Wallets that the on-chain tracker Lookonchain links to MARA Holdings, the Nasdaq-listed bitcoin miner, deposited about 1,000 BTC on exchanges in five days, in two batches on 14 and 19 October 2026. Lookonchain put the value at about $82.8 million and wrote on Monday that MARA “appears to be selling”, according to Bitcoin.com News and crypto.news, which relayed the post. MARA has not commented on the transfers.
The coins went to Binance, Gate and Coinbase, according to Bitcoin.com News. A deposit on an exchange is not a sale, and nothing published so far shows that these coins changed hands. What is on the record is MARA Holdings’ bitcoin policy: the miner sold about 23,093 BTC in the first half of 2026, its quarterly report shows, and told shareholders in August that it expects to “continue to monetize bitcoin opportunistically”, including to fund capital projects, while it turns its power sites into AI data centres.
The stock explains part of the attention. MARA’s shares closed at $7.53 on Friday 16 October, about 45% below their $13.63 close of 22 September, Bitcoin.com News calculated. Bitcoin traded near $81,934 at 16:45 UTC on Monday, according to mempool.space prices, which put 1,000 BTC at roughly $81.9 million.
Lookonchain’s count: about 1,000 BTC to Binance, Gate and Coinbase in two batches
Bitcoin.com News broke the five days into two transfers of 500 BTC. The first left a wallet labelled “MARA: Miner” at 01:17 UTC on Wednesday 14 October. The second followed at about 01:10 UTC on Monday 19 October. The label comes from Arkham Intelligence, the blockchain analytics firm whose explorer page for one of the addresses Lookonchain shared.
| Date (UTC) | Binance | Gate | Coinbase | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct, 01:17 | 300 BTC | 100 BTC | 100 BTC | 500 BTC |
| 19 Oct, about 01:10 | 250 BTC | 250 BTC | none | 500 BTC |
| Five days | about 550 BTC | about 350 BTC | about 100 BTC | about 1,000 BTC |
Split as reported by Bitcoin.com News on 19 October; Coindaro has not traced the final deposit addresses. Crypto.news, citing the same Lookonchain post, names only Binance and Gate.
The exchange deposits were not the first large move this month. In early October, a MARA-labelled wallet sent 996.105 BTC, about $81.13 million at the time, to an address belonging to Galaxy Digital, crypto.news reported. Outlets disagree on the day: crypto.news says 8 October, Bitcoin.com News 9 October. Crypto.news added that it is unclear whether Galaxy bought the coins, held them in custody or received them under another arrangement. Taken together, the labelled wallets moved close to 2,000 BTC, about $164 million, in under two weeks.
Blockonomi put the exchange deposits at about 2.8% of the 35,577 BTC MARA reported at the end of June. That is the most recent holdings figure the company has published.
What Coindaro saw on mempool.space: a third 500 BTC batch on Monday afternoon
The labelled wallet does not send straight to the exchanges. Bitcoin.com News identified a relay address that its coins pass through, bc1qw6akqnpn20gq58v5feun308qzufjzls0ffpcww. According to the outlet, it has handled about 5,297 BTC in 69 transactions since mid-April, and every transfer since 22 September has been exactly 500 BTC.
Coindaro queried that address on the mempool.space explorer twice on 19 October, around 16:40 UTC and again at 16:50 UTC (block height 972,183). Every 500 BTC batch follows the same route. The relay receives exactly 500 BTC, then forwards exactly 500 BTC to a second address, bc1qyv8cmnv5hv9axy0uqjmfqpwkd5ysq6kejxvpg3, between seven minutes and two hours later, for a fee of a few hundred satoshis.
The funding changed in October. The 22 September and 6 October batches came from two or three large inputs. The 14 October batch and both of Monday’s were each assembled from about 167 inputs of roughly 3 BTC, almost all from one P2SH address beginning 32i1m6, which looks like a consolidation of smaller holdings.
We found 500 BTC forwards on 22 September at 19:55 UTC, 6 October at 18:34, 14 October at 01:17 and 19 October at 00:52. The 14 October time matches Bitcoin.com News to the minute. For Monday’s early batch the chain shows 00:52 UTC for the relay transfer, against about 01:10 in the report; the gap may be the next hop to the exchanges.
Then there is a batch the trackers had not reported when this piece was written. At 14:39 UTC on Monday, in block 972,170, another 500 BTC went out through the same relay address, after arriving at 14:28 UTC from the same P2SH address that funded the batches the trackers attribute to MARA. At 15:02 UTC the second address sent 250 BTC to one address and 150 BTC to another; on an address this busy, the chain does not show whether those coins came from the 14:39 batch. About 1,500 BTC has gone through the relay since 14 October, roughly $123 million at $81,934, but whether this third batch also belongs to MARA, as the first two are said to, is not established. Nothing published so far shows where the 14:39 coins ended up or who controls them.
