NEW YORK, March 26, 2026, 14:35 EDT
- MARA shares moved higher after the company announced it sold 15,133 bitcoin to raise cash for a $1 billion convertible-note buyback. Bitcoin hovered close to $68,200 in the afternoon.
- MarketBeat’s Thursday stock screener showed Bitfarms, Galaxy Digital, and HIVE leading the sector in recent dollar trading volume, pointing to ongoing demand from investors looking for listed vehicles to follow crypto moves.
- Miners are getting squeezed on margins, according to a CoinShares report from March 25, despite leaning further into artificial intelligence and data-center ventures. Yet just days earlier, March 21 commentary continued to flag CleanSpark, MARA, Riot, Bitdeer, and Galaxy as value picks.
Crypto-related stocks went their separate ways Thursday. Shares of MARA climbed 3.7% in the afternoon, following news that the company unloaded 15,133 bitcoin to help pay for a debt buyback. Bitcoin itself slipped 3.8% to around $68,201. Elsewhere, CleanSpark, Riot Platforms, Bitfarms, HIVE Digital and Galaxy Digital all dropped between 5% and 10%. Bitdeer barely moved.
This shift matters because these stocks aren’t just bitcoin proxies anymore. In a report dated March 25, CoinShares pointed out that the weighted average cash cost to mine a single bitcoin for listed miners jumped to around $79,995 in the fourth quarter. Now, artificial intelligence and high-performance computing—AI/HPC—are on track to account for as much as 70% of listed miners’ revenue by year-end. “Increasingly becoming the core business,” wrote James Butterfill, CoinShares’ head of research. CoinShares
On March 26, a MarketBeat stock screener flagged Bitfarms, Galaxy Digital, and HIVE as crypto stocks catching attention, after those three recorded the highest dollar trading volume in their group over the past several days. Crypto stocks, the note said, are public companies getting most of their revenue from things like mining, exchanges, custody and payments, or from holding substantial crypto reserves. ([MarketBeat][2])
Right beside it, you’ll find an older, more value-focused list from March 21. CoinCentral and MEXC ran commentary naming CleanSpark, MARA, Riot, Bitdeer, and Galaxy as undervalued picks—CleanSpark drawing a Moderate Buy from 15 analysts, Riot the same from 18. Bitdeer’s average target hovered near $26.60, Galaxy’s was about $42.5. Only Galaxy clearly appeared on both that list and Thursday’s volume-driven watchlist. ([MarketBeat][2])
MARA handed traders a real-time balance sheet headline: the company’s buying back about $1.0 billion in convertible notes—these are due in 2030 and 2031—at an average 9% discount to par. That should lop roughly 30% off MARA’s total outstanding convertible debt. CEO Fred Thiel dubbed the recent bitcoin sale a “strategic capital allocation move,” with the aim to push MARA past just mining and into “AI/HPC infrastructure.” MARA
No relief from the overall market. Wall Street’s top indexes slipped midday, Reuters said, with the Middle East conflict clouding risk appetite. That’s hardly ideal for a sector riding bitcoin and macro volatility.
The sector is starting to diverge. CoinShares flagged that players like Core Scientific and Hut 8 are doubling down on data center strategies, while Bitfarms and HIVE—both spotted on Thursday’s MarketBeat screen—have been pushing that narrative this month. On March 20, Bitfarms told investors its shareholders had approved shifting its legal base to the U.S. and rebranding as Keel Infrastructure, which CEO Ben Gagnon described as “an important milestone.” HIVE, for its part, announced on March 17 that Columbia University researchers had already begun using its Paraguay computing cluster, a development CEO Aydin Kilic called “a powerful validation.” CoinShares
Here’s the risk: If bitcoin can’t break above $80,000 this year, hashprice—what miners get paid for every unit of computing power—just keeps dropping. That’s straight from Butterfill. CoinShares points out that with prices stuck here, 15%-20% of all mining rigs globally are running at a loss already. MARA mentioned their debt buyback is still subject to the usual closing conditions.
