MARA Holdings shares fell after hours on Monday due to a wider first-quarter loss compared to the same period last year and revenue that missed analyst expectations.
MARA's earnings report released on Monday showed that the company's revenue for the quarter ended March 31 declined 18% year-over-year to $174.6 million, falling short of Wall Street's expectation of $192.7 million.
The company reported a loss of $1.3 billion this quarter, widening from a loss of $533.4 million in the same period last year. Earnings per share came in at a loss of $3.31, compared to the expected loss of $2.20.
MARA Holdings (MARA) fell 3.44% to $12.93 in after-hours trading on Monday, giving back intraday gains. The stock closed the day up 3.48% at $13.39.
MARA Holdings erased its gains after closing on Monday due to disappointing company earnings. Source: Google Finance
MARA's stock price fell 16% over the past 12 months, but it has begun to recover this year as the company shifts its focus toward building AI data centers.
The company stated that its first-quarter loss was primarily due to unrealized losses on its reserve of 38,689 bitcoins, as the cryptocurrency declined by 23% during the quarter. MARA noted that it sold over 15,100 bitcoins in the final week of March, valued at $1.1 billion.
MARA stated that, despite the company's ongoing expansion into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing to seek additional revenue streams, bitcoin mining remains the company's "operational foundation."
As a challenging mining environment continues to weigh on the entire industry, MARA is just one of several U.S. Bitcoin mining companies whose profits have turned into losses.
Bitcoin’s current trading price is over 35% below its historical high of $126,080, significantly reducing miners’ revenue per block; meanwhile, mining difficulty, which measures the computational effort required to mine a block, has risen by nearly 30% over the past year.
As competitors more aggressively expand into artificial intelligence, MARA has lost its competitive edge, dropping from the largest Bitcoin miner by market capitalization to seventh place.
MARA’s current AI strategy focuses on its partnership with Starwood Capital to convert bitcoin mining facilities into AI and HPC data centers; it also includes Long Ridge Energy & Power, a natural gas-powered power plant and data center that MARA acquired at the end of April for $1.5 billion.
“Our strategic focus is to co-locate new infrastructure with our existing Bitcoin mining operations,” said MARA. “This approach provides flexibility: we can generate revenue through Bitcoin mining today while retaining the option to redirect power to artificial intelligence and critical IT workloads at these sites as related opportunities emerge.”
MARA further added that the acquisition of Long Ridge Energy & Power could ultimately support 600 megawatts of AI computing power, and approximately 90% of its non-hosted mining capacity can be redeployed for AI and IT computing.
The company stated that it has no plans to purchase additional Bitcoin mining hardware in the future.