How MARA Holdings Stock Gained 16% Last Month

Shares of MARA Holdings (NASDAQ: MARA) rose 16.3% in April 2025, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. The cryptocurrency mining and digital asset management specialist benefited from a rising Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) price, which made MARA's assets more valuable.

Mara's Bitcoin hoard grows

MARA Holdings had 47,531 Bitcoins on its balance sheet at the end of March. 30 days later, the Bitcoin balance stood at 48,237 digital coins. The dollar-based value of MARA's coins soared from $3.91 billion to $4.55 billion last month, accounting for Bitcoin's higher price and MARA's Bitcoin mining results. That's a 16.1% increase, roughly in line with MARA's stock price gains.

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The company wasn't resting on its digital laurels, of course. MARA doubled the electric power service from 50 to 100 megawatts (MW) at its Ohio data center. It also installed 12,000 Bitcoin mining machines in that location and activated 25 MW of power production in Texas and North Dakota.

All told, the active mining capacity (aka "energized hashrate") increased by 5.5% last month. MARA's production capacity nearly doubled in a year.

Bitcoin mining systems aren't always pretty to look at, but they make money in the dark. Image source: Getty Images.

Handling Bitcoin's halving headaches

In all fairness, MARA isn't the only Bitcoin miner with ambitious capacity-boosting projects. Amid higher calculation difficulty and a rising tide of rival mining operations, MARA's higher hashrate actually produced slightly fewer Bitcoins in April 2025 than in the year-ago period.

The company must paddle much harder just to stay afloat. That's one predictable and desired effect of Bitcoin's predetermined halving schedule, which cuts the mining rewards in half every four years. The fourth of these halvings took place in April 2024, immediately dropping MARA's coin production by half for the next month.

As one of the largest Bitcoin holders and the leading name in Bitcoin mining operations, MARA should gain market share as smaller operations are forced to close shop.

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Anders Bylund has positions in Bitcoin and has the following options: long June 2025 $19 calls on Mara and short June 2025 $19 puts on Mara. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Bitcoin. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.