MARA swings to $1.7 billion Q4 loss on bitcoin markdown, shares jump 15% after Starwood AI deal
MARA reported a $1.7 billion Q4 loss due to bitcoin price declines, but shares rose 15% following a major AI data center joint venture with Starwood.Summary
MARA Holdings reported a significant fourth-quarter net loss of $1.7 billion, a sharp reversal from $528.3 million in income the previous year. This loss was primarily driven by a $1.5 billion negative change in the fair value of its digital assets due to a roughly 30% decline in bitcoin's price during the quarter. Despite the loss, MARA's shares surged over 15% in post-market trading after the company announced a strategic joint venture with Starwood Capital Group.
This new venture aims to develop hyperscale and AI-capable data centers across MARA's power-rich sites, potentially supporting over 2.5 gigawatts long-term. Management views this as a continuation of MARA's evolution from a pure bitcoin miner into an integrated energy and digital infrastructure company, using mining as a baseline workload. Operationally, MARA increased its energized hashrate by 25% year-over-year to 66.4 EH/s, though BTC production slightly decreased to 2,011 BTC for the quarter.
(Source：The Block)