The largest players in the BTC mining sector are starting to take actions that just recently many investors would have considered alarming. MARA Holdings has just sold over 15,000 bitcoins for about 1.1 billion dollars. This shows that even industry leaders must adapt to increasingly challenging market realities.
MARA sold 15,133 BTC for about 1.1 billion USD.
The goal was to strengthen the balance sheet and reduce debt.
Pressure on the mining sector is increasing, and some companies are already operating at the edge of profitability.
MARA liquidates part of the reserves
MARA Holdings reported that between March 4 and March 25, it sold 15,133 BTC. The total transaction value reached about 1.1 billion dollars, making this move one of the largest cases of reserve sales by a miner in recent months.
However, it was not a panic sell-off. The company clearly communicated that the sale was part of a broader financial strategy. Most of the funds were allocated to buy back convertible bonds worth approximately 1 billion dollars.
As a result, MARA reduced its debt by about 30%, improved financial flexibility, and decreased the risk of future dilution of shares. From the management's perspective, this was a defensive but logical operation.
Miners are finding it increasingly difficult
This move fits well into the broader problem of the industry. According to CoinShares, as much as 15–20% of the global hashrate may currently be operating below the profitability threshold. The main issue is the decreasing hash price, which is the revenue per unit of computational power.
In February 2026, the hash price fell to about 28 dollars per PH/s/day, the lowest level since the halving in April 2024. Although it later rebounded to around 33 dollars, it still remains very low from the perspective of the entire industry.
Additionally, there are increasing network difficulties, lower transaction fees, and high cost pressure. For operators using mid-generation equipment, the profitability threshold can be very thin today.
MARA does not give up on bitcoin
Despite significant sales, the company remains one of the largest corporate holders of BTC. After this operation, MARA still has 38,689 bitcoins on its balance sheet, so it cannot be said that there is a retreat from cryptocurrencies.
Moreover, the company is increasingly signaling that it wants to develop beyond just mining — towards energy infrastructure, AI, and HPC data centers.
This shows that the mining sector is beginning to seek a new operational model. For some companies, mining may no longer be sufficient.