Mining companies continue to sell off: MARA recently reduced holdings by 250 BTC. What changes are occurring in the industry landscape?

As of April 7, 2026, according to Gate market data, the BTC spot price has been oscillating within the $68,000 to $69,000 range. Right within this price range, crypto miner MARA was again detected on-chain transferring 250 BTC to external addresses, worth approximately $17.37 million. This is not an isolated event—since early March, this Nasdaq-listed mining firm has completed multiple rounds of large-scale divestments, with total disposal exceeding 15k BTC. When the industry’s leading “coin hoarders” begin a systematic clearing of positions, what structural changes is the Bitcoin market undergoing?

The Evolutionary Timeline of the Miner Selloff Wave and Key Turning Points

In the first quarter of 2026, Bitcoin miners staged a collective selling wave. Taking MARA as an example, its selloff pace shows a clear acceleration: on March 4, it sold 1,822 BTC in a single day; on March 12, it transferred out 2,491 BTC; on March 18, it batch-transferred 3,750 BTC to an external custody platform; and on March 25, before the close, it completed a concentrated sale of 7,070 BTC. As of March 25, within this period, MARA had cumulatively disposed of 15,133 BTC; based on the weighted average transaction price of each trade, total cash proceeds were approximately $1.1 billion. On April 7, on-chain data monitoring showed that the MARA-linked address once again transferred out 250 BTC about three hours earlier, continuing the selloff cadence.

This scale of selloff is far beyond the category of “newly mined output in the same month that gets sold.” In all of 2025, MARA mined only 8,799 BTC, while the amount sold in March alone had already approached 1.7 times its full-year production. Meanwhile, Riot Platforms sold 3,778 BTC in the first quarter of 2026, about 2.6 times its quarterly production (1,473 BTC). In total, multiple listed mining firms sold more than 19k BTC in the first quarter of 2026.

From a more macro view of industry structure, miner selloffs by listed firms are not a one-off phenomenon. At the beginning of 2026, MARA revised its Bitcoin inventory storage policy—expanding from only allowing the sale of newly mined production to allowing discretionary sale of all reserves held on the balance sheet. Core Scientific has also clearly stated its plan to liquidate most of its Bitcoin holdings in 2026 to fund a transition to AI and high-performance computing businesses. Bitdeer has achieved zero Bitcoin holdings, and the cumulative divestment scale of multiple miners exceeds tens of thousands of coins. These signals collectively point to a trend: miners’ long-term “coin hoarding strategy” is being systematically dismantled.

How Cost Inversion Drives Miners’ Selling Behavior

Behind miners’ selling behavior lies a clear financial logic—the spread between mining costs and market prices has widened to a degree that cannot be ignored. The weighted average cash cost per coin for listed BTC miners surged to $79,995 in the fourth quarter of 2025. And in the first quarter of 2026, computing power prices fell further to about $28 to $30 per PH/s per day, hitting the lowest level in history since the Bitcoin halving. At the same time, the BTC spot price has remained oscillating in the $66,000 to $70,000 range for a long period, meaning that for each BTC mined, miners theoretically must bear about a $19,000 cash loss.

The root of this cost inversion can be traced back to Bitcoin’s halving in April 2024, when the block reward dropped from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, directly cutting miners’ core earnings in half. Coupled with rising global energy prices, capital expenditure pressure brought by the iteration of next-generation ASIC miners, and the continued increase in network difficulty, the overall cost of mining keeps breaking through historic highs. About 15% to 20% of mining machines are operating at a loss.

Against this backdrop, miners have only two options: shut down rigs to cut losses, or sell reserve Bitcoin to maintain cash flow. Listed miners such as MARA and Riot have chosen the latter. Of the $1.1 billion in funding MARA obtained from selling BTC, a significant portion was used to buy back the company’s convertible notes due in 2030 and 2031 at a discount, reducing the outstanding debt scale from about $3.3 billion to $2.3 billion—an approximately 30% decline—and saving roughly $88.1 million in interest expenses in one go. This indicates that miners’ selloff purposes are not only to deal with operating losses, but also to proactively manage their balance sheets.

Strategic Trade-Offs in Miner Transformation and the Structural Costs

The direct driving force behind miners selling Bitcoin reserves is not only to address short-term losses, but to serve a deeper strategic transformation—to shift from pure Bitcoin miners into operators of AI and high-performance computing infrastructure.

