- In the fourth quarter, MARA management said the company completed its acquisition of Exaion and announced a partnership with Starwood to develop large data centers on existing power sites.
- CEO Fred Thiel stated that MARA is shifting from a pure Bitcoin mining model toward an energy-backed digital infrastructure platform.
- He said the decision to partner with Sherwood Capital was to build credibility.
MARA Holdings (MARA) stock rocketed after-hours on Thursday, even after the company missed fourth-quarter earnings estimates by a large margin, with investors excited about the company’s pivot to AI-HPC workloads finally gaining some legs.
MARA’s stock was nearly 15% in overnight trade, after falling 1.4% in regular trade. It was also among the top trending tickers on Stocktwits as retail sentiment around the company improved to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘bullish’ over the past day and chatter jumped to ‘high’ from ‘normal’ levels.
“MARA is no longer simply a Bitcoin miner. We’re building an energy-dominant digital infrastructure platform,” CEO Fred Thiel said on the company’s earnings call. He even invoked CEO Jensen Huang’s “compute equals revenue” line from Nvidia’s (NVDA) latest earnings call.
The company announced that it completed its acquisition of Exaion, first announced in August last year alongside its pivot away from Bitcoin (BTC) mining. It also announced that it has partnered with Starwood to build large data centers across its existing U.S. plants.
Bitcoin’s Slide Hits MARA’s Balance Sheet
While MARA’s pivot to AI-HPC capabilities was announced in August last year, most of its revenue still comes from Bitcoin mining operations. “Every $10,000 change in the price of Bitcoin results in approximately a $538 million change in the value of our Bitcoin holdings,” said CFO Salman Khan.
MARA missed Wall Street’s expectations on both revenue and earnings, according to Koyfin data. It reported $202.3 million in revenue, below the consensus forecast of $251 million, and a loss of $4.07, well above the analysts' anticipated loss of $0.03.
“Having Bitcoin mining at the site allows us to act as a load balancer,” Thiel said. “We mine whenever power isn’t being used — at preferential prices.”
Why Did MARA Partner With Starwood?
According to Thiel, the decision to partner with Starwood wasn’t about capability, but about credibility. “Hyperscalers typically do not award large-scale AI workloads to first-time developers without institutional backing,” he said.
He also said that the partnership gives MARA an edge over peers, who are building data centers but don’t necessarily have a client in hand. “You don't turn a spade until you have a tenant typically signed because that tenant has a specific use for the site,” he stated. “They [clients] work with Starwood to design, get it permitted, and build as opposed to building and hoping somebody will come, like some of our peers have done.”
“We are very focused on rapid execution with a lot of certainty.”
– Fred Thiel, Chairman and CEO, MARA Holdings
Meanwhile, its acquisition of Exaion is meant to help MARA Holdings lock in clients in Europe, especially those seeking to work with companies not subject to the U.S. Cloud Act.
What Is Retail Saying?
One user on the platform anticipates larger gains after the stock’s price hits $10, citing data that would force short sellers to cover their calls. They added that if MARA’s stock gets support from a Bitcoin (BTC) rally, it could push the stock price as high as $12.
Another user said that MARA’s stock price could rally to $30 if Bitcoin’s price hits $100,0000.
MARA’s stock has fallen over 8% this year. If the current rally holds till morning, the stock could break even for the year at market open and potentially cross the $10 mark.
Read also: Bitcoin ETF Inflows Top $500M For First Time This Year, On Track To Break Record Outflow Streak
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