Publicly listed Bitcoin miners reported Q1 2026 earnings that confirm a structural shift away from cryptocurrency extraction toward artificial intelligence infrastructure. TeraWulf disclosed $21 million in high-performance computing (HPC) lease revenue against under $13 million from mining — the ...
"We are no longer a Bitcoin company." — Ben Gagnon, CEO, Bitfarms
Publicly listed Bitcoin miners reported Q1 2026 earnings that confirm a structural shift away from cryptocurrency extraction toward artificial intelligence infrastructure. TeraWulf disclosed $21 million in high-performance computing (HPC) lease revenue against under $13 million from mining — the first quarter in which AI surpassed Bitcoin as its primary revenue source. Core Scientific reported $77.5 million in AI colocation revenue, up from $8.6 million a year earlier, now comprising 67% of total revenue. Across the sector, more than $70 billion in cumulative AI and HPC contracts have been announced, according to CoinShares.
The economic logic is straightforward. Bitcoin hashprice collapsed to approximately $29 per petahash per second per day in Q1 2026, a five-year low. CoinShares estimates 15%–20% of the global mining fleet is now unprofitable. Meanwhile, AI cloud infrastructure delivers margins near 85% on long-term contracts with hyperscalers such as Microsoft, Google, and CoreWeave. Mining stocks have outperformed Bitcoin by roughly 70 percentage points year-to-date, with TeraWulf gaining 85% while BTC fell 20%.
The consequence for Bitcoin's network is measurable. Hashrate peaked at 1,160 EH/s in October 2025 and fell to approximately 850 EH/s by February 2026 — a 27% decline. Three consecutive negative difficulty adjustments, the first such streak since July 2022, signaled miner capitulation. The top four mining pools now control an estimated 75% of hashrate. The miners selling BTC to fund AI buildouts are the same operators whose hardware secures the network.
Q1 2026 earnings season produced a clear pattern: AI revenue rising, mining revenue falling, and net losses widening as companies invest aggressively in data center conversion.
| Company | Total Revenue | AI/HPC Revenue | Mining Revenue | AI Share | Net Loss | |---------|-------------|----------------|----------------|----------|----------| | Core Scientific | $115.2M | $77.5M | $30.1M | 67% | Not disclosed | | Riot Platforms | $167.0M | $33.2M | — | ~20% | >$500M | | TeraWulf | $34.0M | $21.0M | $13.0M | 62% | $427.6M | | Cipher Digital | $34.8M | — | — | — | $114.0M | | Hut 8 | — | — | — | — | $253.1M |
Core Scientific's AI colocation revenue of $77.5 million represented a nine-fold increase year-over-year, up from $8.6 million in Q1 2025. The company sold $208 million in Bitcoin during the quarter to fund its transition. TeraWulf's HPC lease revenue grew 117% quarter-over-quarter. Riot Platforms CEO Jason Les described Q1 as "a definitive inflection point" as the company began generating revenue from data center operations for the first time.
The losses are largely non-cash. TeraWulf's $427.6 million net loss was driven primarily by warrant revaluation. But the cash investment is real: Core Scientific closed a $3.3 billion project bond at 7.75% interest, with $2.9 billion in net proceeds earmarked for AI infrastructure. TeraWulf spent $301.9 million on the Hawesville site acquisition alone.
The aggregate value of signed AI and HPC contracts across listed Bitcoin miners exceeds $70 billion, per CoinShares Q1 2026 data. Individual commitments are substantial:
Contract tenor ranges from 5 to 15 years with investment-grade or near-investment-grade counterparties, providing revenue visibility that Bitcoin mining — subject to halving cycles, price volatility, and difficulty adjustments — cannot match.
The weighted average cash cost to produce one Bitcoin among publicly listed miners rose to approximately $79,995 in Q4 2025, according to CoinShares. With BTC trading near $86,000 by late December 2025 (a 31% drawdown from the October 2025 all-time high of approximately $124,500), margins compressed to single digits for many operators.
Hashprice — the daily dollar revenue per petahash of mining capacity — fell to $28–$30/PH/s/day by early March 2026. This represents a five-year low and is a direct consequence of the April 2024 halving (which cut the block subsidy from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC) combined with elevated hashrate levels through late 2025.
CoinShares estimates that miners running mid-generation hardware (above 15 J/TH efficiency) require sub-5-cent-per-kilowatt-hour electricity to remain cash-profitable. Only operators with latest-generation fleets (sub-15 J/TH) retain meaningful margin at standard industrial electricity rates.