MARA has explicitly proposed a strategic direction to transform into an “energy and digital infrastructure company,” and has taken several tangible actions: forming a joint venture with Starwood Capital Group to build an ultra-large-scale data center targeted at AI; acquiring 64% of Exaion to enter the AI compute market; and simultaneously laying off roughly 15% of staff to optimize the cost structure. Riot Platforms is also pushing a “power-first” strategy, retrofitting its mining sites in Texas into AI data centers. Core Scientific, meanwhile, is converting much of its mining compute into AI hosting services through collaboration with CoreWeave.

The financial logic of this transformation lies in a fundamental difference in revenue models. A Bitcoin miner running 1 gigawatt of compute sees revenue fluctuate sharply with BTC prices and network difficulty; whereas renting the same 1 gigawatt of compute to an AI company yields more stable, contractually agreed cash flow. Listed miners have cumulatively signed long-term AI/HPC contracts totaling more than $70 billion, and AI business revenue is expected to surpass traditional mining revenue over the next several years.

However, this transformation also brings structural costs. The most direct cost is a significant rise in supply pressure in the Bitcoin market. MARA has authorized it to sell all of its roughly 53k BTC reserves, and Core Scientific also plans to liquidate most of its holdings to fund AI expansion. When these miners—once viewed as “long-term holders”—collectively pivot toward monetization, the circulating supply structure of Bitcoin is undergoing an essential change. At the same time, the large-scale withdrawal by miners may have a long-term impact on investment in Bitcoin network security—during the first quarter of 2026, total network hashrate fell by about 4% compared with the beginning of the year, marking the first quarterly hashrate decline in six years.

Signals of Supply-Demand Imbalance and a Restructuring of the Crypto Market Landscape

Miner selloffs are resonating with broader changes in market supply and demand structure. From on-chain data, investors holding 100 to 10,000 BTC have been running daily losses averaging more than $330 million in the first quarter of 2026, with total losses nearing the level of the 2022 bear market. Bitcoin’s apparent demand has turned negative, at roughly -63k BTC, indicating that the demand side’s ability to absorb is weakening.

But the market is not a one-way selloff. While the supply side faces pressure, there is still a structural hedging force on the institutional demand side. Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) kept adding in the first quarter of 2026; as of April 6, it held 766,970 BTC, with an average cost basis of $75,644 per coin. Japanese listed company Metaplanet also increased holdings against the tide in the first quarter by more than 5,000 BTC, bringing total holdings above 40k. Spot Bitcoin ETFs are also continuously attracting institutional capital inflows, partially offsetting the pressure created by miner selloffs.

Therefore, the core contradiction in the current market landscape is not simply “selling” versus “buying,” but a power struggle between miners’ selloffs and institutional buy orders. Miners’ selloffs create persistent and more certain supply pressure, while institutional buying often appears intermittent and price-sensitive. This structural divergence means that Bitcoin’s short-term price action will largely depend on the relative strength of these two forces.

Multi-Scenario Projections for Miner Deleveraging and the Evolution of Hashrate

Based on current miner behavior data and industry trends, several possible evolution paths can be projected.

Scenario 1: Miner selloffs continue, and AI transformation accelerates. If BTC price cannot effectively break above the $70,000 resistance level, and mining costs remain above $80,000, miners’ selloff pressure will not ease. In this scenario, MARA may continue to execute its fully authorized reserve sale plan, and other miners will follow through with monetization. The industry’s center of gravity will further shift toward AI compute, and Bitcoin network hashrate may continue a modest decline, but the remaining miners’ efficiency will improve by eliminating outdated rigs.

Scenario 2: Coin price rebounds, and miners slow their selloffs. If Bitcoin price rises to above $75,000, approaching or exceeding miners’ weighted average cost line, part of the selloff pressure will naturally ease. But considering companies like MARA and Core Scientific have made AI transformation a core strategy, even if prices rebound, the overall direction of deleveraging is unlikely to reverse—miners are no longer purely “coin hoarders,” but are treating BTC reserves as a financing tool that can be mobilized.

Scenario 3: Hashrate further shrinks, and network security faces pressure. The most noteworthy structural change right now is the quarterly decline in hashrate. If miners keep exiting and there are not enough new entrants, the continued drop in hashrate may trigger discussions in the market about Bitcoin network long-term security, which could indirectly affect investor confidence. However, based on historical experience, hashrate declines are usually self-corrected through the difficulty adjustment mechanism—after weaker miners exit, the unit profits of surviving miners will improve.

Potential Risk Warnings of Ongoing Miner Selloffs

Against the backdrop of continued miner de-risking and selloffs, market participants should pay attention to the following categories of potential risks.

