Publicly traded Bitcoin miner MARA has cut its workforce by 15% shortly after it sold $1.1 billion worth of the top crypto asset, the company confirmed to Decrypt following an initial report from Blockspace Media.

Citing sources close to the matter, the publication reported that the cuts impact full-time employees across departments, and may also impact contractors for the firm. 

“MARA remains focused on executing our strategic evolution from a pure-play Bitcoin miner into an energy and digital infrastructure company,” a spokesperson from MARA told Decrypt.

“As our company evolves, so too must our operations and where we focus our resources. With this in mind, as part of our broader growth strategy, we made the difficult but necessary decision to reduce our team by approximately 15%,” they added.

According to an internal memo reviewed by Blockspace, the firm’s CEO Fred Thiel indicated the decision was not “purely a financial decision—it’s a strategic one.” 

“As we’ve been sharing through our recent announcements with Starwood and Exaion, we’re focusing the company in a new direction,” he said. “That means the shape of our team needs to change with it.” 

Thiel’s reported comments refer to the firm’s strategic pivot into AI data centers and empowering AI compute, noting its recent partnership with the data center development platform of Starwood Digital Ventures and its investment in Exaion, a firm that develops and operates data centers in Europe. 

MARA, like other Bitcoin miners, has made a strategic shift to power AI and further high performance computing needs, broadening its focus far beyond the top crypto asset. Recently, the firm announced the sale of approximately 15,000 BTC or more than $1.1 billion worth, allowing it to repurchase convertible debt and strengthen its finances. 

That sale came after it had approved a strategic decision that allowed  it to sell Bitcoin from its balance sheet, not just BTC that it had mined in operations. 

It’s not the only Bitcoin miner offloading its primary reserve asset. Rival miner Riot Platforms sold around $250 million in BTC during Q1, after netting around $200 million in proceeds from sales in Q4. Plus, earlier this year, Cango parted with more than $300 million in BTC as it also pivots to AI. 

Shares in MARA finished Thursday up more than 8%, trading hands at $8.71. Shares are down more than 53% in the last six months, though, as Bitcoin has fallen nearly 47% from its all-time high of $126,080 to trade around $67,000.

MARA is hardly the only crypto firm to cut staff in recent months, most notably with Jack Dorsey's Bitcoin-aligned firm Block slashing over 4,000 jobs in February. Other companies in the space that have made recent cuts include Gemini, Crypto.com, the Algorand Foundation, and OP Labs. In some cases, including Block and Gemini, the companies cited an increasing reliance on AI tools to make up for fewer employees.