MARA Holdings (MARA): Il miner di Bitcoin integra energia e calcolo AI

Negli ultimi anni, fornire sufficiente potenza di calcolo è diventato un indicatore chiave per le economie sviluppate che gestiscono la transizione verso un’attività economica guidata dall’IA. La stessa capacità di calcolo è anche molto richiesta per il mining di Bitcoin (BTC ), poiché le valute digitali sono diventate un pilastro centrale della finanza moderna.

Le due attività sono interconnesse, poiché la stessa capacità di calcolo parallela usata per il mining di Bitcoin è impiegata anche per il calcolo AI. Per questo molte società di mining di Bitcoin stanno ora espandendo le proprie attività verso l’AI.

Tuttavia, entrambi i processi di calcolo sono sempre più limitati non dalla disponibilità di chip e data center, ma dalla quantità di energia che può essere fornita loro. In gran parte ciò è dovuto al fatto che la rete elettrica è sotto la stessa pressione derivante dall’elettrificazione dei trasporti (veicoli elettrici), del riscaldamento (forni e pompe di calore) e dei processi industriali.

Perciò, gli investitori interessati a investire in data center, AI, mining di asset digitali e capacità di calcolo in generale devono esaminare più da vicino l’approvvigionamento energetico associato.

Questo è ciò che rende MARA Holdings un titolo davvero unico.

L’azienda è una delle più grandi operazioni di mining di Bitcoin quotate in borsa e il secondo più grande detentore corporativo di Bitcoin al mondo, ed è anche in rapida espansione nella fornitura di capacità di calcolo per l’inferenza AI.

Ma MARA è anche un importante produttore di energia, con l’integrazione verticale di quasi un gigawatt di produzione elettrica, e molto altro sarà presto operativo. Questo dovrebbe garantire che, a differenza di molti concorrenti dipendenti dalla rete, MARA possa continuare ad espandere la capacità mentre la domanda raggiunge nuovi record e l’offerta energetica rimane indietro.

MARA’s History: From Rented Capacity To Vertical Integration

MARA’s Holdings è stata fondata nel 2010 con un focus iniziale sull’acquisizione di brevetti e sull’avvio di contenziosi contro società tecnologiche (come Marathon Patent Group), in particolare su brevetti relativi alla crittografia. È poi diventata pubblica nel 2014 sulla borsa Nasdaq.

Questo ha aperto la porta all’azienda per orientarsi verso le criptovalute e le tecnologie blockchain alla fine del decennio 2010.

Entro la fine del 2020, hanno adottato una strategia aggressiva “HODL”: trattenere tutti i Bitcoin minati sul bilancio aziendale anziché venderli immediatamente per finanziare le operazioni. È stata una mossa audace all’epoca, ma si è rivelata molto redditizia in retrospettiva, poiché il prezzo del Bitcoin è passato da 10.000‑15.000 $ per Bitcoin nel 2020 a una fascia recente di 60.000‑120.000 $ nel 2025‑2026.

Source: MacroTrends

Nel 2021, l’azienda ha cambiato nome in Marathon Digital Holdings per riflettere il crescente focus sul mining e sul possesso di asset digitali. Questo ha incluso un data center di mining di Bitcoin da 37 MW alimentato da una centrale a carbone in Montana.

All’epoca, l’azienda ha suscitato controversie nella comunità blockchain e cripto operando un “pool di mining totalmente conforme”. L’azienda ha dichiarato che il pool avrebbe utilizzato software per filtrare le transazioni provenienti da entità sanzionate nella lista dell’Ufficio per il Controllo dei Beni Esteri (OFAC) degli Stati Uniti, una mossa che molti hanno percepito come contraria all’etica decentralizzata e “ribelle” delle prime idee cripto.

La capacità di mining dell’azienda è aumentata con l’acquisizione di due impianti di mining di Bitcoin da sussidiarie di Generate Capital per 178,6 M $ nel 2023.

Ciò ha fornito all’azienda una capacità di proprietà in rapida crescita a partire dal 2024, in opposizione al modello precedente di semplice gestione di data center di proprietà di altre società.

Source: MARA Holdings

Questo periodo è stato anche quello in cui l’azienda ha iniziato a sfruttare i propri asset Bitcoin per acquisire impianti di generazione energetica e capacità energetica più verde/low‑carbon, con in particolare 50 MW di generazione da gas di flare e 139 MW di energia eolica.

From 2024, the company also started to move into providing compute capacity for AI inference (the deployment of AI for real use cases, in contrast to training new AI models).

“The area we believe is most interesting is AI at the edge, which is all about inference.…this is a really exciting area as we move into providing digital infrastructure to the AI industry because it’s the exact same infrastructure that’s used by both industries.”

Fred Thiel – Chief Executive Officer at MARA Holdings

This is opening a massive new market for the company, as efficient cost-per-token becomes a growing focus of AI companies.

“The AI industry has already commoditized around this thing called cost of a token and more importantly how much inference do you get per megawatt.…We’ve taken a deliberate approach and waiting for the right partner at the right point in the cycle to begin MARA’s next chapter.”

Fred Thiel – Chief Executive Officer at MARA Holdings

MARA Holdings By The Numbers

MARA has deployed for Bitcoin mining up to 70.3 EH/s (Exahashes per second) in Q2 2026, up 22% year-to-year from 57.4 EH/S.

Questo significa che l’azienda ha avuto una capacità totale di 70 quintilioni di calcoli di hashing ogni singolo secondo, prodotta da 490.000 rig ASIC di mining ad alta efficienza. I calcoli sono eseguiti in modo molto efficiente, a un tasso di 17,6‑18,6 Joule per Terahash (J/TH), confermando l’attenzione dell’azienda sulla leadership del costo per moneta.

