Bitcoin miner MARA revealed record-breaking Q4 profits and discussed its future AI initiatives.
MARA Holdings initially waited to evaluate the early stages of AI before committing, but now it looks set to dive in.
In its Q4 earnings release on Feb. 26, MARA stated its intention to establish itself as the backbone for AI and high-performance computing, similar to how Cisco influenced the rise of the internet.
“Whether for Bitcoin mining or AI inference, we believe our technologies will activate others to build while MARA provides the picks and shovels to deploy new systems and services, such as energy management, load balancing and infrastructure.”
While many of its Bitcoin mining competitors rushed into AI, MARA deliberately paused to study early trends, including how data centers could support training large language models.
“The biggest opportunities often emerge in the second wave, not from those who jumped in first, but from those who observed the situation carefully and positioned themselves strategically.”
MARA is positioning itself for the next AI wave, which it expects will emphasize inferencing over training.
Training prepares an AI model to execute a task, whereas inference allows the model to process data and make decisions without human guidance.
MARA anticipates that AI inferencing infrastructure will mirror traditional cloud computing, and it is taking steps to lead in that space.
MARA reported a record Q4 earnings of $214.4 million, surpassing the $183.9 million projection by 16.5%. The company also acquired 18,146 more Bitcoin.
MARA’s annual net income surged by 248% to $528.3 million, while its adjusted EBITDA rose by 207% year-over-year, reaching $794.4 million.
With a 25% year-over-year increase in Bitcoin blocks won, MARA secured 703 and mined 2,492 BTC, holding all of it under its new policy. The firm also expanded its holdings by purchasing 14,574 BTC using cash and proceeds from its zero-coupon convertible senior notes.
By the end of 2024, MARA accumulated a total of 44,893 BTC—including mined, acquired, loaned, and collateralized Bitcoin—making it the second-largest corporate Bitcoin holder, trailing only Strategy, according to data from BitBo’s BitcoinTreasuries.NET.
MARA aggressively scaled its energized hashrate to 53.2 EH/s in Q4, marking a 115% increase over its Q4 2023 performance.
The company secured three times more energy capacity in 2024, which played a key role in its hashrate jump. It also expanded its operations to seven mining facilities.
To minimize its grid power consumption, MARA set up 25-megawatt micro data centers in Texas and North Dakota.
Following the strong earnings report, MARA shares climbed 5.9% to $13.18 in post-market trading but later pulled back to $12.89.
