Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings (MARA) had a great day on Friday, outperforming its competitors despite missing Wall Street’s estimates for the first quarter. The analysts over at Jefferies and H.C. Wainwright were pretty stoked about MARA’s focus on cutting power costs. Jefferies analysts were all like, “Yo, with the price of bitcoin going up and MARA using more sustainable energy sources, like solar and flared gas, their power costs should go down soon and help them make more money.” Analyst Jonathan Petersen even dropped some knowledge about MARA expanding their infrastructure at a wind farm and firing up a flared gas data center, which should bring those power costs down even more. He thinks if MARA keeps snagging up more power sources like these, they’ll be rolling in the dough. Petersen gave MARA a hold rating but bumped up the price target to $16.
Mining bitcoin used to be a gold mine, but the profit margins have taken a nosedive recently. The recent halving cut the rewards in half, and rising power costs have been eating into those margins. Most miners had to start looking for other ways to make money, like hosting AI and HPC data centers. MARA decided to go a different route and focused on stuff like transaction revenue services, mining pools, buying bitcoin, and using green energy to lower power costs. And guess what? The market loved it.
H.C. Wainwright analyst Kevin Dede was all about MARA’s strategy of focusing on power conversion technology and driving energy costs down. He thinks this sets them apart from other miners who are diving headfirst into the HPC trend. Dede has a buy rating and a $28 price target for MARA, and he’s totally on board with the whole lower power cost thing.
So, yeah, MARA’s stock shot up 9% on Friday while the CoinShares Valkyrie Bitcoin Miners ETF took a little dip. It’s all good though, because MARA is making moves to secure their spot in the mining game. Not really sure why this matters, but MARA Holdings got downgraded to sell at Compass Point before their earnings report, citing cash burn.
Will Canny did some reporting for this article, and Aoyon Ashraf, CoinDesk’s Head of Americas, shared his insights. Aoyon has a background in equities, commodities, and tech, and he’s pretty bullish on MARA’s prospects. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in mining engineering and holds some crypto.
In conclusion, MARA is doing some cool stuff to lower their power costs and stay ahead of the competition. The analysts are digging it, the market is feeling it, and it looks like MARA is set to keep crushing it in the world of bitcoin mining.
