Bitcoin miner MARA takes $1.3B hit after brutal quarter – What’s next?

Publicly traded Bitcoin mining firm, MARA, saw its stock price dip by 3.4% on Monday, the 11th of May, and closed at $12.93. The decline followed the company’s Q1 loss report.

However, the stock recovered some ground during Tuesday’s pre-market trading.

According to its earnings report, Q1 revenues fell 18% to $176 million, and the net loss totalled $1.3 billion. The firm said over 90% of the net loss was due to the crypto downturn, adding that,

Net loss during the quarter includes $1.0 billion loss related to the fair value of digital assets.

The firm held over 53,000 BTC by the end of 2025.

However, MARA reported that it held 35,303 BTC as of the end of March.

Over the same period, BTC price dropped from over $98K to a low $60K but closed the Q1 at around $68K. That essentially marks a 30% drawdown. 

Notably, MARA sold 20,880 BTC in Q1 at an average of $70,137, or about $1.5 billion worth of BTC in Q1. Out of this, $1.1 billion worth of sold BTC was used to finance its debt, effectively reducing its overall debt burden by 30%. 

MARA leverages Bitcoin holdings for AI pivot

That said, the miner is still forging ahead with its aggressive AI pivot plans. In fact, part of the $1.1B BTC sell-off in Q1 was both for debt reduction and AI pivot. 

This mirrored the broader trend of miner sell-off in Q1. But MARA led the dump by selling 20K BTC out of the total 32K  BTC offloaded during the same period. 

In fact, Robert Samuels, VP of investor relations at MARA, reiterated that 90% of the firm’s capacity will be converted to AI infrastructure. 

The shift echoed last year’s warning by MARA CEO, Fred Thiel, that BTC miners’ days are numbered. Thiel cautioned that after the 2028 BTC halving, the little block rewards will force miners to be power generators. 

By 2028, you’ll either be a power generator, be owned by one, or be partnered with one.

In other words, only miners with energy control or AI infrastructure will survive after block rewards are reduced from the current 3.125 BTC to 1.5625 BTC after 2028. 

In fact, this is part of the Starwood strategic partnership. The aim is at turning MARA’s existing BTC mining sites into AI data centers and power generators. 

Final Summary

• MARA stock price fell briefly after reporting 18% decline in revenue and a $1.3B net loss in Q1.
• The miner offloaded over 20K BTC in Q1 to reduce its debt and accelerate its AI pivot