MARA Sold 13,597 Bitcoin for $1.1 Billion — and Plans to Sell More: 7 Numbers That Decide If the Biggest Miner Is Quitting BTC

The world's largest public Bitcoin miner just sold 13,597 BTC for $1.1 billion — 40% of everything it held — and it says it will keep selling. MARA Holdings did not panic-sell into a crash. It sold at an average of about $81,039 a coin, used $750 million of the money to wipe out its Bitcoin-backed loans entirely, and got 17,477 BTC back from lenders in the process. The sale is not the end of MARA as a Bitcoin company. It is the clearest sign yet that the biggest miner in the world is turning itself into an AI infrastructure company — and using its Bitcoin treasury as the funding source.

Bitcoin was trading at about $74,720 on the morning of November 10, 2026, roughly 40.7% below its all-time high of $126,080, after touching $73,708 on November 8 — its lowest since August. MARA's third-quarter shareholder letter, released on November 9, disclosed a sale that reverses the company's 2024 pledge to keep every Bitcoin it mined. Here are the seven numbers that decide what it really means.

The Sale in 7 Numbers

MARA's disclosure is unusually precise. Here is what the company actually did after September 30, according to its third-quarter 2026 shareholder letter:

• 13,597 BTC sold. That is the number of coins MARA sold in the six weeks after its third quarter ended, raising about $1.1 billion.
• $81,039 average sale price. MARA sold at an average of roughly $81,039 per coin — about $6,300 above where Bitcoin trades today. The company sold into relative strength, before the slide below $75,000.
• 40% of its holdings. The sale equalled 40% of the 34,012 BTC MARA reported holding at September 30, including coins that were lent out or pledged as collateral.
• $750 million of debt repaid. Three-quarters of a billion dollars of the proceeds went to fully repaying MARA's Bitcoin-backed term loans — loans taken out in August to help fund the purchase of Long Ridge, a natural-gas power business.
• 17,477 BTC freed. Repaying the loans returned 17,477 Bitcoin that had been pledged as collateral. MARA's share of coins lent out or pledged collapsed from 57% to less than 5%.
• $500 million buyback authorized. MARA's board approved a new share repurchase authorization of up to $500 million, and the company says further Bitcoin sales could fund buybacks.
• $634.4 million quarterly profit. MARA reported third-quarter net income of $634.4 million — but nearly $885 million of that came from unrealized fair-value gains on its digital assets, while quarterly revenue fell 35%.

Read together, the numbers describe a company that is not being forced to sell. It is choosing to sell — and choosing what to sell for.

Why a Bitcoin Miner Is Selling Its Bitcoin

The first thing to understand is that this sale breaks a promise. In 2024, MARA pledged to retain all the Bitcoin it mined, joining the corporate-treasury movement that treats Bitcoin as a permanent balance-sheet asset. That pledge is now gone. The shareholder letter is blunt about the new policy: "We intend to continue using bitcoin to build cash for purposes such as AI infrastructure opportunities, to satisfy the puts on our convertible notes that become exercisable next year, and potential share repurchases."

The first is debt. MARA took out Bitcoin-backed loans in August to fund its Long Ridge purchase, and by quarter-end 57% of its Bitcoin was lent out or pledged as collateral — one bad price move from a margin call. Selling 13,597 coins to repay $750 million and recover 17,477 coins of collateral is a de-risking trade: MARA gave up coins it had already encumbered and got the rest of its stack back unencumbered.

The second pressure is revenue. MARA's quarterly revenue fell 35%, and its $634.4 million of reported profit was driven largely by accounting gains on Bitcoin's price rather than mining itself. The company mined 2,247 Bitcoin in the quarter — up 5% year on year — and won 644 blocks for a 5.4% share of miner rewards. Mining is still growing, but it is not generating the cash MARA needs for what comes next.

The third pressure is the opportunity MARA sees in artificial intelligence. The company describes itself as being at a critical stage in its transition from a Bitcoin mining company to an "energy-powered digital infrastructure provider." That is not marketing language buried in a footnote. It is the strategy the shareholder letter leads with — and the Bitcoin sales are how it gets funded.