Source: MARA Holdings

This gives the company control over as much as 8% of the total global Bitcoin network hashrate, despite a small workforce footprint of 266 corporate employees supervising its 19 data centers.

MARA operates at the intersection of three of the fastest-growing industries on Earth: energy, compute, and digital capital.”

Still, current energy prices and the steep depreciation of advanced mining rigs lead to an estimated all-in production cost of $126,500 to $153,040 per Bitcoin. So this makes the Bitcoin mining operation unprofitable at mid-2026 Bitcoin prices, despite a cost of energy of $0.04/kWh.

In comparison,  MARA estimates that AI workloads generate roughly $25 per kWh of power used, encouraging the company to shift toward this market as long as Bitcoin prices are too low.

As a result, cash and Bitcoin holdings have been somewhat reduced in 2026, but still stand at $2.5B in Q2 2026.

Source: MARA Holdings

MARA Holdings’ Strategy

A Core Of Energy Supplies

MARA has been accumulating energy generation assets for many years, but has recently been accelerating the push to generate its own power independently.

A step in that path has been taken with an agreement to acquire Long Ridge Energy for approximately $1.5B, a company with a nameplate capacity of 505 MW from a Combined Cycle Gas Power Plant (“CCGT”). This will represent a 65% increase in MARA’s owned and operated power capacity and would otherwise take around 10 years and up to $2.7B to build.

The company plans to keep building more energy capacity, targeting 400 MW of additional capacity by 2030.

Source: MARA Holdings

Total power generation capacity could grow beyond that, with the planned Matagorda 2 GW site in Texas, which will start construction at the end of 2026 and reach full production in 2028. It will use 1,200 acres of land and add to the $1.2B already invested in Texas.

In the long run, the company could be reaching as high a target as 4.8GW of total power generation capacity, or almost as much power generation as 5 nuclear reactors.

Source: MARA Holdings

So while most of this power is designed to be directly converted into computing power, this makes MARA Holdings a genuinely large electric utility in its own right, with a capacity around 1/10th of a giant like Southern Company (SO ) by the end of the decade.

Bitcoin Optionality

MARA Holdings has historically been a company ready to make a radical shift when its business model requires it, moving from patent acquisition to Bitcoin mining and then to energy generation.

As Bitcoin production costs rose alongside a price decline, the company is being forced to accelerate its shift toward AI inference, although it has prepared for this transition for two years through Scale Modular, a high-density data center designed to switch workloads between Bitcoin and AI Inference.

“At MARA, we’ve anticipated these shifts and are building solutions designed for the future of AI workloads… focus on developing grid responsive platforms that dynamically stabilize inference compute, minimize energy waste, and unlock the next generation of field deployable, sovereign edge AI infrastructure.”

Shifting To AI

The market for AI inference is exploding as AI models become more competent and new use cases are found. This is likely going to be a more durable and stable segment, as even if new AI models somehow stagnate in performance or the cost of training gets too high, usage of the already trained AI models will continue.

It is expected to grow from $106B in 2025 to $254B by 2030, or a CAGR of 19.2%

Source: Markets & Markets

In addition to using its own existing data center with ASICs for Bitcoin mining in AI applications, MARA Holdings bought a 64% controlling stake in Exaion for 168Mm, a sovereign high-performance computing data center company. In addition, MARA can buy an extra 11% stake to reach 75% ownership by 2027 for $127 million.

Source: MARA Holdings

This way, MARA can provide AI inference compute for both types of clients:

• Hyperscale cloud customers needing large capacity at a price as cheap as possible.
• More demanding private, enterprise, and sovereign cloud environments.

Source: MARA Holdings

Alongside a partnership with the private investment firm Starwood Capital Group, this gives MARA an opportunity to capture as much as possible of the AI value stack.

“Starwood’s development engine adds the strong execution and operating capabilities and deep experience required to convert and expand MARA’s existing sites into scalable and sustainable digital infrastructure.”

Source: MARA Holdings

MARA Holdings Investment Case

The case for investing in MARA has evolved over time, as management swiftly moves from one profitable niche to the next when an opportunity arises.

The initial IPs in cryptography patents have evolved into cryptocurrency mining, and then vertically integrated power generation.

A new chapter for MARA is being written with the switch to AI inference for both hyperscalers and secure sovereign AI.

This is not to say that the company will entirely give up on Bitcoin, but it gives it the opportunity to decide where to deploy its energy generation and compute capacity, depending on market conditions.

With existing or already permitted and in-construction additional power generation capacity, MARA Holdings is in a great position to move ahead when its competition is struggling to source enough energy to feed into the data centers they are building.

Wars in the Middle East and escalating Ukrainian‑Russian strikes on energy infrastructure could potentially trigger a massive global energy shock. And even if these conflicts calm down, the general trend of electrification is putting a severe strain on existing power generation and grid infrastructure.

So investors wanting exposure to Bitcoin or AI should pay attention to data center operators like MARA Holdings, who can exercise some control over energy costs through vertical integration. And appreciate at its real value a management team that had the foresight of realizing the upcoming bottleneck in the industry was integrated energy supplies, and not chips or data center construction speed.

However, investors should also remember that the AI industry is moving very quickly, and what was the best hardware or infrastructure today might be almost obsolete five years down the road. For example, more efficient models or different types of AI‑specific chips could reduce demand for compute or create new, more energy‑efficient competitors.

So in that respect, it is maybe not so much MARA Holdings’ existing assets that support the idea of investing in the company, but more the ability of the company’s management to quickly react to and anticipate industry shifts, with a proven track record of successful strategic pivots every 3-5 years in the past two decades.

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