Publicly traded Bitcoin miners liquidated more BTC in Q1 2026 than they did across all four quarters of 2025, reflecting tightening business conditions in the sector. Firms including Marathon Digital, CleanSpark, Riot, Cango, Core Scientific and Bitdeer collectively sold more than 32,000 BTC in the quarter, according to industry reports — a quarterly total that exceeded the roughly 20,000 BTC miners offloaded in Q2 2022 and set a new single-quarter record for miner sales.
The sell-off comes as the industry contends with a record-low hashprice, the revenue miners earn per unit of hashpower, which has fallen below $35 per PH/s per day. Hashrate Index places current hashprice near $33 per PH/s per day, a level that is near or below breakeven for many operations—particularly those running older hardware. At this hashprice, an estimated 20% of miners are operating unprofitably.
Miners are under pressure from a rising network hashrate (more competition for rewards), the long-term decline in block subsidies, and broader macroeconomic headwinds. Higher operating costs, including energy bills, have prompted some operators to sell BTC to cover expenses. The Bitcoin Miner Reserve, which tracks coins held by miners, has been gradually shrinking since 2023: miners held more than 1.86 million BTC at the end of 2023 and roughly 1.8 million BTC at the time of reporting, per CryptoQuant data.
Asset manager CoinShares cautioned in its Q1 2026 Bitcoin Mining Report that further capitulation among higher-cost miners is likely in H1 2026 unless Bitcoin’s price recovers materially. By contrast, corporate treasury buyers continue to accumulate: the largest corporate holder of BTC has remained an active purchaser, and its co-founder Michael Saylor signaled recent buys as BTC pulled back from a local high above $73,000, urging investors to ‘think bigger.’
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