The Great Treasury Split: Strategy Buys, MARA Sells

MARA's sale landed on the same day as a set of corporate moves that point in exactly the opposite direction. Public crypto treasury companies reported sharply contrasting balance-sheet decisions on Monday, November 9, and the split is the most important context for MARA's sale.

Company	Move	Amount	Direction
Strategy	Bought Bitcoin last week	1,036 BTC for $81.9M; holdings now 850,364 BTC	Buying
Strive	Bought Bitcoin	$235M purchase; overtook MARA as 4th-largest corporate holder	Buying
BitMine	Bought Ethereum	9,587 ETH added; holdings now 6,070,092 ETH	Buying
MARA	Sold Bitcoin after Q3	13,597 BTC for ~$1.1B; plans to sell more	Selling

The contrast is the story. Strategy, the company that turned Bitcoin accumulation into a corporate identity, bought 1,036 BTC for $81.9 million last week and now holds 850,364 coins — even after its stack went underwater in late October when Bitcoin dipped below its $75,451 average cost basis. Strive spent $235 million on Bitcoin and passed MARA to become the fourth-largest corporate holder. BitMine added 9,587 ETH in a week, taking its Ethereum holdings past 6 million tokens. And MARA — the miner that actually produces Bitcoin — sold.

That split tells you the corporate Bitcoin trade is no longer one trade. There are now two distinct strategies wearing the same label: accumulators who buy Bitcoin as a treasury asset, and operators who treat Bitcoin as working capital to fund something else. MARA has moved decisively into the second camp. Investors who bought MARA stock as a leveraged bet on Bitcoin need to understand that the company they own is changing what it is a bet on.

MARA is not the only miner making this pivot: Core Scientific and IREN have already set dates to wind down parts of their mining operations in favour of AI data centres. MARA's sale is the largest and most explicit version of an industry-wide trend.

What Most People Get Wrong About the Sale

First reactions split into two camps, and both miss the point: one calls it a panic dump — proof the biggest miner has lost faith in Bitcoin — the other a routine rebalance. Neither is right.

Myth 1: MARA dumped Bitcoin because it expects the price to crash. The sale price says otherwise. MARA sold at an average of about $81,039, while Bitcoin now trades near $74,720. The coins were sold before the slide below $75,000, not during it, and the stated use of proceeds — debt repayment, AI infrastructure, convertible-note obligations, buybacks — is a funding plan, not a market call. A company selling because it expects a crash does not usually announce it will keep selling on a schedule regardless of price.

Myth 2: MARA is out of Bitcoin. Far from it. MARA held 34,012 BTC at September 30, sold 13,597, got 17,477 back from lenders, and mined 2,247 more in the quarter. It remains one of the largest corporate Bitcoin holders in the world — smaller by choice, and far less leveraged.

Myth 3: The sale means mining is dead. MARA mined more Bitcoin in the third quarter than a year earlier, won 644 blocks, and still controls 5.4% of miner rewards. Mining is not being abandoned; it is being demoted. The company's own framing is that mining remains the core business while AI infrastructure and Exaion are the growth areas. The question is how much of its capital and power goes to mining versus AI tenants in 2027.

Myth 4: This is a one-off. It is not. MARA already sold 15,133 BTC for about $1.1 billion in March 2026 to fund convertible-debt repurchases. This is the second billion-dollar sale in eight months, and the letter says more are coming. Anyone modelling MARA's holdings as stable is modelling the wrong company.

The AI Bet: $79 Million Signed, $3 Billion Promised

So what is the money actually for? The answer is a data-centre build-out that is, for now, much more promise than revenue.

The signed part is small but real. Exaion, MARA's majority-owned subsidiary, has signed a four-year GPU-as-a-service contract worth $79 million with its first US customer, on 100% take-or-pay terms. That is a genuine contracted revenue stream — a customer that must pay whether it uses the compute or not.

