MARA Holdings has accomplished the acquisition of a majority stake in French computing infrastructure operator Exaion, deepening its push into synthetic intelligence (AI) and cloud companies.
The deal, first agreed in August 2025 with EDF Pulse Ventures, provides MARA France a 64% stake in Exaion after required regulatory approvals have been secured, the Bitcoin miner stated in a Friday announcement. French vitality big EDF will stay a minority shareholder and proceed as a buyer of the enterprise.
The funding additionally creates a broader alliance. NJJ Capital, the funding automobile of telecom entrepreneur Xavier Niel, will purchase a ten% stake in MARA France as a part of a partnership with MARA.
Governance of Exaion will mirror the brand new possession construction. The corporate’s board will embody three representatives from MARA, three from EDF Pulse Ventures and one from NJJ, alongside Exaion’s chief govt and co-founder. Niel and MARA CEO Fred Thiel will each maintain seats on the board.
Associated: Bitcoin miners chase 30 GW AI capability to offset hashprice stress
Bitcoin miners pivot to AI amid stress
Bitcoin mining corporations are more and more turning to AI and knowledge heart computing as stress on mining economics grows. After the 2024 halving minimize block rewards and rising community problem squeezed margins, a number of publicly traded miners started adopting a hybrid mannequin, retaining mining as a supply of money move whereas constructing steadier income from AI cloud and high-performance computing companies.
HIVE Digital Applied sciences is one instance of the shift. The corporate reported sturdy outcomes even throughout weaker Bitcoin costs, supported by increasing AI operations. CoreWeave has additionally moved from crypto mining to develop into a serious AI infrastructure supplier after GPU mining demand fell.
Different corporations, together with TeraWulf, Hut 8, IREN and MARA, are additionally repurposing mining amenities and vitality capability into AI knowledge facilities.
In November final 12 months, CleanSpark introduced plans to boost roughly $1.13 billion in internet proceeds, as much as $1.28 billion if extra notes are bought, by a $1.15 billion senior convertible word providing to fund growth of its Bitcoin mining and knowledge heart operations.
Associated: Crypto miner Bitdeer tanks 17% after $300M debt providing
Bitcoin mining problem jumps 15%
In the meantime, Bitcoin’s mining problem rose about 15% to 144.4 trillion on Friday, reversing an 11% drop earlier within the month, the steepest decline since China’s 2021 mining ban. The sooner fall adopted extreme winter storms throughout the USA that disrupted energy grids and briefly compelled many miners offline, sharply decreasing hash price.
Whereas the upper problem reinforces Bitcoin’s safety, it additionally raises the computing effort wanted to mine new blocks, including additional margin stress on operators already coping with rising prices.
Journal: Bitcoin could take 7 years to improve to post-quantum — BIP-360 co-author