Two limits apply to this check. Coindaro verified amounts, times and addresses, not ownership: the MARA label comes from Arkham and Lookonchain, and we have not verified it. The second address is also no private wallet. It shows 2,852 transactions and about 23,269 BTC received over its life, the profile of a busy exchange or over-the-counter address, but we could not tell which firm controls it.
MARA Holdings and bitcoin: what its own filings say about selling
MARA has not explained the October transfers, and its investor relations page lists no press release since 6 August. It also no longer issues monthly production updates. Its second-quarter shareholder letter, filed with the SEC on 6 August, is therefore the latest word on its bitcoin. The company wrote that it began “selling bitcoin to fund operations” in 2025 and that it expects to “continue to monetize bitcoin opportunistically”, depending on market conditions.
The selling has been heavy. MARA ended 2025 with 53,822 BTC and reported 35,577 BTC on 30 June 2026, a fall of about a third in six months. Its quarterly report (10-Q) puts first-half sales at about 23,093 BTC at an average of $70,631. The cash-flow statement shows $1.63 billion of proceeds from sales of digital assets over the six months and $912.8 million spent repaying convertible notes.
Most of it happened in March. Between 4 and 25 March MARA sold 15,133 BTC, about $1.1 billion, to buy back convertible notes due in 2030 and 2031, crypto.news reported. In the second quarter the pace slowed: MARA mined 2,422 BTC, sold 2,213 at an average of $73,078 and bought none, the letter says.
| Item | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Holdings, 31 Dec 2025 | 53,822 BTC | 10-Q |
| Holdings, 30 Jun 2026 | 35,577 BTC (26,307 unrestricted, 4,742 loaned, 4,528 pledged) | Q2 letter, 6 Aug |
| Sold in H1 2026 | about 23,093 BTC for about $1.63 billion | 10-Q |
| Q2 production and sales | 2,422 mined, 2,213 sold at $73,078 | Q2 letter |
| Convertible notes repaid, H1 | about $913 million | 10-Q cash-flow statement |
| Cash and equivalents, 30 Jun | $421.3 million | Q2 letter |
| Q2 revenue and net result | $174.9 million (down 27% y/y), net loss $611.3 million | Q2 letter |
| Energized hashrate | 70.3 EH/s | Q2 letter |
After the quarter closed, MARA arranged two bitcoin-backed loans totalling $600 million at a weighted average rate of 7.56%, with Coinbase Credit and Two Prime, to pay the cash part of its planned Long Ridge acquisition. Crypto.news reports that 18,750 BTC were pledged as initial collateral in August. None of the holdings numbers above reflects that, nor the October transfers. The next count will come with third-quarter results.
Why an exchange deposit does not prove a sale
Large holders move coins to exchanges for several reasons. A deposit can come before a sale on the order book or through the exchange’s OTC desk, but exchange accounts also serve as custody and prime-brokerage accounts, and coins can be posted there as loan collateral or lent out. MARA does both: 4,742 BTC were on loan at the end of June, earning about $4.3 million of interest in the quarter. Our explainer on what a centralized exchange is covers the basics, and our Binance review looks at one of the three platforms named here.
Wallet labels are inferences too. Arkham attaches names to addresses from deposit patterns, public disclosures and links to known entities, and MARA has not confirmed the label. A deposit on an exchange can come before a sale, but the transfers alone do not show that MARA sold the coins.
MARA Holdings stock: down 45% from its 22 September close
The share price slide started weeks before the first exchange deposit. In mid-September JPMorgan downgraded MARA to Underweight and cut its price target to $11 from $13, Tikr reported on 16 September. The bank’s concern was the capital-light joint venture with Starwood Digital Ventures for AI data centres, in which, JPMorgan said, MARA “captures only half of the value the venture creates”.
From the $13.63 close on 22 September, the stock fell to $7.53 on 16 October, including a 9.6% drop that Friday, according to Bitcoin.com News. The 45% figure depends on that starting point; shorter windows give smaller falls. Coindaro found no reliable quote for MARA on Monday 19 October and does not give one.
No published source ties the fall to the transfers. The downgrade and a second-quarter net loss of $611.3 million came first.
At about $86,000 per coin, MARA’s cash cost sits above the bitcoin price
CoinShares, in its Q2 2026 mining report of 15 September, estimated MARA’s cash cost, excluding taxes, at about $86,126 per bitcoin mined in the second quarter, against a weighted average of about $75,500 for listed miners. At Monday’s price near $81,934 (16:45 UTC), each new coin brings in a little less than it costs in cash, on CoinShares’ numbers.
Hashprice, the expected revenue per unit of computing power, hit a record monthly low of $27.7 per PH/s per day in June, CoinShares found, before recovering to around $38 by mid-September. Competition keeps rising. Difficulty climbed 5.92% to 140.58T on 16 October, the third-largest increase of 2026, as hashrate passed 1 ZH/s.
