Marathon Digital Holdings just put a chunk of its Bitcoin treasury to work in one of the largest institutional borrowing deals a public crypto miner has ever signed. The Nasdaq-listed miner, widely known as MARA, has secured $750 million in total credit facilities through a crypto-collateralized loan backed by Bitcoin, pledging 18,750 BTC to two separate lenders in a deal that underscores how far institutional crypto lending has matured since the last bear market.
Summary
Key takeaways
- MARA secured $750 million in total credit facilities, split between $450 million from Coinbase Credit and $300 million from Two Prime Lending.
- The company pledged 18,750 BTC as collateral, worth roughly $1.2 billion at the time of the transaction.
- Both loans mature in August 2028, with the Coinbase facility carrying a one-year extension option.
- Two Prime’s $300 million loan carries a fixed 7.65% interest rate, while the arrangement runs at roughly a 50% loan-to-value ratio.
- Proceeds will fund general corporate purposes and MARA’s planned $1.5 billion acquisition of Long Ridge Energy & Power.
Marathon Digital’s $750 Million Crypto-Collateralized Loan
MARA’s new borrowing arrangement is built around two term loans, and together they represent one of the biggest Bitcoin-backed lending deals ever struck by a publicly traded company. The $750 million figure covers both fresh capital and the refinancing of an older facility, giving the miner a substantially larger credit line than it had before.
Loan Structure and Providers
Coinbase Credit supplied $450 million of the total, while Two Prime Lending contributed another $300 million. According to reporting from crypto.news, Coinbase’s $450 million facility itself breaks down into $300 million of new funding plus the refinancing of a previous $150 million credit line that MARA already had in place. That structure means the deal delivered $600 million of incremental new borrowing on top of the refinanced amount, adding up to the $750 million total.
The Coinbase portion carries a floating interest rate tied to the midpoint of the federal funds target range plus 3.875%, according to the same reporting. Two Prime’s $300 million term loan, by contrast, locks in a fixed 7.65% interest rate for the life of the loan — a detail that matters because it removes rate volatility risk from that slice of the debt even as the Coinbase facility floats with monetary policy.
Collateral and Loan Terms
To secure the borrowing, MARA pledged 18,750 BTC as collateral, a stake valued at approximately $1.2 billion at the time the deal closed. Both loans mature in August 2028 — the Coinbase facility on August 4 with an automatic one-year extension unless either party cancels it, and the Two Prime loan a day earlier, on August 3, 2028.
The loan-to-value ratio sits at roughly 50%, meaning MARA borrowed $600 million against $1.2 billion worth of pledged Bitcoin. That cushion is meant to absorb price swings without triggering immediate collateral calls, though both agreements include ongoing margin coverage requirements that obligate MARA to post additional collateral if the pledged Bitcoin’s value falls below contractual thresholds.
Use of Funds and Strategic Expansion
The capital isn’t sitting idle. MARA has earmarked the money for general corporate purposes, but the headline use is funding its planned acquisition of Long Ridge Energy & Power, a deal carrying an enterprise value of roughly $1.5 billion, including up to about $900 million in assumed debt, according to MARA’s own financing disclosure.
Long Ridge operates a gas-fired power plant in Hannibal, Ohio, currently rated at 485 MW and expected to expand to 505 MW by the first quarter of 2027. The site includes more than 1,600 contiguous acres with water, fiber and rail access, sitting next to MARA’s existing Hannibal data center operations. That combination of power capacity and land gives MARA optionality to run Bitcoin mining alongside high-performance computing workloads at a time when AI data center demand is competing directly with crypto miners for electricity.
To help finance the acquisition, MARA has also secured a commitment from Barclays for a 364-day senior secured bridge facility of up to $785 million, which can act as backstop financing for part of the Long Ridge debt. The company is pursuing a parallel infrastructure push in Texas, where it’s acquiring more than 1,200 acres in Matagorda County with Starwood Digital Ventures, targeting an initial 1 GW of grid capacity by October 2027 and up to 2 GW by April 2028 for flexible compute and mining operations.
