Bitcoin Mining Company MARA Holding Announces $168 Million Acquisition of Exaion
On August 11, Bitcoin mining company MARA Holding announced that it will spend $168 million to acquire a 64% stake in Exaion, a subsidiary of the French state-owned electricity company (Électricité de France), officially entering the AI and high-performance computing (HPC) market.
$168 Million Investment in Exaion, Targeting 75% Stake by 2027
According to the terms, MARA will initially invest $168 million to obtain a 64% stake in Exaion. If Exaion meets performance targets agreed upon by both parties, MARA can invest an additional $127 million before 2027 to increase its stake to 75%.
The acquisition of the 64% stake is expected to be completed around Q4 2025, provided that all preconditions in the agreement are met and necessary regulatory approvals are obtained. The increase to a 75% stake is an optional additional investment for MARA and is not included in the Q4 timeline.
After the news of the acquisition broke, the stock price rose by approximately 2% on the same day.
Exaion Specializes in HPC and AI Cloud Infrastructure, Partnering with Nvidia
Exaion’s parent company, Électricité de France, is the largest electricity provider in France and one of the world’s largest nuclear power companies, controlling about 70% of France’s electricity supply. Exaion specializes in developing and operating HPC data centers, providing AI and cloud infrastructure services, with partners including Nvidia and Deloitte, one of the “Big Four” accounting firms. MARA stated that this transaction will enable Exaion to expand into larger international markets, serving both enterprise and public sector clients.
Mining Difficulty Surges, Companies Expand AI Infrastructure
According to mining data website CoinWarz, the current Bitcoin mining difficulty is nearly 50% higher than it was a year ago, requiring 42.8% more computational power to have a chance of mining.
Charts indicate that while it took 90 trillion hashes to mine one BTC last year, it now requires 129 trillion hashes, meaning miners need to compute nearly 50% more.
This means miners must invest more computational power and energy to maintain the same output. In this situation, many mining companies are seeking additional revenue sources by extending their existing HPC infrastructure into the AI field. For example, Core Scientific has transformed from one of the largest Bitcoin mining companies in the U.S. into an AI infrastructure provider, beginning to lease H100 GPUs to AI startups and research institutions.
MARA’s AI expansion plan comes at a time when Bitcoin mining difficulty has significantly increased, energy consumption has risen, and miner profits have been compressed. As the world’s leading Bitcoin miner in terms of production, computational power, and market capitalization, MARA must accelerate its AI expansion to respond to rapid market changes.
July Mining Output Surpassed by IREN, But Financial Reports Shine
In July 2025, MARA mined 703 BTC, which was a 2% decrease from June, falling behind competitor IREN, which mined 728 BTC during the same month. MARA attributed the decline in output to power or seasonal factors, causing some mining sites to pause operations and reduce computational power. However, mining sites have recently resumed operations, increasing total computational power, which led the system to automatically raise mining difficulty by 9%, making mining more challenging for miners.
On the left is IREN and on the right is MARA.
However, MARA’s Q2 revenue this year increased by 64% year-over-year, reaching $238 million, and it holds 50,000 BTC valued at nearly $6 billion, second only to Michael Saylor’s MicroStrategy in global Bitcoin reserves.
Risk Warning
Investing in cryptocurrency carries a high degree of risk, and prices may be highly volatile. You could lose all of your principal. Please assess risks carefully.