MARA CEO says AI power supply is more profitable than Bitcoin mining

Fred Thiel said halving pressure is reshaping mining economics as MARA expands owned and planned power capacity for AI infrastructure and Bitcoin operations.

BTC

28d ago

Fact Check

Multiple independent outlets (Wu Blockchain, BlockchainReporter, CoinNess, KuCoin) and an independent X post consistently attribute the statement to Fred Thiel from a July 23 interview with Natalie Brunell. All report the same two-part substance matching the claim: AI power supply/compute yields far higher returns per unit of electricity than Bitcoin mining, and Bitcoin mining continues where power is low-cost or surplus/excess. Confidence is medium rather than high because I relied on secondary reporting of the interview and did not access the primary interview recording/transcript or an official MARA statement directly; however, the consistency and convergence across sources strongly supports the claim.

Summary

MARA Holdings is leaning further toward AI-linked infrastructure as CEO Fred Thiel said using electricity for artificial intelligence generates far more revenue than Bitcoin mining, especially as the Bitcoin halving puts pressure on mining economics. Thiel said power is becoming miners’ key strategic asset, a shift that is pushing companies including MARA to expand control of energy and site infrastructure that can serve either AI workloads or mining. He said MARA is building about 1 gigawatt with Starwood, plans to expand to 2.5 gigawatts, and this month announced a Texas site with about 2 gigawatts of power capacity.

Terms & Concepts

Bitcoin halving: A programmed event that cuts the reward for mining new Bitcoin blocks, reducing miners’ revenue unless offset by higher prices or lower costs.
Bitcoin mining: Using computing power to validate transactions and earn Bitcoin rewards.
gigawatt: A unit of power capacity equal to 1 billion watts, often used to measure large energy and data center infrastructure.