MARA Holdings, a Bitcoin mining firm, announced its intentions to leverage the “second wave” of AI as it reported impressive results for the fourth quarter of 2024.
In its statement on February 26 regarding Q4, MARA expressed its goal of becoming the foundational infrastructure for AI and high-performance computing applications — akin to Cisco’s role during the “internet boom.”
“Regardless of whether it pertains to Bitcoin mining or AI inference, we believe our technology will enable others to innovate, while MARA supplies the essential tools and infrastructure to implement new systems and services, including energy management, load balancing, and infrastructure.”
MARA mentioned that it took a “strategic pause” to evaluate the first wave of AI, which involved utilizing data centers to train large language models, while many competitors in Bitcoin mining hurried into the AI space.
“Significant opportunities often arise in the second wave, not from the pioneers, but rather from those who carefully observed and strategically positioned themselves.”
MARA is focusing its efforts on the second wave centering on AI inferencing rather than training.
Training refers to the process of educating an AI model to perform a specific task, whereas inference involves the AI model operating independently, drawing conclusions without human input.
MARA aims to harness the infrastructure needed for inferencing, which it believes will resemble traditional cloud computing.
MARA accumulates 18,146 Bitcoin
MARA achieved a record revenue of $214.4 million in Q4, exceeding the consensus estimate of $183.9 million by 16.5%, and added an extra 18,146 Bitcoin to its holdings.
The company also reported a net income of $528.3 million, which represents a 248% increase year-over-year, while its adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) grew 207% year-over-year, reaching $794.4 million.
Furthermore, MARA increased the number of Bitcoin blocks won year-over-year by 25% to 703, mining a total of 2,492 Bitcoin 
BTCUSD — all of which are retained under MARA’s new treasury policy “to retain all BTC” — along with purchasing 14,574 BTC using cash and proceeds from its zero-coupon convertible senior note offerings.
MARA’s Q4 2024 Shareholder Letter is now available. Read the complete report: https://t.co/w0iDVVZ3RV
Chairman & CEO @fgthiel shares vital insights on our record-setting year and what lies ahead for MARA. pic.twitter.com/xmFZYcwcUX
With the Bitcoin mined and purchased, MARA’s total Bitcoin holdings reached 44,893 Bitcoin by the end of 2024 — including loaned and collateralized Bitcoin — confirming its status as the second-largest corporate Bitcoin holder, as per BitBo’s BitcoinTreasuries.NET data.
The Bitcoin miner also made strides in enhancing its energized hashrate to 53.2 exahashes per second (EH/s) in Q4, reflecting a 115% increase from Q4 2023.
Much of this hashrate growth was driven by a 300% increase in energy capacity in 2024, alongside the expansion to seven Bitcoin mining facilities. Additionally, the firm launched 25-megawatt micro data center initiatives in Texas and North Dakota to diminish MARA’s dependence on grid power.
These robust results led to a 5.9% increase in MARA (MARA) shares in after-hours trading, bringing the price to $13.18, although it later retracted to $12.89. MARA concluded the trading day on February 26 with a rise of 0.28%, reaching a price of $12.45, according to Google Finance data.
