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 providers.
The deal, first agreed in August 2025 with EDF Pulse Ventures, offers MARA France a 64% stake in Exaion after required regulatory approvals had been secured, the Bitcoin miner said 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 car 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 replicate 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 capacity to offset hashprice pressure
Bitcoin miners pivot to AI amid stress
Bitcoin mining firms are more and more turning to AI and information middle 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, protecting mining as a supply of money circulate whereas constructing steadier income from AI cloud and high-performance computing providers.
HIVE Digital Applied sciences is one instance of the shift. The corporate reported sturdy outcomes even throughout weaker Bitcoin costs, supported by expanding AI operations. CoreWeave has also moved from crypto mining to turn into a significant 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 information facilities.
In November final yr, CleanSpark introduced plans to raise roughly $1.13 billion in internet proceeds, as much as $1.28 billion if extra notes are bought, by way of a $1.15 billion senior convertible notice providing to fund enlargement of its Bitcoin mining and information middle operations.
Associated: Crypto miner Bitdeer tanks 17% after $300M debt offering
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 US that disrupted energy grids and briefly compelled many miners offline, sharply lowering hash charge.
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 dealing with rising costs.
Journal: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post-quantum — BIP-360 co-author
