA is signaling a strategic pivot away from aggressive expansion of dedicated mining capacity. In its earnings statement, the company said it does not expect to make large purchases of new ASIC miners, a sharp contrast with the playbook miners used during the last cycle to chase hashrate growth.
Instead, MARA is steering capital toward energy and data infrastructure that can support both bitcoin mining and high-performance computing workloads. A centerpiece of that plan is the pending $1.5 billion acquisition of the Long Ridge Energy & Power campus in Hannibal, Ohio, which includes a 505-megawatt gas-fired power plant and extensive land for expansion. MARA says the site could support more than 600 megawatts of AI and critical IT loads through staged buildouts, with its existing mining footprint integrated into the campus.
The company has also partnered with Starwood Capital to convert selected mining sites into AI and high-performance computing data centers, broadening its revenue base beyond block rewards. Around 90% of MARA’s non-hosted mining capacity could eventually support AI and IT infrastructure, according to company disclosures.
The strategy positions MARA at the center of two energy-hungry sectors, bitcoin mining and AI compute, while giving it the option to tilt power toward whichever market offers stronger returns at a given time.