Bitcoin at $103K hurtles MARA stack toward $5B, holdings triple

Bitcoin mining firm MARA Holdings (MARA) nearly tripled its Bitcoin holdings over 12 months, according to its newly released Q1 results.

However, its Bitcoin production fell, and total earnings slightly missed Wall Street estimates in Q1.

MARA, formerly Marathon Digital, saw its Bitcoin (BTC) holdings increase to 47,531 BTC, up 175% from the 17,320 BTC the firm was holding at the end of Q1 2024.

MARA holdings inch closer to $5B after Bitcoin pump

MARA holds the second-largest amount of Bitcoin among all publicly traded companies, according to CoinGecko data. Strategy (MSTR) holds the number one spot with 555,450 Bitcoin.

The holdings represent a total value of approximately $4.9 billion, based on Bitcoin’s current price of $102,660 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap data. Over the past 24 hours, Bitcoin’s price spiked 4.86%.

However, the amount of Bitcoin that MARA produced over the quarter fell 19% compared to the same quarter in 2024 to 2,286 Bitcoin. 

MARA attributed this to the last Bitcoin halving event, which reduced mining rewards to 3.125 BTC per block and tightened overall supply.

MARA fell short of analyst revenue expectations by 0.35%, according to Zacks Research. The analysts pointed out that MARA has only surpassed consensus revenue estimates once in the past four quarters.

Despite this, MARA’s stock price jumped 7.2% during trading on May 8 but has since pulled back nearly 2% in after-hours trading, according to data from Google Finance.

Bitcoin mining firms share same frustrations

Bitcoin miner Riot Platforms echoed similar difficulties in their recent Q1 financial report. 

Riot said that the average cost to mine Bitcoin over the quarter was $43,808, almost 90% more than the $23,034 it cost to mine Bitcoin in the same period last year. However, Riot beat its $159.8 million revenue consensus estimate by 1%.

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Several other Bitcoin mining firms also fell short of Wall Street’s revenue expectations.

Bitcoin miner CleanSpark missed consensus estimates by 0.58%, reporting quarterly revenue of $181.71 million.

Bitcoin miner Core Scientific also fell short of analyst expectations with total Q1 revenue reaching $79.5 million, missing Zacks analysts’ estimates by 8.11% and falling from its $179.3 million revenue for Q1 2024. 

Meanwhile, Bitcoin miner Hut8 reported the widest miss among Bitcoin mining firms, falling 35% short of Wall Street expectations.

Zacks Research had projected Hut8 to post first-quarter revenue of $35 million, but Hut8 came in significantly lower at just $21 million.

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