Why the Bitcoin-Backed Debt Matters Now
This loan lands against the backdrop of a much bigger shift in how MARA manages its balance sheet. According to the company’s Aug. 6 Form 10-Q filing with the SEC, MARA sold about 23,093 BTC for roughly $1.63 billion during the first half of 2026, at an average price of $70,631, to fund operations, growth investments and liquidity needs. That selling pared the company’s Bitcoin treasury down to 35,577 BTC by June 30, worth about $2.1 billion at a quarter-end price near $58,524 — down from 53,822 BTC at the end of 2025.
That context helps explain why MARA is leaning on a crypto-collateralized loan rather than simply liquidating more Bitcoin: pledging coins as collateral lets the company raise cash while still keeping upside exposure to any future price recovery. The proceeds from Bitcoin sales already helped MARA cut total debt from $3.6 billion at the end of 2025 to about $2.4 billion by June 30, including roughly $1 billion in privately negotiated repurchases of its 0% convertible senior notes.
The first half wasn’t kind to MARA’s reported earnings, either. The company posted $349.5 million in revenue, down from $452.4 million a year earlier, and swung to a net loss of $1.87 billion, in contrast with the prior period’s net income of $274.8 million in the same period of 2025 — a swing driven largely by a roughly $1.4 billion decline in the fair value of its Bitcoin holdings as the market price fell. Even so, MARA kept expanding its mining footprint, with energized hashrate climbing to 70.3 EH/s from 57.4 EH/s a year earlier.
Risk Factors and Market Implications
Coinbase stepping in as a lender of this size, alongside Two Prime’s willingness to fix a rate on $300 million of Bitcoin-backed debt, signals that professional credit markets have grown far more comfortable pricing Bitcoin as loan collateral than they were just a few years ago. That’s a meaningful marker for institutional crypto lending broadly — it suggests lenders now view large, well-documented Bitcoin holdings on a public company’s balance sheet as a bankable asset rather than a speculative curiosity.
Margin Calls and Collateral Risks
The flip side is concentration risk. With 18,750 BTC pledged out of a 35,577 BTC treasury — more than half of MARA’s total holdings — the company has less room to maneuver if Bitcoin’s price drops sharply. The roughly 50% loan-to-value ratio provides a buffer, but a prolonged downturn could force MARA to post additional collateral or, in a worst-case scenario, see lenders move to liquidate part of its pledged Bitcoin. MARA has also loaned out 4,742 BTC to third parties and pledged another 4,528 BTC as collateral outside this deal, leaving roughly 26,307 BTC unrestricted, worth about $1.5 billion — a detail that shows just how much of the company’s crypto stack is now tied up in financing activity rather than sitting untouched in cold storage.
Institutional Lending Maturity
Why does this matter beyond MARA itself? Deals of this scale test whether Bitcoin-backed credit can function like conventional corporate lending — with fixed and floating rate tranches, multi-year maturities, extension options and standardized margin mechanics — rather than as a niche, high-interest product reserved for distressed borrowers. If MARA services this debt smoothly through 2028, it becomes a reference point for other miners and crypto-treasury companies looking to raise capital without dumping their coins on the open market.
FAQ
What is the total amount of the crypto-collateralized loan Marathon Digital secured?
Marathon Digital secured $750 million in credit facilities backed by Bitcoin.
Who are the lenders involved in Marathon Digital’s loan and what are their contributions?
Coinbase Credit provided $450 million and Two Prime Lending provided $300 million for the loan.
What collateral did Marathon Digital pledge and what is its value?
Marathon Digital pledged 18,750 BTC as collateral, valued at approximately $1.2 billion at the time.
What is the maturity and interest rate structure of the loans?
Both loans mature in August 2028. The Coinbase loan has a one-year extension option, and Two Prime’s loan has a fixed interest rate of 7.65%.
Article produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and reviewed by the editorial team.