The squeeze is structural. Since the April 2024 bitcoin halving cut the block reward to 3.125 BTC, miners have earned half as many coins for the same work, while their power bills and debt payments stay in dollars. A miner that holds a treasury can sell part of it, borrow against it or issue shares. MARA has done all three in the past two years.
Bitcoin miners pivoting to AI are selling coins to pay for it
MARA is not alone. Public miners sold more than 32,000 BTC in the first quarter of 2026, a record above the roughly 20,000 BTC sold during the Terra-Luna crash of 2022, BeInCrypto reported in April, citing TheEnergyMag data.
Core Scientific sold about 1,900 BTC in January and said it planned to sell substantially all of its holdings during 2026 to fund AI and high-performance computing, according to The Block. Riot Platforms sold 4,300 BTC in the second quarter and held 11,380 BTC at the end of June, Bitcoin.com News reported; it has a 20-year lease of 191 MW with Anthropic, projected at about $9.1 billion of revenue through 2048.
The logic is that power sites and grid connections are now the scarce asset, and AI tenants pay contracted dollars where block rewards swing with the price. In September CoinShares said it expected listed miners’ AI and HPC revenue run-rate to more than double by its next report.
MARA’s letter calls “Digital Infrastructure” its primary growth focus. It lists a site in Matagorda County, Texas, with up to 2 GW of capacity, still subject to grid approvals, and the pending Long Ridge acquisition, awaiting approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission “over the coming months”. With both, MARA’s power portfolio could reach 4.8 GW. Management wrote that it was “confident in our ability to sign at least one lease before year-end”. No lease has been announced yet. Its hosting contracts start to expire in the third quarter of 2027, all of them by early 2028.
Exaion: the EDF subsidiary MARA bought in France, with a €110 million payment due in 2027
MARA’s AI plans also run through France. Through MARA France it bought 64% of Exaion, the high-performance computing and blockchain infrastructure subsidiary of the state-owned utility EDF, for €147.96 million, according to Cointribune; MARA’s 10-Q gives €148.0 million ($174.5 million), of which €115.0 million paid for new shares. The investment agreement was signed on 11 August 2025. The French finance ministry cleared the deal under foreign-investment screening on 20 February 2026, with conditions, Bloomberg Tax reported, and MARA completed the purchase the same day, according to its 10-Q.
The conditions brought in a French investor: Xavier Niel’s NJJ Capital took 10% of MARA France, and the ministry said French interests would hold almost half of Exaion’s capital and five of its eight board seats. In its Q2 letter MARA describes Exaion as a European private AI cloud for companies with sovereignty requirements, which supports EDF’s nuclear operations and was selected for the EU-backed AION consortium.
The deal drew political fire before it closed. Deputies Philippe Latombe, in October 2025, and Éric Ciotti, on 4 November, questioned the government. Minister Sébastien Martin replied that Exaion does not mine bitcoin, and Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said EDF would remain a shareholder, Cointribune reported. Latombe and senator Dany Wattebled referred the deal to the national financial prosecutor’s office (PNF). No investigation has been publicly confirmed.
Two dates link Exaion to Monday’s story. On 22 July 2026 François Garcin and related entities sued MARA Holdings in the federal court for the Southern District of New York, claiming at least €6.92 million, about €5.92 million of it in success fees on the Exaion deal, plus €4.4 million tied to the next tranche, Cointribune reported. MARA told the newsletter Blockspace the accusations were fabricated or baseless; none has been proven in court. That next tranche is the second date: about €110 million due between 31 March and 30 September 2027, which could lift MARA’s stake to 75%. For context, Exaion reported revenue of €3.87 million and a loss of €5.07 million in 2025, according to the same outlet.
Coindaro found no new review of the deal by the French state or regulators in October 2026. The money question is the practical one. MARA will have to find that €110 million in 2027 on top of its American projects; about 30% of its $421.3 million of cash at the end of June was already in euros, held by Exaion for its own operations, the 10-Q says. Nothing on the record links the October transfers to that payment.
What to watch: the relay address, a Q3 date and a lease before year-end
MARA has not announced the date of its third-quarter results. Last time it gave about two weeks’ notice, announcing on 22 July a release on 6 August. Those results will bring the first official holdings figure since June and may show whether the October coins were sold, lent or pledged.
Before that, the chain will show whether the 500 BTC rhythm continues: the relay address is public, and Arkham and Lookonchain are watching the labelled wallets. A sale would only be confirmed by MARA itself, in a filing or a statement.
Further out, MARA has promised at least one AI lease and an investor day before the end of 2026, with no date given for the second. FERC’s decision on Long Ridge is pending. In France, the Exaion tranche falls due between March and September 2027, and the New York lawsuit and the PNF referral remain open.