MARA Sells $1.1B in Bitcoin to Cut Debt by 30%

MARA Holdings sold more than $1 billion of Bitcoin in March to repurchase convertible debt at a discount, using its BTC holdings to reduce leverage, the company said Thursday.

In a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing, the largest listed US Bitcoin miner said it would buy back about $1 billion of zero-coupon convertible notes due 2030 and 2031 for roughly $913 million in cash, capturing about $88 million in savings, or close to a 9% discount to par.ย 

The company said it sold 15,133 Bitcoin (BTC) for around $1.1 billion between March 4 and March 25 to fund the transactions, which it said will cut its outstanding convertible debt by about 30% to roughly $2.3 billion once the deals close at the end of the month. According to Bitcointreasuries.net, MARA now holds 38,689 BTC on its public balance sheet.

MARAโ€™s chairman and chief executive officer, Fred Thiel, commented in a release that the transaction enhanced the companyโ€™s โ€œfinancial flexibilityโ€ and increased its โ€œstrategic optionalityโ€ as MARA expands โ€œbeyond pure-play Bitcoin mining into digital energy and AI/HPC infrastructure.โ€

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MARAโ€™s premarket share price reacted positively to the news, rising from yesterdayโ€™s close of $8.25 to $9.29, a gain of around 12.6%, and traded at $8.74 (+5.56%) at the time of writing, according to data from Yahoo Finance.

MARAโ€™s Thursday pre-market price. Source: Yahoo Finance.

Bitcoin miners continue to sell down their stashes

The move follows a $1.7 billion net loss in the fourth quarter of 2025, driven largely by non-cash fair-value adjustments on MARAโ€™s Bitcoin holdings. At the time, MARA pushed back against speculation that it was quietly selling down its BTC holdings, saying it continued to view Bitcoin as a strategic treasury asset while actively managing its balance sheet.

MARA is part of a broader shift among crypto miners seeking more stable revenue streams, redeploying energy and infrastructure toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.ย The company recently agreed to acquire a majority stake in Exaionโ€™s AI-focused data centers, and peers are making similar moves.

Bitdeer sold down its Bitcoin treasury to zero in February as it pivots toward infrastructure and serviceโ€‘based revenues in cloud and AI compute, while Canaan has invested in US mining sites in Texas to run both Bitcoin mining and AI workloads from the same energy-intensive facilities.

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