Shares of Marathon Digital surged 12.1% to $10.81 Wednesday, outpacing a broader crypto rally, as the market revisited the company's blockbuster deal to buy a gas-fired power plant in Ohio and pivot beyond Bitcoin mining. The question facing shareholders: Is MARA buying a real business — or layering more risk onto an already-volatile balance sheet?
A $1.5 Billion Bet on Owning the Power, Not Just Renting It. MARA agreed to acquire Long Ridge Energy & Power from FTAI Infrastructure for roughly $1.5 billion, including assumed debt, gaining a 505-megawatt gas power plant in Hannibal, Ohio, plus over 1,600 acres earmarked for a digital infrastructure campus.
The deal involves assuming at least $700 million of debt, with financing backed by cash, Bitcoin holdings, and a Barclays bridge loan.
MARA says the deal will boost its owned-and-operated power capacity by roughly 65%. The logic is straightforward: instead of paying others for electricity to mine Bitcoin, MARA wants to generate it — and sell surplus power or lease space to other tech customers.
The Cash Math Is Tight for a Company Bleeding Money. Long Ridge is expected to generate about $144 million in annualized adjusted EBITDA (a rough proxy for cash earnings before interest and accounting adjustments). But MARA itself reported just $174.9 million in Q2 revenue and deeply negative margins, with operating losses exceeding -400% of sales.
Total debt already stands near $2 billion against about $1.7 billion in equity. Adding $1.5 billion in deal costs onto that pile is a high-wire act.
AI Data Centers Are the Promised Payoff — But Years Away. MARA says it has attracted interest from investment-grade AI tenants and expects to begin construction of an initial AI computing buildout in the first half of 2027, targeting service by mid-2028.
The site could eventually support up to 600 megawatts of capacity. That's a compelling narrative, but revenue is hypothetical; MARA must compete against deep-pocketed rivals already building data centers.
Wall Street Is Split on the Pivot. Rosenblatt raised its price target to $15 with a Buy rating.
But Cantor Fitzgerald trimmed its target to $12, Clear Street cut to $10 with a Hold, and Morgan Stanley kept a cautious $6 target. Today's pop, amplified by Bitcoin touching $71,971 — up sharply from the prior session — could fade fast if crypto retreats. MARA remains a leveraged bet; the Long Ridge deal just changed what it's leveraged to.