Public Bitcoin Miners Set New Record Selling Over 32,000 BTC in Q1 2026

Publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies unloaded more than 32,000 BTC in Q1 2026, outpacing their entire sales tally from 2025 as the mining industry's fortunes continue to sputter. The tally sets a fresh quarterly record for miner liquidations, eclipsing the previous high of 20,000 BTC flushed during the crypto bear market that followed the Terra-Luna implosion in Q2 2022, per TheEnergyMag. Heavy hitters MARA, CleanSpark, Riot, Cango, Core Scientific, and Bitdeer have been leading the exodus as operating margins tighten like a crypto winter scarf.

Hashprice—that unforgiving metric showing miner profitability per petahash of computing power—has been bleeding since July 2025 and now languishes around $33 per PH/s per day, according to Hashrate Index data. The $35 PH/s per day threshold marks the grim breakeven line for many miners, especially those running aging hardware that sounds like a dying vacuum cleaner. This puts roughly 20% of the mining industry in the red, quietly mining at a loss while pretending everything is fine. The sustained hashprice slump stems from a toxic cocktail of climbing hashrate ratcheting up network competition, smaller block rewards following the 2024 halving, and broader macroeconomic clouds darkening the sector's outlook.

Bitcoin miners have been slowly chipping away at their collective BTC war chests since 2023, when publicly traded mining outfits held over 1.86 million BTC. That stash has since dwindled to approximately 1.8 million BTC at press time, according to CryptoQuant. While miners typically sell portions of their BTC to cover operational costs, the one-two punch of depressed crypto prices and soaring energy bills has prodded some operators into unloading coins they'd rather squirrel away in corporate treasuries as long-term strategic reserves.

Asset manager CoinShares flagged in its Q1 2026 Bitcoin Mining Report that miners are now split into two camps: those frantically liquidating Bitcoin to cover operating expenses, and those hoarding BTC in reserve to fuel future growth. The firm expects further capitulation among higher-cost operators in the first half of 2026 unless Bitcoin's price stages a meaningful recovery. Standing in stark contrast to miners' fire sale, Bitcoin treasury companies like Strategy have kept stacking sats, with co-founder Michael Saylor signaling continued acquisition activity this week while sharing the company's purchase history chart alongside the message "Think bigger." Strategy's buying spree continues as Bitcoin retreated from a local high north of $73,000 this week.