Marathon Digital Sells $1.5 Billion in Bitcoin and Turns to Artificial Intelligence

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Marathon Digital Holdings, America’s largest Bitcoin mining company, has… By reporting It announced the sale of about $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, losing about 20,880 BTC at an average price of about $70,137 per coin. The company also announced that it will not be buying additional mining equipment, opting instead to focus on artificial intelligence.

After the report was released, MARA shares rose by 0.24%, while BTC-USD fell by 1.39%, giving a negative sign for the Bitcoin Treasury industry.

The sale reduced the company’s holdings from 38,689 BTC to approximately 35,303 BTC, placing it in fourth place among public companies holding Bitcoin.

The proceeds from the sale were used to repurchase convertible notes at a discount, reducing total debt from $3.3 billion to $2.3 billion, a 30% decrease, and generating an accounting profit of $71 million. Meanwhile, first-quarter revenue fell 18% year over year to $174.6 million, amid a net loss of $1.26 billion.

Bitcoin’s $1.5 billion sales mechanism is the result of time

MARA’s reported sales represent approximately 54% of its previous Bitcoin volume, and occurred in sessions that included the sale of 15,133 BTC (worth $1.1 billion) between March 4 and March 25, 2026.

At current market prices, the remaining 35,303 BTC is worth about $2.84 billion, which still represents a reserve, but does not reflect the “treasury first” policy that the company promoted a year ago.

The importance of this loan detail is that leaving the convertible bonds at a lower price allowed MARA to record an accounting profit of $71 million, eliminating the interest rate that made the Treasury model led by Michael Saylor fragile under the halved margins.

CEO Fred Thiel didn’t give up on Bitcoin, but used it as a currency to launch a floating-rate paper with $3.3 billion in convertible bonds.

This distinction is important; Selling Bitcoin to mortgage loans is a way of operating under pressure on the margin, and it does not mean giving up trust in the digital economy, and mixing the two leads to misconceptions.

Does the high sell-off indicate a decline in confidence or investment management?

There are two conflicting accounts of this event. A bad reading sees MARA issuing convertible bonds clearly to mimic Michael Saylor’s method of accumulating Bitcoin, then reversing course and disposing of a large portion of its assets within just two currencies.

According to this theory, if the decision was real, the company would have found other ways to sell debt instead of selling Bitcoin close to the bottom, making the AI ​​change just a revision to hide the failure of the Treasury model in the stress test.

Possibilities of $ MARA recalculation is high, if they decide to switch to AI Data Center.

Fred Thiel @fgthiel He made several notable points in his Bloomberg appearance today about MARA Holdings and the broader Bitcoin/AI market. Highlights from… pic.twitter.com/fNwzRg6Pfs

– Compounding Lab (@CompoundingLab) May 13, 2026

Regarding the performance reading, it shows that MARA generated 2,247 BTC in the first quarter, with the hash rate increasing by 33% per year to reach 72.2 EH/s, which means that they are still mining strongly.

And spending $ 1.5 billion on AI infrastructure – supported by the acquisition of Long Ridge Energy’s 505-megawatt natural gas plant in Ohio for about $ 1.5 billion – does not destroy the physical economy, but rather the shift of money from one physical activity to another that provides a good economic margin for now.

Scott Melker, editor of The Daily Wolf on Yahoo Finance, explained how the industry works: “Bitcoin miners are no longer miners, they are AI companies that mine Bitcoin.”

This change is not difficult to believe in Bitcoin, but it shows where the money is coming back. Also The Bitcoin Society recently stopped buying Bitcoin on its platform It shows the same, where the determination of companies to hold BTC is tested on several sites at the same time, not only in MARA.

A preliminary conclusion is that the sale of MARA is actually a credit management event that affects the quality of change. While the pressure on the Treasury remains true, the story of a collapse in confidence appears to be exaggerated.

A note Marathon Digital Sells $1.5 Billion in Bitcoin and Turns to Artificial Intelligence appeared for the first time Cryptonews Arabic.

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