The promised part is bigger: Exaion's prospective business exceeds $3 billion in total contract value, with about $1 billion targeted by the end of 2027 — but management is explicit that these are indications of demand, not contracted business. MARA is targeting two data-centre leases before year-end, but warns timing could slip into 2027, and it has yet to secure a single signed AI/HPC lease.

The physical assets are substantial. MARA expects to close the Long Ridge acquisition in the coming weeks: the plant is authorized to sell 485 megawatts, should reach 505 megawatts of nameplate capacity in the first half of 2027, and has roughly 70% of output under long-term contracts. A Texas site of up to 2 gigawatts is in ERCOT's Batch Zero process, backed by a $100 million letter of credit for the interconnection study. MARA also launched Vertebrai, software routing surplus power to on-site computing; at its Hansford County wind farm, it cut curtailment from 46% of potential generation to 22% between April and September.

The balance-sheet repair is equally concrete. Since the start of the year, MARA has reduced its total debt by 37% — $1.4 billion. The $750 million loan repayment is part of that clean-up, and it matters: a company with less than 5% of its Bitcoin pledged is a company that cannot be forced to sell at the worst moment. The irony is that MARA sold Bitcoin to reach a position where it will never be forced to sell Bitcoin again.

What It Means for Bitcoin at $75,000

For Bitcoin holders, MARA's sale is a small headwind, not a turning point — but it arrives at a fragile moment. Bitcoin is down about 10% in the last month and 40.7% from its $126,080 high. US spot Bitcoin ETFs saw $1.28 billion in net outflows in the week of November 2–6, their largest since late June, plus $201 million more on November 9. Over $1 billion in crypto positions were liquidated over the weekend of November 8–9, including $913 million of long bets, after Bitcoin fell to about $73,761 — its lowest since August — on Nvidia and stalled US–Iran headlines.

Against that backdrop, a $1.1 billion sale by the largest miner is not nothing: 13,597 coins sold into a thin, fearful market — the Fear & Greed Index stood at 31–32 on November 10 — is real supply. But MARA sold at $81,039, above current prices, so this sale's pressure is already absorbed. The forward question is how much more MARA sells, and at what pace. Its promise to "continue using bitcoin to build cash" means the market should expect a steady drip of miner supply, not a single event.

The deeper signal is structural. When the largest public miner decides its Bitcoin is worth more as AI data-centre funding than as a treasury asset, it is a vote on where the best returns are in 2027 — and the vote is not for holding Bitcoin. That does not make MARA right: Strategy's continued buying at 850,364 BTC is the opposite vote. But it does mean the "everyone is accumulating" narrative that supported Bitcoin through 2025 is over. The corporate trade has split, and holders should stop treating every corporate announcement as the same bullish signal.

The immediate test comes fast. The US October CPI report is due on November 10 at 8:30 a.m. ET, with economists expecting a 0.2% monthly rise, and CME FedWatch odds put a December rate hike at 76.8%. Bitcoin's 200-day moving average sits near $73,170–$73,205 — the level analysts call the line that ends bull markets — with the 50-day average near $81,800 above. MARA's selling is one more weight on a market that needs a soft CPI print to reclaim $76,000.

5 Checks Before You Decide What This Means for Your Bitcoin

If you hold Bitcoin — or MARA stock — use this checklist before reacting to the headlines:

• Check the pledge ratio, not just the sale size. MARA's pledged share fell from 57% to under 5%. A miner that has de-leveraged its treasury is less likely to be a forced seller in the next drawdown. That is bullish for future stability, even though the sale itself was bearish for supply.
• Check whether the AI leases actually sign. Two data-centre leases are targeted before year-end, but MARA concedes the timing could slip into 2027, and Exaion's $3 billion pipeline is uncontracted. If the leases slip, the market will ask what the Bitcoin was sold for.
• Check the March precedent. MARA already sold 15,133 BTC for $1.1 billion in March. Two billion-dollar sales in eight months is a policy, not an event.
• Check the other side of the trade. Strategy bought 1,036 BTC last week, Strive spent $235 million, and BitMine added 9,587 ETH. Institutional demand has not vanished — it has rotated toward buyers who want the asset, not the power plants.
• Check your own exposure. If you own MARA stock as a Bitcoin proxy, you now own an AI infrastructure story funded by Bitcoin sales. If you wanted pure Bitcoin exposure, our beginner's guide to buying Bitcoin and our guide to how spot Bitcoin ETFs work explain the direct routes — and our hardware vs software wallet comparison covers holding it yourself. For the bigger picture, read whether Bitcoin is a good investment in 2026 and what Bitcoin actually is.