The response has been liquidation. Publicly listed miners collectively reduced BTC treasuries by more than 15,000 BTC from peak levels. Core Scientific sold approximately 1,900 BTC ($175 million) in January 2026 alone and planned to liquidate substantially all remaining holdings in Q1. Bitdeer reduced its treasury to zero in February. Riot sold 1,818 BTC ($162 million) in December 2025.
The ten largest publicly traded Bitcoin mining stocks have all posted positive year-to-date returns in 2026, even as Bitcoin has declined approximately 20%.
| Company | Ticker | YTD Return | |---------|--------|-----------| | TeraWulf | WULF | ~85% | | Hut 8 | HUT | ~67% | | Riot Platforms | RIOT | ~46% | | Core Scientific | CORZ | ~40% |
The sector has outperformed Bitcoin by approximately 70 percentage points on a market-cap-weighted basis. The repricing reflects a fundamental change in how the market values these companies: no longer as leveraged bets on BTC price, but as power-and-infrastructure plays with contracted cash flows.
Hut 8 surged 35% in a single session following its Q1 report and AI infrastructure announcements. The stock is now valued primarily on its data center pipeline and long-term lease commitments rather than its Bitcoin holdings or hashrate.
The migration of mining capacity toward AI workloads has had direct, observable effects on Bitcoin's network security parameters.
Hashrate decline: Network hashrate peaked at 1,160 EH/s in October 2025. By February 2026, the seven-day moving average had fallen to approximately 850 EH/s — a decline of roughly 27%. As of early May 2026, the network is operating near 965–997 EH/s, a partial recovery but still below prior peaks.
Difficulty adjustments: Six downward difficulty adjustments have occurred in 2026. Three consecutive negative adjustments — the first such streak since July 2022 — indicated sustained miner capitulation. The May 1, 2026 adjustment brought difficulty to 132.47 trillion, a 2.3% reduction.
Pool concentration: The top four mining pools control an estimated 75% of hashrate. The top six collectively mine 95%–99% of all blocks. Public miners pivoting facilities to AI are reducing their mining commitments, amplifying pool dominance among remaining operators.
CoinShares acknowledges the tension: the miners selling Bitcoin to fund AI buildouts are the same companies whose mining operations secure the network. When mining is unprofitable and AI is lucrative, the rational economic decision is to reallocate capital away from mining. If enough miners do so simultaneously, the network's economic security budget contracts.
CoinShares projects the network could recover to 1.8 ZH/s by year-end 2026, but this forecast depends on BTC returning above $100,000 — a price level that would restore profitability for the broader mining fleet.
The United States, China, and Russia together control approximately 68% of global hashrate. The U.S. gained roughly two percentage points of market share quarter-over-quarter in Q1 2026, driven by the scale of listed miner operations even as some capacity is redirected toward AI.
Emerging-market entries are notable. Paraguay, Ethiopia, and Oman have entered the global top 10 for hashrate. HIVE Digital Technologies deployed 300 MW in Paraguay. Bitdeer (BTDR) brought 40 MW online in Ethiopia. These jurisdictions offer sub-3-cent electricity — well below the profitability threshold for current-generation hardware — making them the natural destination for mining operations displaced from North American facilities converting to AI data centers.
The Q1 2026 earnings cycle marks a point of no return for the listed Bitcoin mining sector. The companies that built multi-gigawatt power portfolios to mine Bitcoin have found a higher-margin use for that infrastructure. AI contracts worth $70 billion provide 10–15 years of revenue visibility at margins that Bitcoin mining, with its halving cycles and price dependency, cannot match.
The economic logic is not ambiguous. A megawatt leased to a hyperscaler under a long-term AI contract generates predictable, fixed-rate income at 80%–85% margins. The same megawatt deployed for Bitcoin mining produces volatile revenue at 60% margins, with the block subsidy halving every four years.
For Bitcoin's network, the implications require monitoring. The hashrate decline from peak has been significant, though difficulty adjustments have moderated the impact on block times and miner profitability for remaining operators. The concentration of hashrate among fewer, larger pools introduces governance and censorship-resistance questions that extend beyond simple security arithmetic.
The market has already priced the transition. Mining stocks trade on data center capacity and contract backlog. The question is no longer whether miners will pivot to AI, but how much mining capacity remains once the conversion is complete — and whether Bitcoin's security model can sustain it.