MARA Sells 13,597 BTC for $1.1 Billion, Repays $750 Million in Loans

MARA Holdings Inc. disclosed on Nov. 9 that it sold 13,597 Bitcoin for approximately $1.1 billion after Sept. 30 and directed $750 million of the proceeds to repay its bitcoin-backed term loans in full. The repayment released 17,477 BTC that had been pledged as collateral, returning roughly one and a half coins to the treasury for every coin sold.

The sales represent a substantial drawdown of the company's holdings. MARA held 34,012 BTC on Sept. 30, meaning the 13,597 coins sold equate to about 40% of that dated balance. The company cautioned, in effect, that the Sept. 30 figure does not establish what percentage it held immediately before the sales began, since mining output may have added to the position in the interim.

The realized price was approximately $81,039 per Bitcoin. The transaction unfolded in the interval between the close of the third quarter and the Nov. 9 disclosure, a window in which MARA also prepared its quarterly results.

What does this change for the balance sheet?

The operational consequence is a cleaner capital structure. By retiring $750 million of bitcoin-backed debt, MARA eliminates the collateral encumbrance on 17,477 BTC — coins that can now be mobilized, sold under treasury policy, or held unencumbered. The company's treasury policy permits sales of bitcoin already held on its balance sheet, so the drawdown was an authorized deployment rather than a departure from stated rules.

The debt itself was recent. MARA took on the bitcoin-backed borrowing during the third quarter to fund its planned Long Ridge acquisition, meaning the loans were leveraged bridge financing for a corporate transaction rather than working capital. Repaying them within the same cycle shortens that bridge considerably and removes a source of margin sensitivity: bitcoin-backed loans tie solvency cushions to asset prices, and clearing them before further market movement reduces refinancing risk.

The arithmetic works in the company's favor on collateral efficiency. It sold 13,597 BTC to extinguish obligations that encumbered 17,477 BTC. Post-repayment, the freed collateral exceeds the coins sold by nearly 3,900 BTC.

What did the quarter look like?

Third-quarter revenue fell 35% year over year to $164.2 million, reflecting the compression that has hit the mining sector since the April 2024 halving cut block rewards. Net income totaled $632.1 million, but the figure was carried by an $885.3 million gain tied to digital-asset values — meaning core operations ran at a loss once the mark-up on bitcoin holdings is stripped out.

That gap between reported income and operating performance is the practical question for anyone reading the filing: the $632.1 million headline depends on treasury appreciation, not on mining economics. A 35% revenue decline makes balance-sheet management, including the timing of sales and debt retirement, a primary lever for financial results.

What about the share price?

MARA shares rose 4.57% in the Nov. 9 regular session, closing at $6.64 against $6.35 on Nov. 6. The gain preceded the disclosure. MARA released its quarterly results at 4:05 p.m. ET (21:05 UTC), after regular trading ended, so the session's move could not have reflected the sale news. How the market prices the drawdown — a deleveraging that reduces risk but shrinks bitcoin exposure by roughly a third of the Sept. 30 stack — will be visible only in subsequent sessions.

For practitioners, the template here matters as much as the numbers. MARA has demonstrated that a large miner can use a permitted treasury sale to retire acquisition financing within a single quarter, converting pledged collateral back into unencumbered assets at a cost of about 40% of its dated holdings. Whether that trade-off becomes standard practice among leveraged miners will depend on how the Long Ridge acquisition performs and on whether bitcoin-backed lending terms tighten as issuers watch deleveraging of this scale.