MARA Stock Jumps 15% as Bitcoin Miner Firm Expands Into AI Data Centers

MARA’s stock had gone up by more than 15% during the trading session as the company announced its plans to establish a major joint venture deal with Starwood Capital Group to develop AI centers.

MARA Secures AI Center Deal, Stock Reacts

The Bitcoin miner announced its plans to collaborate with Starwood Property Trust in the development of AI centers during its press release on Thursday.

The deal reached allows the miner to collaborate with Starwood on the development of hyperscale data centers at its existing Bitcoin mining locations in the US. This excludes the properties included in the third-party joint ventures.

The MARA stock had closed at 1.4% lower in the regular trading session in the US on the previous day. However, during the after-hours session, the shares opened at $9.7.

This is an increase of more than 15% over the previous session’s close, according to YahooFinance. The shares had reached a high of $9.9 during the after-hours session, an increase of more than 16%.

The company made its name as a bitcoin mining company, but it has facilities that have direct access to large sources of power. This has proved to be valuable as tech firms struggle to gain access to power for new AI data centers. Notably, the RIOT firm made a similar move.

The firm, however, assured that it’s not letting go of its identity as a bitcoin mining firm in its shareholder letter that boosted sentiment on the MARA stock. In fact, the firm’s CEO, Fred Thiel, said that Bitcoin remains a key pillar of the firm’s strategy.

“While the timing of a recovery in bitcoin prices is difficult to predict, our long-term conviction in the asset class remains unchanged,” Thiel added.

Bitcoin Miner Expands Despite Q4 Loss

Marathon Digital Holdings reported a loss per share of $0.46 in its latest earnings report. This is compared to the $1.24 per share that was reported last year. The revenue for the company declined by 6% compared to the same period last year. The revenue for the fourth quarter was $202.3 million compared to $214.4 million reported in the same period last year.

This is a $1.7 billion loss in the latest earnings report compared to the $528.3 million in net income reported in the same period last year. The MARA stock declined by nearly 2% after this was released in the open market.

The company mined 2,011 BTC in the fourth quarter. This is a decline from the 2,144 that were mined in the third quarter. The company remains with the second-largest public corporate Bitcoin holdings, after Michael Saylor’s Strategy.

The decline in earnings was due to the $1.5 billion negative change in the fair value of digital assets. This is due to a 30% drop in the price of Bitcoin in the current market cycle.