Shares of public Bitcoin miner MARA surged by nearly 5% at press time, driven by renewed momentum around the CLARITY Act, the crypto market structure bill.
The White House agreed to ethics provisions to help gain Democrats’ support and unlock the bill to pass the final Senate floor vote.
Following the update, Bitcoin [BTC] price extended its relief rally from $63.1K to nearly $67K, marking a 6% jump in the past two days.
Notably, the rally also occurred across the broader Bitcoin mining segment. For example, the Coinshares Bitcoin Mining ETF, which tracks the broader ecosystem, pumped 6.5%. Similarly, another public miner, Riot Platforms stock, RIOT, posted an 8% daily gain.
MARA stock and the mining sector outperform BTC
Surprisingly, when zoomed out to a year-to-date (YTD) basis, the mining sector has outperformed BTC on investor returns.
Notably, BTC was down 24.5% on a YTD basis and traded at $66K as of writing. In contrast, MARA stock was up 36%, and RIOT had surged a whopping 70% over the same period.
On average, the mining segment posted 46% gains in 2026, showing that stockholders outperformed their counterparts who held spot BTC.
The above divergence may be linked to most of the public miners pivoting to AI infrastructure. As such, any bullish AI updates may have boosted the stocks despite Bitcoin’s weakness in H1 2026.
In fact, earlier in the month, MARA’s VP of investor relations, Robert Samuels, downplayed Morgan Stanley’s bearish projection of a 53% fall to $7. According to Samuels, the valuation viewed MARA as a BTC miner, which is not wholly true given its numerous ventures into AI.
As of writing, the miner had 36.3K BTC, worth $2.4 billion, after reducing its stash from 53.8K BTC to fund its AI ventures and clear some of its outstanding debt.
The sell-off allowed Metaplanet to surpass it as the world’s third-largest BTC treasury firm. That said, apart from Morgan Stanley and Weiss Ratings’ bearish calls, eight other analysts expect the MARA stock to surge to $18.5. The above analyst consensus target means a 51% upside potential for the stock.
Final Summary
- MARA stock rallied 5% thanks to a BTC relief rally amid CLARITY Act progress.
- The stock outperformed BTC by 60% in 2026, and analysts expected it to rally higher by 51% to $18.5.
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