According to Woofun AI, the third-quarter earnings report of NASDAQ listed mining company MARA.US (MARA.US) showed extreme differentiation: net profit soared to US$621 million, while core mining revenue shrank sharply. This divergence stems from strong asset book surpluses supporting performance rather than substantial improvements in fundamentals.
Net profit increased by about 413% compared to the same period last year of $123.1 million, and recorded a net profit of $1.28 per share. According to data compiled by Woofun AI, this surge was mainly due to unrealized book earnings of $885.3 million rather than cash inflows.
Meanwhile, revenue fell to US$164.2 million, down 35% year over year, mainly due to a 37% drop in average mining prices. Although 2,247 BTC were mined during the quarter, revenue was unable to cover the cost pressure due to a sharp drop in volume and price. To ease liquidity, the company sold 13,597 BTC after the end of the quarter (October), receiving about $1.1 billion in capital, at an average price of about $81,000. Of this amount, $750 million was used to repay mortgages and 17,477 BTC were pledged. The total debt reduction since this year was 1.4 billion US dollars, accounting for 37% of the debt at the beginning of the year. As of the end of September, the holdings were 34,012 BTC.
The strategic focus is shifting to artificial intelligence data centers at an accelerated pace. Subsidiary Exaion has signed a 4-year $79 million GPU service contract. At the infrastructure level, the company obtained land development rights for the highest 2 gigawatts of electricity demand in Texas and is moving forward with the acquisition of the Longreach gas power plant in Ohio. Chairman and CEO Fred T. Marra emphasized increasing unit electricity revenue through power security and computing power services. The board of directors also approved a $500 million share repurchase plan in an attempt to boost market confidence.
This is yet another aggressive transformation after many mining companies have tried diversification. However, when profits are highly dependent on asset price fluctuations rather than operating cash flow, its resilience to risk remains questionable. If the BTC price pullback or the AI business falls short of expectations, this “paper wealth” could quickly turn into financial pressure.