HIVE and MARA mined more Bitcoin, but power bills ate the payoff

HIVE Digital Technologies and MARA Holdings both pulled more Bitcoin out of the ground in the September quarter — and both watched the money from it shrink. HIVE's production climbed 49% to 1,070 BTC, but mining revenue slipped by 7.4%, now at $76 million, according to the companies' latest regulatory filings. MARA's output rose 5% to 2,247 BTC while Bitcoin mining revenue dropped by 34%, landing at $159 million.

The culprit sat on the power bill. HIVE's electricity costs rose 20% to $45.6 million, and MARA's purchased energy costs swelled 12% to $48.1 million as it expanded its owned mining operations. Both also marked down equipment: HIVE took a $31.2 million noncash write-down on mining gear, pointing to “depressed mining economics,” while MARA wrote off $12 million tied to mining rigs and equipment under restructuring plans.

The pair add to a rough stretch for miners. American Bitcoin reported weaker mining margins last week despite a treasury-driven quarterly profit, and Core Scientific has said it plans to exit mining altogether by year-end. HIVE and MARA, unlike Core Scientific, are staying in the game — and pairing mining with artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.

HIVE's HPC hosting revenue jumped 71% to $8.8 million, or 10.4% of total revenue. The company said it expects to spend up to $493 million over 36 months to grow that business, covering land, data center buildout and GPUs, with $145.3 million already spent as of the filing. It also plans roughly $35 million to convert its Toronto facility into a Tier-III data center, and is targeting a 100-megawatt substation expansion at its Yguazú site in Paraguay during 2026.

MARA is building its own AI arm through the Exaion subsidiary and a partnership with Starwood Digital Ventures. It said it wants sites that can switch between workloads based on economics, demand and grid conditions — with Bitcoin mining still the foundation of the platform.

On the numbers, HIVE posted fiscal second-quarter revenue of $84.9 million, down 2.7% year-on-year but ahead of the $79.4 million consensus tracked by MarketBeat. Its Nasdaq-listed shares fell 1.7% to $1.78 in after-hours trading Monday, according to Google Finance, after closing the regular session up 1.7% at $1.81. MARA reported net income attributable to common stockholders of $634.4 million, up from $123.1 million a year earlier and padded by fair-value gains on digital assets and digital asset receivables, on revenue of $164.2 million — down 35% year-on-year. Diluted earnings came in at $1.28 a share, up from 27 cents, and the stock was little changed at $6.64 after hours Monday after closing up 4.6%.