MARA Sold 13,597 Bitcoin at About $81,039 to Repay $750 Million of BTC-Backed Loans, Then Approved a $500 Million Buyback

What MARA did, in order

The letter describes the sequence across one quarter and the weeks after it.

MARA says it borrowed against bitcoin when the coin traded around $64,000 and sold after the price had risen. It puts the "estimated net benefit" of that timing at $170.0 million. That is the company's own estimate; the letter does not show the calculation.

PANews reported the repayment, the release of pledged coins and the $500 million authorization from the same letter at 05:24 SGT. ChainCatcher's Chinese-language report also gives the 13,597 BTC figure and the $750 million repayment.

How much bitcoin MARA has left

MARA did not publish a current total. Our arithmetic from its own numbers: 34,012 BTC at September 30 minus the 13,597 BTC sold afterwards leaves about 20,415 BTC, before adding coins mined since October 1. MARA mined 2,247 BTC in the third quarter, an average of 24.4 a day, so the true figure is somewhat higher.

At the Bitget price of $75,200, 20,415 BTC is worth about $1.54 billion. On September 30 the company valued 34,012 BTC at about $2.8 billion.

The letter says less than 5% of MARA's bitcoin is now loaned or pledged. At quarter end that share was 57%: 1,408 BTC lent to counterparties and 17,852 BTC pledged as collateral, 19,260 in total. The lending earned about $2.5 million of interest in the quarter.

Why the sale matters to bitcoin traders

Listed miners and treasury companies are a known source of selling. MARA's letter is explicit that more is planned:

• "We intend 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."
• In 2025 MARA changed its policy to allow sales of newly mined bitcoin; in 2026 it extended that to bitcoin held on the balance sheet.
• In the first nine months of 2026 it sold about 26,984 BTC for $1.9 billion. It also sold 15,133 BTC to retire about $1.0 billion of convertible notes, according to a chart note in the letter.

The letter does not say how the 13,597 BTC were sold, through which venues, or over how many days. It also does not give the dates of the sales beyond "after quarter end". So the filing does not let anyone match the sales to specific moves on the bitcoin chart.

What the filing does change is the forced-selling risk. With the term loans repaid, MARA no longer has a lender holding 17,477 BTC as collateral that could be sold in a sharp drop. Future sales are the company's choice, tied to its cash needs. Traders watching miner supply now have three dated drivers to follow from MARA's own disclosures: convertible-note put dates in 2027, the pace of the buyback, and the AI lease signings it targets.

The quarter in numbers

MARA's results were dominated by the price of bitcoin, as they usually are.

• Revenue fell 35% to $164.2 million from $252.4 million a year earlier. A 37% fall in the average price of bitcoin mined cut revenue by $94.8 million.
• Net income rose to $632.1 million, or $1.28 per diluted share, from $123.1 million. That includes an $885.3 million unrealized mark-to-market gain on its bitcoin.
• Adjusted EBITDA was $857.7 million against $395.6 million.
• Energized hashrate rose 18% to 71.2 EH/s. Purchased energy cost per bitcoin at its own sites was $39,674.
• Cash and equivalents were $946.5 million. Cash plus bitcoin came to about $3.8 billion.
• Total debt has fallen by $1.4 billion this year, 37% of the total, before the $750 million repayment.

The net income figure moves with the bitcoin price at each quarter end. With bitcoin at $75,200 against the $83,556 valuation price on September 30, the same coins would now be marked about 10% lower. The fourth-quarter figure will also reflect the sale of 13,597 coins.

Buyback and AI plans

The $500 million repurchase authorization gives MARA's board a way to support the share price. The letter says purchases may come through the open market or private deals and that the program "does not obligate us to repurchase any particular amount." MARA also had about $1.5 billion of remaining capacity on its at-the-market share sale program at September 30, after selling 3.8 million shares in July.

On the AI side, MARA says it is targeting two data-center leases before year end but that "timing could slip into next year." Its cloud unit Exaion signed a four-year $79 million GPU contract. The company expects to close the Long Ridge power-plant purchase in the coming weeks after FERC approval.

How MARA's shares and bitcoin are trading on exchanges

MARA stock itself trades on Nasdaq. Several crypto exchanges also list USDT-settled perpetual contracts that track the share price. These are contracts, not shares: they carry no voting rights and settle in USDT. Bitget's contract data flags its MARAUSDT contract as a real-world-asset product, and OKX lists MARA-USDT-SWAP in its stock category.

The 8% gain in the MARA contracts came on a day when the whole US market rallied. Binance market data quoted by PANews shows the Nasdaq up 3.33% and the S&P 500 up 2.32% at the close. So the contract prices do not isolate the market's reaction to the shareholder letter, which came out after the close.

What to check before you trade on this

If you trade bitcoin, the filing gives you a size for one large seller and a stated intent to keep selling, but no schedule. Watch MARA's monthly production updates and its next quarterly filing for further sales. Our funding rates board shows whether perpetual traders are leaning long or short after the news.

If you want exposure to MARA through a perpetual, compare the contract terms first. Bitget lists MARAUSDT with up to 20x leverage and a 0.06% taker fee in its contract specification; OKX allows up to 10x on its contract. A 20x position is wiped out by a move of about 5% against you, and MARA's contracts moved 8% in one day. On a $1,000 position, Bitget's 0.06% taker fee is $0.60. Bitget returns 60% of that, $0.36, through our partner terms with code nexu888, settled daily. Our Bitget exchange profile lists the account steps, and the OKX profile covers the OKX side.

Bitget's MARAUSDT contract charges funding every eight hours, so check the current rate on the contract page before holding a position over several sessions.

A short checklist before you act on the MARA news:

1. Decide whether you are trading bitcoin or MARA. The filing is about MARA's balance sheet; its effect on bitcoin depends on future sales the company has not scheduled.
2. For a MARA perpetual, search MARAUSDT on Bitget or Binance, or MARA-USDT-SWAP on OKX, and set leverage before size. Bitget's minimum order is 5 USDT.
3. Read the fee and funding lines in the order preview. On $1,000 at Bitget's 0.06% taker rate, the fee is $0.60 per side.
4. Note when the Nasdaq reopens. The letter came after the close, so the first full session of share trading on the news is still ahead.

Related reading

Not every listed holder is selling. Strategy kept adding bitcoin last week, and SharpLink's quarterly profit also came almost entirely from a mark-to-market gain on its coins.

What we could not verify

• The exact dates, venues and execution method of the 13,597 BTC sale.
• MARA's current bitcoin total including coins mined since October 1.
• How MARA calculated the $170.0 million net benefit.
• The Block's report on the results, which returned HTTP 403 when we tried to open it.