New York, Feb 8, 2026, 06:20 EST — The session wrapped with the market closed.
- MARA shot up 22.3% Friday as bitcoin snapped back after flirting with a drop below $60,000.
- Traders eye bitcoin’s direction, scanning for signs that miners might be offloading tokens after hefty transfers.
- Investors are bracing for U.S. inflation numbers on Friday, a release that could shake up risk appetite.
Shares of MARA Holdings, Inc surged Friday, with bitcoin’s rebound past $70,000 offering relief after crypto-linked stocks had stumbled earlier this week.
This shift is notable: MARA often acts as a bitcoin lever, with the stock amplifying the token’s swings as miners’ margins and balance sheets flip fast. After a sharp drop and a sudden bounce, investors are watching Monday for signs—was Friday’s rebound just catching breath, or the start of something else?
MARA surged 22.3% to close at $8.24 on Friday, after swinging between $6.81 and $8.51 throughout the session—volatility front and center on the tape.
Bitcoin hovered near $70,678 as of Sunday morning, about 4% higher than where it finished the previous day. The cryptocurrency trades nonstop.
Markets remain jittery. Bitcoin clawed back more than 11% on Friday after tumbling to its lowest level in 16 months, but options activity signaled nerves: investors piled into downside hedges. “Demand for downside protection is extreme,” said Sean Dawson, head of research at Derive.xyz. Put options—contracts that gain value as prices drop—drew heavy buying, especially between $60,000 and $50,000 strikes, with late-February expiry seeing the bulk of the action. 1
Attention on MARA sharpened as blockchain analysts spotted around 1,317 bitcoin—worth close to $87 million—leaving MARA-associated wallets during the recent drop, Yahoo Finance reported, citing on-chain data. On-chain records lay out the public movement of coins across the blockchain, but don’t necessarily explain the reasoning behind those transfers. 2
In a separate regulatory disclosure, CEO Fred Thiel had shares withheld—covering taxes on vesting restricted stock units. The filing specified: this wasn’t an open-market sale. 3
Friday saw peers trading together. Riot Platforms jumped 19.7%, while CleanSpark picked up 21.7% as traders snapped up battered miners on bitcoin’s rebound.
MARA is all about bitcoin mining: specialized machines humming away to keep the network running and pick up bitcoin in the process. But the company can’t do much about two big variables — bitcoin’s price, and the network “difficulty,” which ramps up if more miners jump in and chase after the same rewards. 4
Looking ahead to next week, the main risk is clear enough: a drop in bitcoin back to last week’s lows could push miners to shuffle prices downward again—particularly if investors catch wind of coins shifting toward desks and exchanges before sales. Volatility works both directions. It seldom telegraphs its arrival.
Macro might still shake things up. The U.S. January jobs report—pushed back due to the partial government shutdown—is now set for release Wednesday, Feb. 11, Barron’s said. 5
All eyes now shift to Friday, when the January U.S. consumer price index lands at 8:30 a.m. ET. That number tends to jolt yields, move the dollar, and shake up risk sentiment—sometimes sending crypto-related names such as MARA for a ride. 6
