Public bitcoin miners and treasury companies liquidated more than 19,000 BTC in Q1 2026, the largest quarterly sell-off since the sector adopted "HODL" treasury strategies in 2020. MARA Holdings sold 15,133 BTC for $1.1 billion. Riot Platforms offloaded 3,778 BTC for $289.5 million. Nakamoto Hold...
"We are no longer a Bitcoin company." — Ben Gagnon, CEO, Bitfarms
Public bitcoin miners and treasury companies liquidated more than 19,000 BTC in Q1 2026, the largest quarterly sell-off since the sector adopted "HODL" treasury strategies in 2020. MARA Holdings sold 15,133 BTC for $1.1 billion. Riot Platforms offloaded 3,778 BTC for $289.5 million. Nakamoto Holdings, Genius Group, Bitdeer, and Core Scientific all reduced or eliminated their holdings.
The sell-off coincides with hash price falling to $28–30/PH/s/day — a five-year low — and weighted average cash cost per BTC rising to approximately $79,995 among listed miners, according to CoinShares. With bitcoin trading near $66,500, well below all-in production costs that exceed $118,000–$170,000 at several major operators, miners are funding a capital-intensive pivot toward artificial intelligence infrastructure through balance-sheet liquidation rather than new equity or debt issuance.
The result: Metaplanet, a Japanese firm that is still accumulating, has overtaken MARA to become the third-largest public corporate bitcoin holder globally. The "bitcoin treasury" thesis that defined the post-2020 mining sector is fracturing along operational lines.
The following table summarizes the largest known BTC treasury reductions among public entities in Q1 2026:
| Entity | BTC Sold (Q1) | Proceeds | Remaining BTC | Stated Purpose | |---|---|---|---|---| | MARA Holdings | 15,133 | ~$1.1B | 38,689 | Convertible note buyback | | Riot Platforms | 3,778 | $289.5M | 15,680 | Growth / AI infrastructure | | Core Scientific | ~1,900 | ~$175M | ~630 | AI data center conversion | | Empery Digital | 370 | $24.7M | 2,989 | Term loan repayment | | Nakamoto Holdings | 284 | $20M | 5,058 | Working capital | | Genius Group | 84 (full exit) | ~$8.5M | 0 | Full debt repayment | | Bitdeer | Full exit | Undisclosed | 0 | Data center expansion |
MARA Holdings executed the largest single transaction. Between March 4 and March 25, the company sold 15,133 BTC and used the proceeds to repurchase approximately $1 billion in face value of 0% convertible senior notes due 2030 and 2031 — $367.5 million of the 2030 series at $322.9 million and $633.4 million of the 2031 series at $589.9 million. The discount captured approximately $88 million in value. MARA's holdings fell from 53,822 BTC at the start of the year to 38,689 BTC. CEO Fred Thiel described the sales as strategic and indicated that further liquidations could occur "from time to time" throughout 2026. MARA simultaneously cut 15% of its workforce as it pivots toward AI and energy infrastructure across its 18 data centers with 1.9 gigawatts of capacity.
Riot Platforms sold 3,778 BTC at an average price of $76,626, generating $289.5 million. Riot mined only 1,473 BTC during Q1, meaning it sold 2.6 times its quarterly production — a clear drawdown from treasury, not routine profit-taking. Of its remaining 15,680 BTC, 5,802 are restricted and cannot be freely liquidated.
Nakamoto Holdings, founded by Bitcoin Magazine's David Bailey, sold 284 BTC at an average price of $70,422 per coin — approximately 40% below the firm's weighted average acquisition cost of $118,171. The company characterized the sale as liquidity management following its acquisitions of BTC Inc. and UTXO.
Genius Group eliminated its entire position. The Singapore-based company adopted a "Bitcoin-first" treasury strategy in November 2024, committed to holding 90%+ of reserves in BTC. A US court order blocking new capital raises forced the company to liquidate all holdings to clear $8.5 million in debt. On April 1, the final 84.15 BTC were sold. The company stated it will resume accumulation "when market conditions are more favorable."
The financial logic behind the sell-off is visible in the gap between production cost and market price.
According to CoinShares' Q1 2026 Bitcoin Mining Report, hash price collapsed to $28–30/PH/s/day by early March — a five-year low and the worst level since the April 2024 halving cut block rewards to 3.125 BTC. The weighted average cash cost to produce one bitcoin among publicly listed miners reached approximately $79,995 in Q4 2025. But all-in costs, which include SG&A, depreciation, and debt service, are far higher:
| Miner | All-In Cost per BTC (Q4 2025) | |---|---| | Marathon (MARA) | $153,040 | | Core Scientific | $168,693 | | Riot Platforms | $170,366 | | Bitdeer | $118,188 | | CleanSpark | $118,932 |
With bitcoin trading near $66,500 at the time of the heaviest selling — roughly 45% below the October 2025 all-time high of approximately $124,500 — every major listed miner was producing BTC at an all-in loss. CoinShares estimated that 15–20% of the global mining fleet, specifically hardware below S19 XP efficiency operating at electricity costs above $0.06/kWh, was cash-flow negative.
