MARA Holdings (MARA) saw its shares plunge 11.2% on Friday, closing at $12.32 as a broad selloff in technology and cryptocurrency-related stocks weighed heavily on the bitcoin miner. The decline capped a weekly loss of roughly 14%, with the stock falling from $14.38 on May 29 to its Friday close.
The broader market rout was triggered by stronger-than-expected May jobs data, which stoked fears that the Federal Reserve may keep interest rates higher for longer. The Nasdaq Composite tumbled 4.18%, while the S&P 500 fell 2.64% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 1.35%. “The dam just broke today,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group, in comments to Reuters.
Bitcoin, which has a strong correlation with MARA’s stock, was trading near $61,996 on Sunday, moving in a range of $60,438 to $62,839. The cryptocurrency’s weekend volatility adds uncertainty for traders ahead of Monday’s U.S. market open. MARA is often viewed as a leveraged play on bitcoin, meaning its shares tend to amplify the digital asset’s price swings.
Other bitcoin miners also suffered heavy losses on Friday. Riot Platforms (RIOT) dropped 10.2% to $24.66, CleanSpark (CLSK) lost 7.0% to $15.59, and Bitdeer Technologies (BTDR) fell 11.0% to $17.47. The sector-wide decline suggests the selling pressure was not limited to MARA alone.
MARA’s fundamentals remain closely tied to bitcoin, but the company is actively diversifying its business model. In its first-quarter filing, MARA reported revenue of $174.6 million, down from $213.9 million a year earlier, and a net loss of $1.26 billion. The company attributed much of the loss to a roughly $1.0 billion decline in the fair value of its bitcoin holdings.
As of March 31, MARA held 35,303 bitcoin, a sharp drop from 53,822 at the end of 2025. Of those, 9,995 bitcoin were either loaned out or pledged as collateral as part of the company’s digital asset management strategy. Between March 4 and March 25, MARA sold 15,133 bitcoin for approximately $1.1 billion, using the proceeds to repurchase convertible notes and reduce balance-sheet risk. CEO Fred Thiel described the sale as a “strategic capital allocation move.”
Looking ahead, MARA is pursuing a significant expansion beyond mining. In April, the company announced plans to acquire Long Ridge Energy & Power for about $1.5 billion, including debt. The deal includes a 505-megawatt natural gas plant in Ohio and land for a data-center campus that could support high-performance computing (HPC) workloads, such as artificial intelligence. Thiel told Reuters the site has “all the key components” for such a facility. The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of 2026, pending approvals from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and other regulators.
The Long Ridge project is not without risks. It requires regulatory signoffs, securing tenants, managing power costs, and ensuring that AI-related revenue materializes on schedule. While MARA’s pivot toward infrastructure could eventually reduce its dependence on bitcoin, the market currently treats the stock as a high-beta miner under pressure rather than a stable utility play.
Investors will be watching several key factors on Monday: whether bitcoin can stabilize above Friday’s low, how tech stocks respond after the selloff, and any updates on the Long Ridge deal or mining operations. For now, MARA remains a volatile name tied closely to the fortunes of bitcoin and the broader market.