First, the risk of instantaneous impact on exchange liquidity from concentrated selloffs. MARA’s large transfers have a highly concentrated and unusually large per-transaction character—hundreds or even thousands of BTC may flow into the order book in a short period, potentially amplifying sell-side pressure during certain localized time windows. Although exchanges’ depth typically can absorb these sell orders, when market sentiment is fragile, concentrated sell signals themselves could trigger a chain reaction.

Second, the risk of selloffs by miners coinciding and resonating with macro factors. In the first quarter of 2026, the investor cohort holding 100 to 10,000 BTC has shown persistent losses. If miner selloffs coincide with macro risk events (such as rising energy prices, tightening liquidity, and so on), selloff pressure could be significantly amplified.

Third, uncertainty risk from industry transformation. While miners’ shift to AI offers broad prospects, this transformation itself also comes with massive capital expenditures and technical uncertainty. If AI compute demand fails to match the expected growth pace, or if market competition causes profit margins to fall, miners may face a middle-stage dilemma of “mining business contraction while AI business fails to ramp up.” At that time, miners’ BTC reserves may have already been consumed in advance, causing them to lose resilience in the next bull cycle.

Fourth, network effect risk brought by hashrate decline. In the first quarter of 2026, hashrate fell by about 4% compared with the beginning of the year—marking the first quarterly decline in six years. Although the absolute level of hashrate remains historically high today, if this trend continues, it may affect the market’s long-term confidence in Bitcoin network security.

Summary

Within three hours, MARA transferred out 250 BTC. On the surface, this looks like a relatively small on-chain transaction, but in a broader industry context, it is a snapshot of listed miners’ collective strategic transformation. Miners are shifting from “hoarding for upside” to “selling for survival,” driven by the long-term mismatch between mining costs and BTC prices, as well as the stable return expectations offered by the AI compute track. This shift is profoundly reshaping Bitcoin’s supply-demand structure: miners once seen as “long-term holders” are turning into continuous output providers, while the market’s absorption power depends more on institutional capital and ETF inflows.

For market participants, understanding changes in miner behavior trends is more strategically meaningful than focusing on any single price fluctuation. When miners’ business models shift from a “coin-first” approach to a “cash/AI-first” approach, Bitcoin’s supply structure is undergoing a fundamental logic rebuild. In the coming months, the struggle between miner selloffs and institutional buy orders will continue to dominate market tempo, and the success or failure of miners’ AI transformation will also become an important observable variable for assessing the long-term landscape of crypto mining.

FAQ

Q: Does MARA’s transfer out of 250 BTC mean that selling is still ongoing?

A: Yes. Based on on-chain monitoring data, after MARA sold 15,133 BTC cumulatively in March, on April 7 it transferred out another 250 BTC, indicating that the deleveraging pace is still continuing. From the company’s strategic perspective, MARA has clearly treated Bitcoin reserves as a financing tool that can be deployed for debt repurchase and AI infrastructure construction, so the selloff behavior is ongoing rather than a one-time event.

Q: How much impact does the miner selloff wave have on the price of Bitcoin?

A: Miner selloffs create sustained pressure on prices by increasing circulating supply, but the magnitude depends on the demand side’s ability to absorb. There is currently an offsetting force in the market—companies like Strategy and Metaplanet are still increasing holdings, and spot Bitcoin ETFs are also attracting institutional capital inflows. The balance between miner selloffs and institutional buy orders is the key variable for Bitcoin’s price trajectory over the coming months.

Q: What long-term impact will miners’ collective AI transformation have on the Bitcoin network?

A: Miners’ transformation into AI implies that some compute will shift from Bitcoin mining to other uses, which could affect the Bitcoin network’s total hashrate to some extent. In the first quarter of 2026, the network already saw the first quarterly hashrate decline in six years. On the other hand, the exit of weaker miners will improve the efficiency level of remaining miners, and the difficulty adjustment mechanism will also automatically balance network security.

Q: Will the selloff wave from listed miners trigger an industry reshuffling?

A: Based on existing data, industry differentiation is intensifying. Top miners such as MARA, Riot, and Core Scientific have chosen to accelerate their AI transformation; companies like Metaplanet, meanwhile, stick to a “balance sheet strategy” by accumulating against the trend. Different types of miners will follow distinctly different development paths across future market cycles, and an industry reshuffling has already begun.

Q: What is the current market situation for BTC?

A: As of April 7, 2026, according to Gate market data, the BTC spot price has been trading within the $68,000 to $69,500 range, with limited movement over the past 24 hours. The overall market is in a range-bound, oscillating structure; the relative balance between miner selloffs and institutional buy orders is the main determinant of short-term price direction.