Network hashrate continues to rise despite the margin squeeze. CoinShares projects it will reach 1.8 zetahash by end of 2026 and 2 zetahash by end of March 2027 — one month later than their previous estimate, but still climbing. The result is a structural compression: more hashrate chasing a fixed block reward, with energy costs rising due to geopolitical tensions pushing oil prices higher.
The treasury liquidation is funding a sector-wide transformation. Bitcoin miners control large-scale power interconnections — in many cases, gigawatt-scale facilities — that AI compute companies urgently need.
CoinShares projects that some publicly listed miners could derive up to 70% of their total revenue from AI hosting by end of 2026, up from approximately 30% at the time of writing. The sector has announced over $70 billion in cumulative AI/HPC contracts. Specific Q4 2025 revenue breakdowns show the transition already underway:
Riot Platforms is repositioning as a "Power-as-a-Service" infrastructure operator. Core Scientific is selling the majority of its remaining bitcoin to fund conversion of 1.2 gigawatts of capacity toward AI data center operations. TeraWulf has signed more than $12.8 billion in long-term customer contracts and completed $6.5 billion in long-term financings. IREN carries $3.7 billion in convertible notes, and TeraWulf has accumulated $5.7 billion in total debt.
The debt loads are substantial. These companies are, in effect, converting bitcoin reserves into AI capacity while simultaneously leveraging up. If AI hosting revenue fails to materialize at projected levels, the sector will face both depleted BTC reserves and heavy debt service.
Institutional selling extends beyond the private sector. Bhutan, which built its bitcoin holdings through state-backed mining operations at hydroelectric facilities, has reduced its stack by 66% from a peak of over 13,000 BTC in October 2024 to approximately 4,453 BTC. Total 2026 outflows have exceeded $152 million, including a single 375 BTC transaction on March 30.
The government has not publicly stated its rationale, but the timing aligns with broader fiscal pressures and the global BTC price decline.
Not all corporate treasuries are selling.
Metaplanet, the Tokyo-listed firm, added 5,075 BTC in Q1 2026 for approximately $398 million, bringing total holdings to 40,177 BTC worth approximately $3.9 billion. MARA's sell-down allowed Metaplanet to claim the third-largest corporate bitcoin treasury position globally, behind Strategy (formerly MicroStrategy) with over 762,000 BTC and Twenty One Capital with 43,514 BTC. Metaplanet has stated a target of 100,000 BTC by end of 2026 and 210,000 BTC by end of 2027.
Strategy continues accumulating and has not signaled any intent to sell.
The divergence is stark: North American miners are liquidating to fund AI pivots and retire debt, while Asian and treasury-focused firms continue stacking. The bitcoin treasury company model is splitting into two distinct categories — operational miners treating BTC as working capital, and pure-play treasury firms treating it as a long-term reserve asset.
Public bitcoin treasury companies collectively hold approximately 1,164,800 BTC, representing over 5% of the 21 million total supply. The Q1 sell-off of roughly 19,000+ BTC, while material in dollar terms ($1.5+ billion), represents about 1.6% of public corporate holdings. It is not, by itself, a supply shock.
However, the signaling matters. MARA explicitly stated it may sell more. Core Scientific is on a path to near-zero BTC holdings. Bitfarms' CEO declared the company is "no longer a Bitcoin company." If other miners follow the same playbook — monetize BTC, retire debt, build AI capacity — the supply released could grow significantly in subsequent quarters. CoinShares noted that further BTC selling from balance-sheet sales "remains a likely scenario across the sector."
The Q1 2026 miner sell-off marks an inflection point in the economics of public bitcoin mining. The companies that built their investment cases around HODL strategies and BTC-denominated balance sheets are now liquidating those same assets to fund a different business entirely. The pivot is driven by identifiable economic forces: hash price at multi-year lows, production costs exceeding market price, and the availability of AI infrastructure contracts worth multiples of mining revenue.
The question for the sector is whether the AI revenue materializes at the scale projected. $70 billion in announced contracts is a large number, but execution risk in data center buildouts is high. If the AI hosting market softens — or if bitcoin recovers significantly — the companies that sold their BTC at $66,000–$77,000 to build GPU farms may find themselves on the wrong side of both trades. For now, the data shows a sector in active transformation, with the bitcoin treasury model surviving primarily among firms that never mined in the first place.