Key Takeaways
- MARA Holdings fell 4% on Nov. 4 as Riot Platforms jumped 10% on a 15-year AI lease worth about $28 billion for its Corsicana campus.
- MARA’s Nov. 9 report has to show its power can earn more than mining bitcoin, through a signed AI tenant or a dated path to one.
- Cipher Digital fell 20% the same day despite its own leases, and IREN’s AI cloud brought in about seven times its mining revenue in the September quarter, so investors are paying for rent that’s signed and funded.
- MARA traded at 3.5x forward sales on Nov. 2, against a 6.0x three-year average, and that discount looks deserved until it signs a tenant.
MARA Holdings (MARA) fell 4% on Wednesday, the same day Riot Platforms (RIOT) jumped 10% on the biggest lease in its history.
Riot is leasing its entire Corsicana, Texas campus to an unnamed frontier AI lab for 15 years. The deal covers 910 megawatts of critical IT capacity, worth about $28 billion over the initial term. Cipher Digital (CIFR), which already collects AI rent, fell 20%.
A day later, IREN (IREN) showed what a miner’s power can earn once the tenants move in. MARA hasn’t signed a single AI lease, and it reports third-quarter results on Monday, Nov. 9, after the close. That report has to show its power can earn more than mining bitcoin.
TIKR tracks 15 analysts on MARA Holdings. How many say “Buy”?
See the full breakdown of Buy, Hold, and Sell ratings on MARA Holdings, along with Wall Street’s revenue and earnings estimates, all in one place. More than 500,000 investors use TIKR to research stocks like this one. See MARA Holdings’ Analyst Ratings
Signed rent wins, if it’s funded
Cipher’s drop shows a lease alone isn’t enough. It lost $10 million of adjusted EBITDA on $27 million of revenue. And it sold $850 million of convertible notes to fund Barber Lake. My read: investors are pricing how each build gets paid for.
IREN is further along. Its AI cloud brought in $200 million in the quarter to Sept. 30, against $28 million from mining. Even so, its target of more than $4 billion in annualized run-rate revenue slipped to January at a customer’s request.
MARA has the power and an empty tenant list
MARA has about 1.9 gigawatts of power and a joint venture with Starwood Digital Ventures to build AI campuses on its sites. It expects to sign at least one AI lease by year-end.
On Thursday, federal regulators approved its roughly $1.5 billion purchase of the Long Ridge gas plant in Ohio. The plant earned about $144 million of annualized adjusted EBITDA in the second half of 2025. That income doesn’t depend on bitcoin. Shares still fell 14% that day as the AI data center selloff hit miners
Analysts still model MARA as a miner. Consensus sees revenue falling from $907 million in 2025 to $606 million in 2028, the year of the next halving:
A lease signed this year wouldn’t move 2026 or 2027 much. But it would give analysts rent to pencil in after that.
The stock is priced the same way. On Nov. 2, MARA traded at 3.5x forward sales, against a 6.0x three-year average:
This week’s drops pushed it lower still, toward February’s 2.4x low.
Monday needs a lease and a way to pay for it
The best answer Monday is a signed lease that names the tenant, the megawatts and the economics. Short of that, investors need a dated path to one. At June 30, every Starwood site was still in pre-development, with $11.0 million spent of a $136.3 million pursuit budget.
Operations have used cash in each of the last 12 quarters, even as capital spending shrank:
(MARA keeps mined bitcoin out of operating cash flow and books any sales under investing, so these figures overstate the burn.)
MARA has filled the gap from its treasury. It held 35,577 bitcoin at June 30, down from 53,822 at the end of 2025. August’s $600 million of new bitcoin-backed loans left 54% of its coins pledged. The holdings it reports Monday will show how long it can wait for a tenant.
Mining also made up 98.1% of first-half revenue, so bitcoin can still swamp anything management says about AI on Monday.
Wait for the tenant
Riot showed this week that a signed, long-dated tenant can reprice a miner in a day. MARA has the power and Long Ridge’s approval, but a shrinking bitcoin pile is paying for the wait. A signed, funded lease on Monday could close a lot of the gap with Riot. Without one, I’d stay on the sidelines.
Of course, management gave itself until Dec. 31, and Long Ridge has yet to close, so a quiet Monday wouldn’t settle it.
So what is MARA Holdings stock actually worth?
TIKR lets you forecast the future price of any stock in less than a minute. Just enter a few assumptions into TIKR’s valuation model and see what MARA Holdings could be worth. Start from Wall Street consensus estimates, or adjust the inputs to reflect your own view of the business. It’s free to use.
Disclaimer:
Please note that the articles on TIKR are not intended to serve as investment or financial advice from TIKR or our content team, nor are they recommendations to buy or sell any stocks. We create our content based on TIKR Terminal’s investment data and analysts’ estimates. Our analysis might not include recent company news or important updates. TIKR has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Thank you for reading, and happy investing!
