MARA Sells $1.1 Billion of Bitcoin
Why Bitcoin's Biggest Miners are Becoming AI Landlords
Marathon ($MARA) previously the 2nd largest corporate holder of BTC, sold ~15,000 BTC in order to repurchase convertible debt as well as invest further into Artificial Intelligence / High Performance Computing.
“This transaction enhances financial flexibility and increases strategic optionality as we expand beyond pure-play bitcoin mining into digital energy and AI/HPC infrastructure” - Fred Thiel (CEO)
The biggest story across Bitcoin, Finance, and Technology in 2026 is large-scale data center operators pivoting from Bitcoin Mining to Artificial Intelligence. This pivot is not due to a fault with Bitcoin or Bitcoin Mining. Rather, it’s a testament to how lucrative it is to be in Ai right now.
Firstly, the business models are essentially fungible.
Both require data centers with low-cost power.
If you own a data center, you must choose how to monetize that asset:
Self-Mining
Hosting (BTC Miners or Ai Servers)
The table below provides a side-by-side comparison between Bitcoin Mining (at current market prices) or Ai hosting (at $0.17/kWh).
At present, hosting Ai servers will earn ~1.64x more than running a fleet of Antminer S21 XPs. Furthermore, this likely understates the Ai side of the equation because recent large scale hosting deals have been at rates north of $0.20/kWh.
Not only is the revenue generally higher with Ai hosting, it’s far more predictable. Ai contracts are often signed for terms of 10 or more years; providing the data center operator with consistent positive cashflow, at a predictable clip, for over a decade.
For CFO’s of publicly traded data center operators, the higher gross revenue plus predictability makes Ai hosting a no-brainer.
Why This is a Good Thing
The “difficulty” to mine BTC is directly correlated to the amount of compute on the network. There’s a finite amount of BTC, fewer large scale miners competing for that means smaller miners (those without large-scale data centers) will earn more BTC.
For the first time in Bitcoin’s history, we’re seeing a sustained decrease in Hash Rate / Mining Difficulty. Over the past 90-days, hash rate is down ~6%. Previous drawdowns in hash rate were induced by:
China Mining Man
BTC Dropping to $16,000 in 2022
2024 Halving Putting Pressure in Inefficient Miners
None of these drops in hash rate were sustained long-term; this time is likely different. Demand for Ai servers is accelerating faster than new data centers can be built, which means hosting rates will likely increase, and more large miners will be incentivized to pivot.
As difficulty drops, Bitcoin Mining will become more lucrative to medium and smaller miners; those without access to the economies of scale that make Ai hosting an option.
Even though the price of BTC is down, Bitcoin miners are mining more BTC per unit of compute due to fewer large scale miners competing for the ~450 BTC that are mined daily.
Blockware’s Mining as a Service enables a ‘Cap Ex Lite’ model of Bitcoin Mining. Rather than building your own data center, you can mine BTC at one of ours:
100% Bonus Depreciation on the Miners
1 Cap Ex. = ASICs
1 Op. Ex. = Power Costs
Production Cost of ~$50k per BTC
If you’ve ever considered mining Bitcoin, entering the market now will allow you to scoop up the BTC that large public operators are leaving on the table. Fill out the form here to learn more: https://www.blockwaresolutions.com/info
Mitchell Askew, Head of Blockware Intelligence, breaks down the ‘Ai Pivot’ in the latest video on the Blockware YouTube channel. Check it out 👇