VanEck's Sigel Pulls the Plug on MARA's Phantom BTC Shopping Spree 🛒

VanEck Head of Digital Assets Research Matthew Sigel has dismissed recent speculation that Bitcoin miner MARA purchased additional $BTC, calling the claim "false" in a post on X. The rebuttal came in response to an earlier Lookonchain report that MARA had acquired 1,000 $BTC through FalconX, following the miner's first-quarter $BTC sales of 20,880 coins for $1.5 billion at an average price of $70,137.

Sigel clarified that the coins in question were returned-lent coins rather than open-market purchases, indicating that MARA likely closed out a $BTC-backed loan and received its collateral back. He noted that MARA has historically transferred its $BTC to a new wallet whenever it buys more Bitcoin, a pattern that did not accompany the latest transaction, reinforcing that it was not a buy.

The VanEck executive added that MARA will instead focus on monetizing its data center portfolio, including its U.S. partnership with Starwood and its EU venture Exaion, as part of its broader pivot from large-scale crypto mining to artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC). Sigel stated that Bitcoin accumulation is not the miner's current focus, framing the AI infrastructure build-out as the central priority for the company going forward.