Bitcoin mining company MARA announced layoffs of approximately 15% of its workforce, affecting full-time employees across multiple departments and some contractors. CEO Fred Thiel stated in an internal memo that the layoffs were a strategic decision, as the company is focusing on new directions and the team structure needs to be adjusted accordingly. Affected employees will receive one month of paid leave and 13 weeks of severance pay. MARA had previously begun developing its AI and high-performance computing businesses. In February of this year, it completed a majority stake acquisition of Exaion, a data center subsidiary of French national energy company EDF, and reached an agreement with data center developer Starwood to convert approximately 1 gigawatt of Bitcoin mining infrastructure for AI workloads. MARA currently operates approximately 66.45 EH/s of hashrate, accounting for about 5% of the Bitcoin network's hashrate. The company recently sold over 15,000 BTC, worth approximately $1.1 billion, to repay $1 billion in convertible notes. MARA reports a net loss of $1.3 billion and adjusted EBITDA of -$330.8 million for 2025.