MARA Holdings plans huge $2B stock offering to buy more Bitcoin

Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings Inc (MARA) is looking to sell up to $2 billion in stock to buy more Bitcoin as part of a plan that bears a resemblance to Michael Saylorโ€™s Strategy.

MARA Holdings, formerly Marathon Digital, said in a March 28 Form 8-K and prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it entered into an at-the-market agreement with investment giants, including Cantor Fitzgerald and Barclays, for them to sell up to $2 billion worth of its stock โ€œfrom time to time.โ€

โ€œWe currently intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of bitcoin and for working capital,โ€ MARA added.

MARAโ€™s move copies a tactic made famous by Bitcoin (BTC) bull Saylor, the executive chair of the largest corporate Bitcoin holder Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, which has used a variety of market offerings, including stock sales, to amass 506,137 BTC worth $42.4 billion.

MARA Holdings falls just behind Strategy with the second largest holdings by a public company, with 46,374 BTC worth around $3.9 billion in its coffers, according to Bitbo data.

In July, the companyโ€™s CEO, Fred Thiel, said it was going โ€œfull HODLโ€ and wouldnโ€™t sell any of the Bitcoin it mined to fund its operations, as is typical for crypto miners, and would purchase more of the cryptocurrency to keep in reserve.

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The Bitcoin (BTC) minerโ€™s planned stock sale follows a similar offering it made early last year that offered up to $1.5 billion worth of its shares. It also issued $1 billion of zero-coupon convertible senior notes in November with plans to use most of the proceeds to buy Bitcoin.

Google Finance shows that MARA closed the March 28 trading day down 8.58% at $12.47, following on from crypto mining stocks being rattled a day earlier with reports that Microsoft abandoned plans to invest in new data centers in the US and Europe.

MARA shares have fallen another 4.6% to $11.89 in overnight trading on March 30, according to Robinhood.

Bitcoin is trading just above $82,000, down 1.2% over the past 24 hours after falling from a local high of around $83,500, according to CoinGecko.

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