MARA Holdings plans huge $2B stock offering to buy more Bitcoin

Bitcoin miner MARA Holdings Inc (MARA) is looking to sell up to $2 billion in stock to buy more Bitcoin as part of a plan that bears a resemblance to Michael Saylor’s Strategy.

MARA Holdings, formerly Marathon Digital, said in a March 28 Form 8-K and prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that it entered into an at-the-market agreement with investment giants, including Cantor Fitzgerald and Barclays, for them to sell up to $2 billion worth of its stock “from time to time.”

“We currently intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including the acquisition of bitcoin and for working capital,” MARA added.

MARA’s move copies a tactic made famous by Bitcoin (BTC) bull Saylor, the executive chair of the largest corporate Bitcoin holder Strategy, formerly MicroStrategy, which has used a variety of market offerings, including stock sales, to amass 506,137 BTC worth $42.4 billion.

MARA Holdings falls just behind Strategy with the second largest holdings by a public company, with 46,374 BTC worth around $3.9 billion in its coffers, according to Bitbo data.

In July, the company’s CEO, Fred Thiel, said it was going “full HODL” and wouldn’t sell any of the Bitcoin it mined to fund its operations, as is typical for crypto miners, and would purchase more of the cryptocurrency to keep in reserve.

Related: Crusoe to sell Bitcoin mining business to NYDIG to focus on AI 

The Bitcoin (BTC) miner’s planned stock sale follows a similar offering it made early last year that offered up to $1.5 billion worth of its shares. It also issued $1 billion of zero-coupon convertible senior notes in November with plans to use most of the proceeds to buy Bitcoin.

Google Finance shows that MARA closed the March 28 trading day down 8.58% at $12.47, following on from crypto mining stocks being rattled a day earlier with reports that Microsoft abandoned plans to invest in new data centers in the US and Europe.

MARA shares have fallen another 4.6% to $11.89 in overnight trading on March 30, according to Robinhood.

Bitcoin is trading just above $82,000, down 1.2% over the past 24 hours after falling from a local high of around $83,500, according to CoinGecko.

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