Investment Bank Jefferies maintains a hold rating on shares of Mara Holdings (MARA) after bitcoin Miner reported third-quarter results that were largely in line with Wall Street expectations.
The firm cited stable operations, promising power integration developments, and cautious steps in artificial intelligence, while dropping its price target to $16 from $19.
Shares were 7% higher in early trading, around $17.80.
Mara posted $252 million in revenue, compared to Jefferies’ and consensus estimates of $245 million and $251 million, respectively.
The company mined 2,144 Bitcoins, up 4% from a year earlier but down 9% sequentially, and reported adjusted EBITDA of nearly $396 million, including a $234 million fair value gain on digital assets.
The company ended the quarter with nearly $6.85 billion in cash and bitcoin, giving it plenty of flexibility for expansion, analysts Jonathan Petersen and Jan Aygul wrote in a Tuesday report.
Analysts point to Mara’s letter of intent with MPLX to develop gas-fired generation and campus power centers in West Texas as a potential structural advantage. The 400-megawatt (MW) project, with the capacity to scale to 1.5 gigawatts (GW), will allow the miner to control its own electricity generation and transfer energy between bitcoin mining, grid sales, and AI workloads.
Jefferies said the move could cut costs and hedge against energy market volatility, though the deal still requires final agreement and regulatory clearance.
The firm also featured Marathon’s first AI deployment at the Granbury, Texas site, where ten racks were installed to restore mining infrastructure for edge computing.
The bank’s analysts called the initiative “strategically important” as a proof of concept, noting that while the scale is small, the success could backfire for higher profits and Mara’s position at the intersection of Bitcoin mining and practical AI computing.
Read more: MARA Holdings outlines AI and energy transition with MPLX LOI; Q3 results were impressive
