What Are MARA Stock Investors Overlooking

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For a MARA (MARA) holder, the most important metric to watch is the amount of the company's bitcoin tied up in loans. During an August 6, 2026 call, management said 54% of MARA's bitcoin holdings had been pledged as collateral. The company's coins were worth about $2.1 billion at the end of June, less than the $2.47 billion of debt it carried that day. So why has MARA pledged so much of its bitcoin?

Why Has MARA Pledged So Much Of Its Bitcoin?

MARA pledged the coins to fund its agreed acquisition of Long Ridge, a power business. After the quarter ended, the company secured $600 million in new borrowings through two bitcoin-backed credit facilities with Coinbase and Two Prime, and management said the 54% figure is the result. Management was direct about the plan: it is funding the deal, valued at $1.5 billion, with bitcoin-backed debt and by taking over Long Ridge's balance sheet.

Those new loans are only part of the borrowing picture. On the August call, MARA said it expected to take on about $900 million of Long Ridge's debt as well, once the deal closed. Management calls digital infrastructure its primary growth focus, and it expects Long Ridge to significantly expand its AI infrastructure opportunity.

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MARA Has Pledged More Bitcoin Since June

At the end of June, MARA had loaned out or pledged about 26% of its bitcoin as collateral. Of those coins, about 4.74 thousand were loaned out while the rest were pledged. That left about 4.53 thousand coins pledged, or roughly 13% of the 35.6 thousand MARA held. Following the new borrowings, management said the pledged share increased to more than half of all the coins MARA holds. Since the call, an October 10 report said MARA sold about $81 million of bitcoin.

MARA's latest results show the extent to which the price of those coins matters to the business. Revenue fell 26.7% from a year earlier in fiscal Q2 2026. The company said lower bitcoin prices were behind the drop, with the average price down 28%, even though MARA mined more coins than it did a year earlier. Profit swings with the coin as well. According to the company, about $343 million of the quarter's net loss came from marking its digital assets down to market value. Overall, MARA reported a net loss of $611 million for the quarter.

Where Do MARA Shares Stand, And What Speaks For Them?

MARA shares lost 62.4% over the year to October 28, compared with a 14.0% gain for the S&P 500. Even so, at 3.5 times sales, the shares are not cheap against the S&P 500's 3.2 times.

The deal and the mining business have real strengths. More than 70% of Long Ridge's power output is contracted under long-term agreements, and management expects the purchase to add to earnings. MARA's energized hash rate, the computing power it uses to mine, rose 22% from a year earlier in fiscal Q2 2026. Management also said it is working with Starwood on lease discussions across several sites and is confident of signing at least two leases before year end. As of the August call, those leases remained an expectation, and the purchase was set to close only after FERC approval, which management expected soon.

How worried should a holder be? Enough to follow the pledge closely, since MARA has borrowed against more than half of its coins just as it adds Long Ridge's debt, and both its revenue and its loss move with the coin's price. The share of MARA's bitcoin pledged against its loans is the figure to watch when the company reports its fiscal third quarter, expected in November 2026.

Who Is Watching Your Portfolio's Risk When You're Not?

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