MARA Sells $1B In Bitcoin At A Loss To Pay Down Debt As Hedge Fund CIO Warns: 'Just The Beginning'

MARA Holdings (NASDAQ:MARA) sold 15,133 Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) between March 4 and March 25 for approximately $1.1 billion, using the proceeds to repurchase roughly $1 billion of its convertible notes due 2030 and 2031. The sale slashed MARA’s holdings by about 28%. The kicker: MARA disclosed separately that it bought 4,267 BTC in 2025 at an average price of around $111,000: roughly $45,000 above where the token trades today. Lekker Capital CIO Calls It A ‘Major Unwind’ Quinn Thompson, CIO of hedge fund Lekker Capital, wrote on X that MARA is now a “distressed seller” and called this “just the beginning of a major unwind across the sector.” Thompson’s thesis centers on a paradox. Bitcoin mining economics are in crisis, and the only way they heal is through a decline in hashrate, which is being driven by companies like Core Scientific (NASDAQ:CORZ), TeraWulf (NASDAQ:WULF), Cipher Mining (NASDAQ:CIFR), and IREN (NASDAQ:IREN) pivoting away from mining. That hashrate decline is healthy for the network long-term, but the near-term problem is that public miners hold close to 80,000 BTC on their balance sheets. As they become AI companies, they both need capital to fund the buildout and have no reason to hold Bitcoin anymore. On-chain data from CryptoQuant backs him up. The Miners’ Position Index has climbed to a seven-day high, signaling a broader uptick in miner outflows beyond just MARA. BTC Dropped Below $70K On The News BTC closed below $70,000 on Thursday and extended losses today, falling roughly 4% to $66,200. The average all-in cost of mining a single BTC currently sits around $78,600. CoinShares’ latest report called Q4 2025 the most challenging quarter since the April 2024 halving and estimated publicly traded miners may derive 70% of revenues from AI by year-end. The Selling Is Sector-Wide TeraWulf ended 2025 with 3 BTC on its balance sheet. IREN liquidates all mined Bitcoin daily. Cipher sold $214.7 million in BTC last year. MARA still holds 38,689 BTC after the sale, making it the largest remaining miner treasury and a potential source of further supply pressure. On Polymarket, traders price a 51% chance BTC dips to $45,000, a 27% chance it hits $35,000 and only an 18% it regains $120,000 this year. MARA stock is down almost 8% today. Mike Novogratz recently argued that Bitcoin has been trading well through the war in Iran. Bitcoin miners may be about to change that. Image: Shutterstock