--- title: "MARA sold $1.1 billion of bitcoin but has no tenant for its 1.9 gigawatts of energized capacity" description: "The bitcoin miner's cleanup, a repaid bitcoin-backed loan and a new buyback lifted its stock 11 percent in a week. The lease that would turn its 1.9 gigawatts of energized power into contracted AI income is still unsigned, and much of that capacity rolls off hosting contracts in 2027." publisher: "The Inference" section: "Data Center" published: 2026-11-12T19:11:30.637Z modified: 2026-11-12T19:11:30.637Z canonical: https://theinference.org/article/mara-sold-1-1-billion-of-bitcoin-but-has-no-tenant-for-its-1-9-gigawatts-of-energized-capacity language: en keywords: "MARA, Bitcoin Mining, Data Center, AI Infrastructure, Bitcoin" --- # MARA sold $1.1 billion of bitcoin but has no tenant for its 1.9 gigawatts of energized capacity > The bitcoin miner's cleanup, a repaid bitcoin-backed loan and a new buyback lifted its stock 11 percent in a week. The lease that would turn its 1.9 gigawatts of energized power into contracted AI income is still unsigned, and much of that capacity rolls off hosting contracts in 2027. [MARA](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/marathon-digital-holdings) (Nasdaq: MARA) finished cleaning up its balance sheet this week, and the cleanup is not the business. After the quarter closed, the bitcoin miner sold more than $1.1 billion of its own coins, erased its bitcoin-backed borrowing in full, and freed nearly every coin it had pledged as collateral [1]. Its board added a $500 million buyback [1]. [On the November 9 earnings call](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/mara-holdings-mara-q3-2026-063315566.html), chief executive Frederick Thiel still had no tenant to announce for the 1.9 gigawatts of energized capacity, spread across nearly 20 sites on four continents, that the company now advertises as its future [2][7]. ## Mining earned less; the pivot is meant to fix that Revenue fell to $164 million, about a third below the same quarter last year [1]. The cause was price, not effort: the bitcoin MARA mined fetched 37 percent less than a year earlier [1]. The quarter's $632 million profit was an accounting gain on the coins it holds, not money from customers [1]. That is the case for becoming a landlord. A miner is a price-taker on what it earns and on how many rivals compete for the same coins; a data-center lease turns the same megawatts into contracted rent a lender can underwrite [7]. *Chart: **MARA's revenue peaked in Q3 2025 and has slid with bitcoin's price** Line chart of MARA's quarterly revenue from Q4 2024 to Q3 2026, peaking at $0.25B in Q3 2025 and sliding to $0.16B as bitcoin's price fell* *Quarterly revenue in US$ billions as reported in MARA's SEC filings, retrieved November 12, 2026. [8]* ## The delay sits with the tenants, Thiel says His account of the stalled leases put the problem on the other side of the table. The open items at Kearney, the most advanced site, "have nothing to do with anything really on our side," he said; prospective tenants are running deep diligence on power contracts and permitting risk before they commit [3]. He framed the wait as discipline, insisting MARA is "not in the build it and they will come business" [3]. The only signed AI revenue so far is a $79 million take-or-pay contract at Exaion, its majority-owned French subsidiary [3]. The $3 billion pipeline behind it is, in the company's own words, not yet contracted or committed [3]. ## The market now pays for signatures, not pipelines [Riot Platforms](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/riot-blockchain) (Nasdaq: RIOT) has signed the contract MARA is chasing: [a long lease with a frontier AI lab for all 910 megawatts](https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/riot-platforms-signs-910mw-agreement-with-unnamed-frontier-ai-lab/) of its Corsicana campus in Texas [5]. Riot values that one deal at about $28 billion [5]. With [an earlier lease](https://theinference.org/article/riot-platforms-9-1-billion-ai-lease-rests-on-a-bridge-loan-expiring-december-31) and its [AMD](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/amd) contract, it counts roughly $38 billion of contracted data-center revenue [5]. Demand is not the question: [CoreWeave](https://theinference.org/markets/companies/coreweave) (Nasdaq: CRWV), the AI cloud provider, raised its 2026 guidance on November 10, and its committed backlog stands at $132.5 billion [6]. MARA's rally over the past week came from the buyback instead [4]. *Chart: **MARA has $79 million of signed AI revenue next to Riot's $38 billion** Bar chart of contracted future AI and data-center revenue: CoreWeave $132.5 billion, Riot Platforms about $38 billion, MARA $0.079 billion* *Contracted future AI and data-center revenue, in US$ billions: MARA's signed take-or-pay AI contracts ($79 million at Exaion); Riot Platforms' contracted data-center revenue, including its Corsicana lease with a frontier AI lab, valued at about $28 billion, plus an earlier lease and its AMD contract (about $38 billion in total); CoreWeave's committed backlog at its November 10 results ($132.5 billion). Sources: MARA Q3 2026 earnings call transcript, DatacenterDynamics, Unite.AI. [3][5][6]* ## The leases and a third of the megawatts meet in 2027 The slip has a deadline. Hosting contracts covering 29 percent of MARA's energy capacity begin expiring in the third quarter of 2027, the same window into which the two target leases would land if they miss year-end [3]. Noteholders can also demand $924 million back that year [4]. The one contracted income stream arriving sooner is the Long Ridge gas plant in Ohio, cleared by federal regulators, which MARA expects to close within weeks [3]. ## Cleanup bought time; the signature earns the reward The debt payoff and the buyback were the right moves, because they bought the runway to land a tenant on MARA's own terms. But the value in this buildout now accrues to whoever closes the gap between energized power and a signed lease, and that work is still ahead of MARA. A signature by December 31 changes the story. Until it comes, this is a cleaner miner. ## Takeaway MARA has a cleaner balance sheet and a $500 million buyback, but still no AI tenant: the 1.9 gigawatts the stock is now valued on is uncontracted, and hosting deals covering 29 percent of its capacity start expiring in the third quarter of 2027. ## Sources 1. [GuruFocus via Yahoo Finance, "MARA Holdings Inc (MARA) (Q3 2026) Earnings Call Highlights: $632 Million Net Income", 11 November 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/mara-holdings-inc-mara-q3-010227107.html) 2. [MARA corporate website, homepage ("1.9 GW energized capacity today"), retrieved 12 November 2026](https://www.mara.com/) 3. [The Motley Fool via Yahoo Finance, "MARA Holdings (MARA) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript", 10 November 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/mara-holdings-mara-q3-2026-063315566.html) 4. [Yahoo Finance, "MARA Soars 11% in a Week on Its Buyback. Its AI Leases Could Slip Into Next Year", 11 November 2026](https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/mara-soars-11-week-buyback-045636577.html) 5. [DatacenterDynamics, "Riot Platforms signs 910MW agreement with unnamed frontier AI lab", 9 November 2026](https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/riot-platforms-signs-910mw-agreement-with-unnamed-frontier-ai-lab/) 6. [Unite.AI, "CoreWeave AI Cloud Revenue Climbs 168% as Backlog More Than Doubles", 10 November 2026](https://www.unite.ai/coreweave-ai-cloud-revenue-climbs-168-as-backlog-more-than-doubles/) 7. [Jain.com, "MARA's 35% Revenue Drop Makes Two AI Leases the Test for Its 1.9 GW Power Base", 12 November 2026](https://www.jain.com/mara-q3-2026-revenue-falls-35-percent-1-9-gw-ferc-long-ridge/) 8. [MARA Holdings, quarterly revenue from its SEC filings, retrieved 12 November 2026](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001507605) --- MARA sold $1.1 billion of bitcoin but has no tenant for its 1.9 gigawatts of energized capacity — The Inference. Canonical: https://theinference.org/article/mara-sold-1-1-billion-of-bitcoin-but-has-no-tenant-for-its-1-9-gigawatts-of-energized-capacity