- Public miners sold 32K+ BTC in Q1 2026, surpassing 2025 and Terra-Luna levels.
- Hashprice at $33 per PH/s is below $35 breakeven, as 20% of miners operate at a loss.
- American Bitcoin accumulates 7000 BTC while most peers sell into market weakness.
Public Bitcoin miners have sold more than 32,000 BTC in the first quarter of 2026, a figure that already exceeds total net sales across all four quarters of 2025 and sets a new industry record, surpassing the roughly 20,000 BTC liquidated during the Terra-Luna market collapse in 2022.
The miners driving the sell-off include some of the sector’s largest names: MARA, CleanSpark, Riot, Cango, Core Scientific, and Bitdeer. First-quarter earnings reports are still pending, meaning the final figure could be higher.
Why Miners Are Selling
The pressure comes from multiple directions, hitting simultaneously:
- Hashprice sits at roughly $33 per PH/s per day, near all-time lows and below the estimated $35 breakeven for many operators
- Approximately 20% of miners are currently operating at a loss
- The 2024 halving cut block rewards in half, while network difficulty is now ten times higher than in 2021
- Total miner BTC holdings have declined from approximately 1.86 million in 2023 to around 1.8 million as operators liquidate to fund operations and service debt
Bitcoin’s price remains above the previous cycle peak, but mining profitability has been compressed by an order of magnitude. Selling BTC remains the fastest way to shore up balance sheets and meet debt obligations in a financing environment that is both selective and expensive.
Not Everyone Is Selling
The record sell-off does not tell a uniform story. American Bitcoin, Hut 8’s proprietary mining operation, has taken the opposite approach, accumulating over 7,000 BTC through mining and open market purchases while keeping production costs around $55,000 per coin.
“At this time, we have no intent to sell. We are accumulating,” said Matt Prusak, president and interim CFO.
New West Data, a Canadian operator mining with flared natural gas at power costs below $0.02 per kilowatt-hour, has continued expanding throughout the downturn, tripling compute capacity in 2025.
The Industry Is Splitting
What was once a sector defined by uniform hashrate expansion is fragmenting. Operators with low power costs, capital discipline, or structural advantages are riding out the downturn. Those without are selling into weakness to stay solvent.
The record quarterly liquidation is less a signal of Bitcoin’s direction and more a reflection of an industry stress-testing itself at the worst possible margins.
Related: Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Rises as Network Activity Stays Firm
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