Why MARA and Core Scientific Are Preparing to Sell Bitcoin Reserves
Public Bitcoin miners once built their identity around a “never sell” philosophy, treating mined BTC as a long-term treasury reserve rather than a source of working capital. That stance is now changing. MARA Holdings disclosed in its latest annual filing that its expanded 2026 crypto treasury policy will permit sales of Bitcoin held on its balance sheet, going beyond its 2025 rule that only allowed sales of newly mined production. As of Dec. 31, 2025, MARA held 53,822 BTC valued at about $4.7 billion at a year-end spot price of $87,498, while also reporting a $422.2 million decline in fair value during the year. The filing further showed that roughly 28% of its Bitcoin had been deployed in lending, trading, or collateral arrangements, including 9,377 BTC on loan and 5,938 BTC pledged against $350 million in credit facilities, generating $32.1 million in interest income.
The shift is part of a broader post-halving reset in mining economics. MARA operated roughly 490,000 mining rigs, ended 2025 with 66.4 EH/s of energized hashrate, nearly 1.9 gigawatts of energy capacity, and $179.0 million in purchased energy costs. It mined 8,799 BTC in 2025, down from 9,430 in 2024, reflecting the effects of the April 2024 halving and rising network difficulty. At the same time, MARA is pursuing data center projects aimed at AI and high-performance computing, which require meaningful capital and long planning horizons.
Core Scientific is making a similar move. The company said it expects to monetize substantially all of its Bitcoin holdings in 2026 as it pivots toward AI and high-density colocation. It sold about 1,900 BTC in January for roughly $175 million, at an implied average price near $92,000 per coin, and ended 2025 holding 2,537 BTC worth $222 million. With about $530 million in liquidity and multibillion-dollar financing potential tied to data center contracts, Core Scientific is using BTC monetization as a strategic funding tool. Together, these developments show that treasury management has become as important to miners as power procurement, site development, and expansion into adjacent compute markets.
