MARA Sold 40,581 BTC in 2026 to Pay Bills, Retire Debt and Buy Power

MARA has sold 40,581 Bitcoin across its disclosed 2026 transactions, generating roughly $3 billion in rounded proceeds, according to the company's shareholder letters and Form 10-Q filings. The latest sale alone raised about $1.1 billion. Of that, $750 million repaid Bitcoin-collateralized term loans in full, freeing 17,477 BTC previously pledged to lenders.

The November 9 shareholder letter landed days before the November 13 selloff. But the numbers tell a slower story. MARA's sale price averaged $81,039. Management said it borrowed against Bitcoin near $64,000 and sold higher, estimating a $170 million net benefit from its financing and execution. Fred Thiel, MARA's chairman and CEO, framed the earlier March debt buyback the same way: "By retiring over $1 billion of face value debt at a discount, we captured approximately $88 million in value."

Why sell Bitcoin while reporting a profit?

Here is the puzzle readers keep asking about. MARA posted third-quarter net income of $632.1 million. But that figure included $885.3 million in unrealized digital-asset gains. Unrealized gains don't pay invoices. Revenue actually fell 35% year over year, to $164.2 million.

The September 10-Q explains the mechanics. Mined Bitcoin sits outside operating cash flow. Sale proceeds land in investing activities. For the first nine months, operations consumed $642.7 million while investing activities supplied $1.53 billion, mostly from Bitcoin sales. Financing used another $483.3 million. The result: a $399.4 million cash gain after exchange-rate effects.

So profit and selling coexist comfortably. One satisfies accounting rules. The other supplies the currency that lenders and equipment suppliers accept.

What happened to the treasury?

The disclosed sales break down cleanly:

• 26,984 BTC sold through September, for roughly $1.9 billion
• 13,597 BTC sold after the quarter, for about $1.1 billion
• First-half sales of 23,093 BTC accounted for most of the earlier period

MARA held 34,012 BTC at September-end, down from 53,822 BTC at the end of 2025. That 19,810 BTC drop is well below the sale total, because mining replenished the treasury along the way. And the collateral release deserves care: recovering 17,477 BTC exceeded the post-quarter coins sold by 3,880 BTC, but those coins were already MARA assets, just restricted by lender claims.

The debt story doesn't end with November. In March, MARA bought back roughly $1 billion of zero-coupon convertible notes due 2030 and 2031, paying $912.8 million cash. The September debt table still lists holder put options on June 4, 2027 and December 1, 2027 covering roughly $924.1 million of remaining principal across those series. Zero coupon means no periodic payments, not no obligation.

Where is the money going?

Part of it is buying a power plant. On November 5, MARA announced the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission had authorized its acquisition of Long Ridge from FTAI Infrastructure, with closing expected in the following weeks. The Hannibal, Ohio site includes a natural-gas plant with 505 megawatts of nameplate capacity, 485 megawatts authorized for sale, and more than 1,600 contiguous acres with access to power, water, fiber and rail. Full nameplate authorization is expected in the first half of 2027.

MARA said it will not reduce Long Ridge's existing supply to the PJM grid. The AI and high-performance computing ambitions run on incremental generation, not unplugged capacity.

CleanSpark took a different exit

Corporate disposals aren't all spot orders. CleanSpark's September update showed 700 BTC delivered through exercised call options and just 2 BTC sold at spot, against production of 529 BTC. Holdings fell from 13,703 to 13,530 BTC. Its quarterly disposals totaled 2,102 BTC against 1,708 BTC produced.

CleanSpark also closed $2.276 billion of 7.875% senior secured notes maturing in 2031, roughly $179.2 million in annual coupon. CEO Matt Schultz said the Sandersville project was fully funded through completion, tied to a lease expected to produce about $6.6 billion in contracted revenue.

Lookonchain put total corporate Bitcoin disposals at $8.08 billion in November. Strategy, by contrast, disclosed a 1,036 BTC purchase for $81.9 million alongside $188.3 million spent repurchasing STRC preferred shares on November 9.

Watch the next quarterly filings: treasury reconciliations, remaining put-option exposure, and the completed Long Ridge closing will show whether MARA's flexibility thesis holds under pressure.