MARA sold 13,597 bitcoin for $1.1 billion and plans more sales

Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings sold 13,597 bitcoin for about $1.1 billion in the six weeks after its third quarter ended, roughly 40 percent of what it held, and told shareholders on 9 November it is not done selling.

Those numbers came from the company's third-quarter shareholder letter, filed Monday with its earnings. MARA sold the coins at an average of $81,039 each. That price sits well above where bitcoin trades today. Most of the proceeds went to clearing debt.

Where the $1.1 billion went

About $750 million repaid loans that were backed by bitcoin, MARA said. Clearing that debt released 17,477 coins the company had pledged as collateral. The share of its holdings lent out or pledged dropped to under 5 percent, from 57 percent at the end of September. MARA now owns far more of its stack outright.

That repayment alone was larger than the whole quarter's revenue of $164.2 million. MARA's board also approved buying back up to $500 million of company stock. That authorization is discretionary. The company does not have to use any of it.

Why a bitcoin miner is selling bitcoin

A bitcoin miner selling bitcoin reads as odd at first. The quarter explains why. Revenue fell about 35 percent from a year earlier, to $164.2 million from $252.4 million, as higher network difficulty and a weaker bitcoin price squeezed mining margins. The six weeks of selling moved about six times as much bitcoin as MARA mined all quarter, a sign the coins came from the treasury, not fresh output. MARA still reported net income of $632.1 million, up from $123.1 million a year before, though most of that was accounting gains on the bitcoin it holds, not cash from the business.

MARA is also spending. It is building data centers and AI computing capacity, the same move other miners are making as mining pay thins out. IREN has wound down bitcoin mining to chase AI revenue, and Riot signed a $28 billion AI lease as its mining profit collapsed. Selling bitcoin hands MARA cash for that build-out without printing new shares at a low price.

Debt is the other pressure. Some of MARA's bondholders can demand early repayment starting next year, so building a cash cushion now beats scrambling later. "We intend to continue using bitcoin to build cash for purposes such as AI infrastructure opportunities," the company wrote. It said it would keep selling when it needs funds for AI projects, its convertible notes and possible buybacks.

The timing lands in a rough week for crypto. Bitcoin dropped under $74,000 days earlier as forced liquidations wiped out more than $1 billion in traders' positions, and mining stocks fell with it. A miner raising cash and cutting debt into that market is playing defense.

From Marathon to an energy and AI company

This sale fits a company that no longer sees itself as only a miner. Once called Marathon Digital, MARA now describes itself as a global, energy-backed digital infrastructure enterprise. It runs about 1.9 gigawatts of energized capacity across nearly 20 sites on four continents, with a path to roughly 4.8 gigawatts. Part of the debt it just cleared had funded its purchase of Long Ridge Energy, a power plant deal that United States energy regulators approved on 5 November.

For most of the past two years, MARA held nearly every coin it mined, a strategy borrowed from bitcoin treasury firms that raise equity and debt to pile up BTC. Selling into a dip, and in this size, marks a cooler take on that playbook.

Is this a retreat from bitcoin?

MARA says no. Fred Thiel, the company's chairman and chief executive, wrote that the sales are "not a pivot away from bitcoin," casting them as balance-sheet work rather than a change of plan. The numbers complicate that line. By a lot. Selling 40 percent of a bitcoin position in six weeks is a big cut, and the company has not said how low it will go.

There is a timing angle too. MARA sold near $81,000 a coin. Bitcoin traded near $74,800 at 07:38 UTC on 10 November 2026, according to CoinGecko, so the company cashed out above the current price and now holds money instead of a falling asset. Call it luck or skill. Nobody can say yet.

What to watch

The next monthly update will show whether MARA keeps selling, and how fast. Watch the pledged-collateral figure, because a company that just freed 17,477 coins could pledge them again to borrow. The buyback is the other signal. If MARA spends the $500 million, it is betting its own shares are cheaper than more bitcoin. If that money goes to debt and data centers instead, that tells its own story.

There is a risk in the move as well. If bitcoin rebounds hard, MARA will have sold coins it could have kept, and buying them back would cost more. The company is trading some of that upside for a safer balance sheet and cash in hand. For now, with the price below where it sold, the trade looks fine. A sharp rally would test it.

One question stays open. MARA has not given a figure for how many bitcoin it has left, or named a long-term holding target. For a firm that built its name on stacking coins, that silence is the thing to watch.