Shares of MARA Holdings jumped 17% after the Bitcoin mining company announced a partnership with Starwood Capital Group on Thursday to build large data centers at its existing U.S. sites.
The deal will convert certain MARA sites, many of which were originally developed for Bitcoin mining, into facilities serving cloud and artificial intelligence enterprise customers.
Starwood, which manages more than $125 billion in assets, will lead design, construction and tenant sourcing through its data center arm, Starwood Digital Ventures. The partners plan to provide approximately 1 gigawatt of computing capacity in the near term, with plans to expand beyond 2.5 gigawatts over time. The two companies will jointly finance and operate the projects.
This agreement marks a major turning point for MARA.
The company built its reputation as a Bitcoin miner, but it controls sites with direct access to large power supplies. This access has become valuable as technology companies struggle to secure power to new AI data centers.
MARA’s move is part of a trend of a large number of Bitcoin miners reorienting their infrastructure to meet the growing demand for artificial intelligence computing. The pivot began after Bitcoin’s recent halving cut miner rewards in half. With rising energy costs, falling bitcoin prices, and intensifying competition in the mining sector, profit margins for miners have been squeezed, forcing most companies to diversify or shift completely to hosting machines for AI companies.
More recently, another Bitcoin miner, Bitfarms (BITF), said it was rebranding as Keel Infrastructure as part of its shift from Bitcoin mining to developing data centers for high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads.
However, for MARA, it is not about abandoning its identity as a Bitcoin mining company. In fact, its CEO, Fred Thiel, said in a letter to shareholders that “Bitcoin remains a critical pillar of MARA’s strategy.”
“While the timing of a bitcoin price recovery is difficult to predict, our long-term conviction in this asset class remains unchanged,” Thiel added.
MARA also reported results for the fourth quarter, with revenue down 6% to $202.3 million from $214.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, citing a 14% decline in the average price of bitcoin mined during the quarter.