FAQs

How much Bitcoin did MARA sell?

MARA sold 13,597 BTC for about $1.1 billion in the six weeks after September 30, 2026, at an average of $81,039 per coin, per its third-quarter shareholder letter released November 9 — 40% of the 34,012 BTC it held at quarter-end.

Why did MARA sell its Bitcoin?

MARA used $750 million of the proceeds to fully repay its Bitcoin-backed term loans, which returned 17,477 BTC of pledged collateral and cut the share of its coins lent or pledged from 57% to less than 5%. The company says it will keep selling Bitcoin to fund AI infrastructure, convertible-note obligations due next year, and potential share buybacks, as it pivots from pure Bitcoin miner toward an "energy-powered digital infrastructure provider."

Is MARA still a Bitcoin miner?

Yes. MARA mined 2,247 BTC in the third quarter, up 5% year on year, won 644 blocks, and holds a 5.4% share of miner rewards. Mining remains its core business, but the company is directing new capital toward AI data centres — targeting two leases before year-end — and its Exaion subsidiary has signed a $79 million GPU-as-a-service contract.

Does MARA's sale mean Bitcoin's price will fall?

Not necessarily. MARA sold at $81,039, above the current price near $74,720, so this sale's pressure is already absorbed. The risk is forward-looking: MARA says it intends to keep selling, which adds a steady source of supply. Against that, Strategy bought 1,036 BTC last week and Strive spent $235 million. The near-term direction depends more on the November 10 CPI report and whether Bitcoin holds its 200-day average near $73,170.

How much Bitcoin does MARA still hold?

MARA reported 34,012 BTC at September 30, 2026, including coins lent or pledged. After selling 13,597 BTC and recovering 17,477 BTC of collateral from repaid loans, its unencumbered position is far stronger than before — but the exact current total was not disclosed in the shareholder letter, and further sales are planned.

What is MARA's AI business?

MARA is building AI/HPC data centres on its power assets. Exaion signed a four-year, $79 million GPU-as-a-service contract with its first US customer, and cites a pipeline above $3 billion, with about $1 billion targeted by end-2027 — though not yet contracted. The Long Ridge plant (485 MW) and a Texas site of up to 2 GW are the physical backbone.

Conclusion

MARA's $1.1 billion sale is the most honest corporate announcement of this cycle. The largest public miner looked at its balance sheet — 57% of its Bitcoin pledged, revenue down 35%, a $750 million loan bill — and decided its coins were worth more as AI funding than as a treasury. It sold at $81,039, repaid its loans in full, got 17,477 coins back, and said it will do it again.

That is not a panic sale, and it is not a nothing-burger. It is a strategy change, and it splits the corporate Bitcoin trade in two: accumulators like Strategy and Strive on one side, operators like MARA on the other. One miner's sale will not decide the market — the CPI print, the $73,170 200-day line, and the $1.28 billion of ETF outflows matter more. But the next time a miner announces a billion-dollar sale, nobody should be surprised. MARA has told us, twice now, exactly what it plans to do. Watch whether the AI leases sign before year-end: that is the number that decides whether selling 13,597 Bitcoin was the smartest trade of 2026, or the most expensive.

Sources: MARA Holdings Q3 2026 shareholder letter (November 9, 2026); CoinDesk; BlockchainReporter; Coin360; KuCoin market report. Bitcoin price data: CryptoTimes and CoinGecko. This article is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice. For context on the wider market, see our coverage of Bitcoin's decoupling from the Nasdaq and buying Bitcoin tax-free in an IRA.