HIVE and MARA Mine More Bitcoin, Earn Less as Write-Downs Bite

HIVE Digital Technologies booked a $31.2 million noncash write-down on mining equipment, citing what it called "depressed mining economics," while MARA Holdings separately wrote off $12 million tied to mining rigs and equipment under restructuring plans. The two disclosures, filed with quarterly results Monday, land as the industry's revenue base erodes. Both companies mined more Bitcoin in the quarter. Both earned less doing it.

The numbers frame the squeeze. HIVE reported fiscal second-quarter revenue of $84.9 million, down 2.7% year-on-year, though still above the $79.4 million consensus listed by MarketBeat. MARA fared worse on the top line: quarterly revenue of $164.2 million, down 35% from a year earlier.

The pressure is industry-wide. American Bitcoin reported weaker mining margins last week despite a treasury-driven quarterly profit, and Core Scientific said it plans to exit mining entirely by year-end. What does this change for the sector's structure? It accelerates a split between operators fleeing mining altogether and those hedging with compute.

Where does the profit actually come from?

Not from mining, in MARA's case. The company reported net income attributable to common stockholders of $634.4 million, up sharply from $123.1 million a year earlier. Diluted earnings reached $1.28 a share, up from 27 cents. But the filing attributes the result to substantial fair-value gains on digital assets and digital asset receivables — paper appreciation on the balance sheet, not operating cash from hashing.

HIVE had no such cushion. The company reported a quarterly loss, and its Nasdaq-listed shares slipped 1.7% to $1.78 in after-hours trading Monday, according to Google Finance, after closing the regular session up 1.7% at $1.81. MARA shares were little changed at $6.64 after hours, having closed up 4.6%.

How are the two companies responding?

Unlike Core Scientific, neither is leaving mining. Both are pouring capital into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing alongside it.

HIVE's HPC hosting revenue rose 71% to $8.8 million in the September quarter, now 10.4% of total revenue. The company frames its strategy as pairing mining cash flow with recurring AI infrastructure revenue, and it is backing that with real money:

• Up to $493 million over 36 months to expand HPC operations, covering land acquisition, data center buildout and GPU purchases
• $145.3 million already spent toward that expansion as of the filing
• Roughly $35 million to convert its Toronto facility into a Tier-III data center
• A targeted 100-megawatt substation expansion at its Yguazú site in Paraguay during 2026

MARA is building its AI business through its Exaion subsidiary and a partnership with Starwood Digital Ventures. The company said it intends to operate sites that can shift between workloads depending on economics, demand and grid conditions, with Bitcoin mining remaining the foundation of its platform.

What happens next?

The write-downs tell the operational story plainly. HIVE's $31.2 million impairment and MARA's $12 million charge both reflect hardware that no longer earns its keep at current prices and difficulty levels. Core Scientific's planned exit by year-end marks the outer edge of the same curve.

For HIVE, the test is execution against a 36-month, $493 million buildout while mining revenue shrinks — and the Paraguay substation expansion in 2026 is the milestone to watch. For MARA, the question is whether fair-value gains keep flattering results while its dual-use sites come online, and whether accounting can keep doing work that operations currently are not.