Investment bank Jefferies maintained a hold rating on MARA Holdings (MARA) shares after bitcoin The miner reported third-quarter results largely in line with Wall Street expectations.
The company cited stable operations, promising developments in energy integration and cautious advances in artificial intelligence, while reducing its price target from $19 to $16.
Shares were up 7% in early trading, around $17.80.
MARA reported revenue of $252 million, compared to Jefferies and consensus estimates of $245 million and $251 million, respectively.
The company mined 2,144 bitcoins, up 4% year-over-year but down 9% sequentially, and reported adjusted EBITDA of approximately $396 million, including a $234 million fair value gain on digital assets.
The company ended the quarter with about $6.85 billion in cash and bitcoin, giving it plenty of flexibility for expansion, analysts Jonathan Petersen and Jan Aygul wrote in Tuesday’s report.
Analysts pointed to MARA’s letter of intent with MPLX to co-develop gas-fired generation and data center campuses in West Texas as a potential structural advantage. The 400 megawatt (MW) project, with a capacity of up to 1.5 gigawatts (GW), would allow the miner to control its own power generation and transfer energy between bitcoin mining, network sales and AI workloads.
Jefferies said the move could cut costs and guard against energy market volatility, although the deal still requires final agreements and regulatory approval.
The company also highlighted Marathon’s first AI inference deployment at its Granbury, Texas site, where ten racks were installed to reuse mining infrastructure for edge computing.
The bank’s analysts called the initiative “strategically important” as a proof of concept, noting that while the scale is small, success could pave the way for higher-margin revenue and position MARA at the intersection of Bitcoin mining and practical AI computing.
Learn more: MARA Holdings Introduces AI and Energy Change with MPLX LOI; Third quarter results impress
