To The Moon

Marathon Holdings Call Options Rise as Stock Rallies After Record Revenue

$Marathon Digital Holdings Inc(MARA)$   call options rose Friday as the stock rallied after the crypto miner reported record quarterly revenue in the fourth quarter, surpassing analysts’ expectations. 

Shares advanced for a third straight session, taking gains to 10% since the close Tuesday, a day before the company released earnings. The rally bolstered hopes for the crypto-related stock that has been beaten down as $Bitcoin (BTC.CC)$ lost almost a fifth of its value this month. 

More than 263,00 Marathon call options changed hands so far. That’s more than the 20-day average of 197,682 contracts, according to Bloomberg data. With just hours left before contracts expire, traders and speculators are likely rolling their position to options due at a later date.

The rally over the past three days bolstered the odds that some of the call options expiring next week could be in-the-money, helping boost demand. The top three most active contracts are expiring today. The fourth one is the call option that gives the holders the right to buy Marathon shares at $15.50 by the end of next week. That strike price is more than $2 above the current stock price. 

Before the day Marathon's financial results were released, the stock had already sustained a 26% decline since the end of 2024. The slump came as bitcoin tumbled below $85,000, from a record $109,000 reached in January. 

On Wednesday, the company reported a 37% jump in revenue to $214.4 million for the three months that ended Dec. 31. That surpassed analysts' estimates by almost 12%, according to Bloomberg data. 

The company mined 2,492 bitcoin in the fourth quarter and bought another 15,574 bitcoin using its own cash and proceeds for its zero-coupon convertible senior notes offers. It had a bitcoin yield of 62% per share as it did not sell any of the cryptocurrency during the quarter, according to a shareholder letter signed by its chairman Fred Thiel. 

While Marathon remained bullish on bitcoin and its mining business, it said it’s continuing to explore how it can emerge as a leader in the next major opportunity: artificial intelligence.

“We believe MARA will be the base layer of infrastructure that powers HPC applications," Thiel said in the shareholder letter. “Whether for bitcoin mining or AI inference, we believe our technologies will activate others to build while MARA provides the picks and shovels to deploy new systems and services, such as energy management, load balancing, and infrastructure.”

The company plans to offer hardware, software and services to AI data centers, including cooling infrastructure and load balancing, although its management still doesn’t expect these to be a material driver of 2025 earnings, JPMorgan analysts including Reginald Smith wrote in a note to clients yesterday. 

“We like MARA’s approach to low-cost hashrate growth, and are intrigued by the longer-term opportunity as an data center service provider, but continue to expect the company’s share of the network hashrate and BTC price to drive earnings and stock sentiment for at least the next few quarters,” the analysts said. 

Marathon's hashrate, or the speed at which its computer is able to handle cryptographic calculations, soared 115% to 53.2 EH per second in the fourth quarter from a year earlier. 

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