MARA Holdings sold more than $1 billion worth of bitcoin in March to repurchase convertible debt at a discount, using its BTC holdings to reduce leverage, the company disclosed Thursday in an SEC filing.
The debt buyback
The largest listed U.S. 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 — close to a 9% discount to par.
MARA sold 15,133 BTC for around $1.1 billion between March 4 and March 25 to fund the transactions.
Once the deals close at the end of the month, the company’s outstanding convertible debt will fall by about 30% to roughly $2.3 billion.
Current holdings
MARA now holds 38,689 BTC on its public balance sheet, according to Bitcoin Treasuries — you can track public bitcoin mining company holdings for context on how MARA compares to peers.
CEO Fred Thiel said the transaction enhanced the company’s “financial flexibility” and increased its “strategic optionality” as MARA expands beyond pure-play bitcoin mining into digital energy and AI/HPC infrastructure.
MARA’s premarket share price rose about 12.6% on the news before settling to around +5.56% at the time of writing.
Miners pivot away from bitcoin
The move follows a $1.7 billion net loss in Q4 2025, driven largely by non-cash fair-value adjustments on MARA’s bitcoin holdings.
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.
The company recently agreed to acquire a majority stake in Exaion’s AI-focused data centers.
Bitdeer sold down its bitcoin treasury to zero in February as it pivots toward cloud and AI compute, while Canaan has invested in U.S. mining sites in Texas to run both bitcoin mining and AI workloads from the same energy-intensive facilities.
This trend comes as miners face ongoing pressure from the block subsidy halving and a challenging mining difficulty environment, pushing many operators to diversify revenue.
