Bitcoins <\/p>\n
MARA Holdings shares jumped 17% after the Bitcoin miner<\/a> said it will work with Starwood Capital Group to turn some of its US mining sites into large data centers for cloud and AI customers.<\/p>\n Starwood, which manages more than US$125 billion (AU$189 billion), will handle design, construction and tenant sourcing through Starwood Digital Ventures. The partners said they aim to deliver about 1 gigawatt of capacity in the near term and eventually scale beyond 2.5 gigawatts.\u00a0<\/p>\n The projects will be jointly financed and operated.<\/p>\n Related: Anchored in the Past: Why Investors Are Missing Crypto\u2019s Biggest Opportunity<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Well, MARA said it is still. The company\u2019s CEO, Fred Thiel, said BTC remains \u201ca core pillar\u201d of its strategy and added that the company\u2019s long-term view on the cryptocurrency is unchanged even if the timing of a price recovery is uncertain.<\/p>\n The company also reported fourth-quarter revenue of US$202.3 million (AU$309.5 million), down 6% from US$214.4 million (AU$328 million), citing a 14% drop in the average price of bitcoin mined in the quarter.<\/p>\n But the shift is aimed at monetising MARA\u2019s main advantage, like sites with access to large power supplies, given that power has become a bottleneck for new AI data centers, and miners with existing energy-connected infrastructure are increasingly repurposing it.<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, the pivot is part of a wider move across the mining sector after the latest Bitcoin halving cut block rewards. With tougher mining economics<\/a>, firms have been looking to hosting and high-performance computing for steadier revenue. For instance, Bitcoin miner Cango recently sold<\/a> its US$305 million (AU$466 million) in BTC to fund a complete AI<\/a> compute push.<\/p>\n Bitfarms recently said it is rebranding as Keel Infrastructure as it moves into HPC and AI-focused data center development.\u00a0<\/p>\nStill a Bitcoin Company?<\/h2>\n