MARA, a major Bitcoin (BTC) mining company, will buy a large Texas site once planned as a green fuel plant. The company will turn the land into flexible power for mining and artificial intelligence (AI) tenants.

The deal with fuel developer HIF Global could reach $600 million if targets are met. It hands MARA a fully permitted site with grid rights for up to 2,000 megawatts in Matagorda County.

MARA’s Texas Site Trades Fuel for Computing

HIF Global promoted the site as the first large e-fuels plant in the United States. Texas Governor Greg Abbott backed the roughly $7 billion project. It would split water to make cleaner shipping fuel and recycle carbon dioxide.

Crucially, HIF had already won full permits and a secured grid connection for about 1.8 gigawatts of power. Those approvals can take years to win in the race for grid power, so MARA is buying them outright. HIF will keep a minority stake, a sign it now sees more value in hosting computers than making fuel.

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Why Flexible Mining Wins the Power

Grid power is the prize in Texas right now. Requests in ERCOT’s connection queue have increased by almost 300% over the past year. Data centers drive nearly all of them, the grid operator says. That scramble has pulled Bitcoin miners into AI deals. MARA will build its campus in partnership with Starwood Digital Ventures.

A fuel plant must run around the clock, but mining machines can power down in seconds. That lets MARA mine Bitcoin when its price is high and sell power to AI tenants otherwise. At the full 2 gigawatts, the $600 million works out to about $300,000 for each megawatt of grid access.

The staged payments limit risk, since most of the money depends on approvals and a signed tenant. MARA’s chairman and CEO, Fred Thiel, framed the wider push in an April filing.

“Power is the scarce input in AI… we are building a differentiated platform designed to maximize the value of every megawatt we control.”

A Template Rival Miners are Copying

Other miners are moving the same way. Riot has sold Bitcoin to fund its own data center pivot. Meanwhile, Bitcoin mining stocks now trade closely with AI sentiment.

MARA also expects to close a $1.5 billion deal for the 505 megawatt Long Ridge gas plant in Ohio. Together, the company says its potential capacity could reach about 4.8 gigawatts.

Whether that power translates into signed tenants and steady revenue will determine whether the bet pays off.

Source: BeInCrypto