The short version
- MARA sells bitcoin in bulk: 13,597 BTC after September 30 for about $1.1 billion, an average of roughly $81,039 a coin.
- $750 million of that repaid every bitcoin-backed loan and freed 17,477 BTC of collateral, and the board approved a share buyback of up to $500 million.
- Next: what happens to the rest; MARA held 34,012 BTC on September 30, about 20,400 after this sale on our sum, and plans to use bitcoin for convertible-note puts in 2027.
MARA sells bitcoin, and not in small change. The miner sold 13,597 BTC after its third quarter ended on September 30, for about $1.1 billion, or roughly $81,039 a coin. Then it paid off all of its bitcoin-backed loans.
That was $750 million, and it freed the 17,477 BTC that sat with lenders as collateral. The board has also approved a share buyback of up to $500 million. All of it sits in the Q3 shareholder letter MARA filed with the SEC on Monday at 21:05 UTC, 4:05 p.m. Eastern time, after the US stock market closed.
MARA posted the highlights a few minutes later:
Our Q3 2026 Shareholder Letter is here.
Bitcoin built the foundation. Power created the opportunity. Our strategy now is simple: maximize the value of every megawatt we control.
Highlights:
• Tenants: Since the end of last quarter, we have made great progress and our
MARA Bitcoin Holdings After the Sale
MARA bitcoin holdings stood at 34,012 BTC on September 30. Only 14,752 of those were free to use. Another 17,852 were pledged as collateral and 1,408 were lent out to earn interest, about $2.5 million in the quarter.
The last line is our own arithmetic: 34,012 minus 13,597. The miner adds about 24 coins a day (2,247 BTC in the third quarter), so the real figure is higher, unless it sold more.
The loans were new. In the third quarter MARA took $750 million in bitcoin-backed borrowing, $600 million of fresh money and $150 million to refinance an older line, to pay for Long Ridge, a gas power plant in Ohio. US regulators at FERC approved that deal on November 4. Before this repayment MARA had already cut its debt by $1.4 billion this year, 37% of the total.
The bigger shift is the stack itself. MARA held 53,822 BTC at the end of 2025. It sold about 26,984 BTC for $1.9 billion in the first nine months of 2026, including 3,891 BTC at an average of $75,300 in the third quarter.
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When Did MARA Sell the 13,597 BTC?
MARA didn’t give dates. The 10-Q only says the coins went after quarter-end. The price points to October, though. Bitcoin closed above $80,000 every day from October 1 to October 28, and it hasn’t closed above $81,000 since.
On-chain trackers saw it happen in pieces. On November 5, Lookonchain flagged 1,650 BTC leaving MARA’s wallets for Galaxy Digital, Copper and other platforms. This morning it spotted another 500 BTC going out:
Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings (@MARA) transferred out another 500 $BTC ($37.38M) today.
Since Oct 1, #MARA has sold a total of 13,597 $BTC ($1.1B) at an average price of $81,039.
arkm.com/explorer/entit…
sec.gov/Archives/edgar…
A transfer is not a sale on its own. Still, the outflows haven’t stopped since the books closed.
SIDE TRAIL: Bitcoin Miners Selling: Core Scientific Quits, MARA Moves BTC
Why MARA Sells Bitcoin While Buying Back Stock
The coins are now a cash reserve. The letter says MARA intends “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.”
Those puts let holders of two of MARA’s convertible notes ask for their money back early, in June and December 2027. The MARA share buyback comes with the usual fine print. MARA may buy shares on the market or in private deals, and the program does not oblige it to buy any.
The quarter itself was mixed. Revenue fell 35% to $164.2 million, as the average price of the bitcoin it mined dropped 37% from a year ago. Net income came in at $632.1 million, but $885.3 million of that was a paper gain on the value of its bitcoin.
MARA Stock and the Bitcoin Price
MARA stock closed Monday at $6.64, up 4.6%, before the numbers were out. After hours it touched $6.88, then drifted back to about $6.64. That is still around 30% below the $9.44 close of October 12.
Bitcoin trades at $74,680 at the time of writing, up 0.8% in 24 hours, with the 200-day moving average at $73,196 just below. Each time MARA sells bitcoin now, it dips into a reserve built over years, and it hasn’t said how much more will go. The next test of that cash pile comes on June 4, 2027, the first date holders of one of its convertible notes can ask for their money back.
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Satoshi Flipper has more than 20 years of trading experience, starting in stocks before moving into crypto in 2017, and holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management. The edge is reading the economic data: rate decisions, inflation, jobs numbers, earnings and the US markets that move Bitcoin.
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