Marathon Digital Retains Bitcoin Reserve Crown Despite Market Cap Shakeup

Marathon Digital (MARA) may have slipped to third place among publicly traded Bitcoin miners by market valuation, but it still leads the pack in one critical area: reserves.

The company now controls 52,850 BTC, worth an estimated $6.4 billion, according to its September operational update.

Mining Output and Network Share

In September alone, Marathon mined 736 BTC, netting a monthly addition of 373 coins after sales. That figure accounts for just over 5% of all Bitcoin mined worldwide, even as the global hashrate surged past the milestone of 1 zetahash per second.

The company’s energized hashrate reached 60.4 EH/s, driven largely by its wind-powered facility in Texas, which is now running at full capacity. During the month, Marathon processed 218 blocks, a 5% increase from August, highlighting resilience in the face of rising network difficulty.

CEO Fred Thiel said the results reflect operational efficiency despite an increasingly competitive environment. With only a handful of miners worldwide exceeding 50 EH/s, among them IREN, Riot, and CleanSpark, Marathon remains in elite territory.

Market Cap Dynamics

While Marathon’s operational strength is clear, its financial standing has shifted. The company’s market valuation has dipped below $7 billion, placing it behind IREN ($12.8B) and Riot Platforms ($7.1B). Still, investors appear more optimistic than they were earlier this year. MARA stock has rallied 20% in the past month, lifting its year-to-date performance back into positive territory.

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The divergence between operational output and market valuation highlights investor sentiment: while reserves and hashrate are strong, competition and profitability concerns continue to weigh on valuation.

Second Only to Strategy

Marathon’s massive treasury makes it one of the most significant corporate Bitcoin holders globally. Among public companies, it sits second only to Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy), which has accumulated 640,031 BTC, worth about $77 billion at current market prices. Other major corporate holders include Tether’s Twenty One, Metaplanet, and the Bitcoin Standard Treasury Company, but Marathon’s reserve size puts it in a different league within the mining sector.

Outlook

Despite facing pressure on profitability due to rising difficulty and intense competition, Marathon’s blend of scale, treasury size, and renewable-powered operations keeps it central to the mining narrative. The coming quarters may prove critical in determining whether the company’s strategy of holding vast Bitcoin reserves continues to reward shareholders, especially as market conditions and regulatory landscapes evolve.