Written by: Cathy

The cost to mine one Bitcoin is $87,000. If sold, the market only offers $67,000.

For each mined coin, there is a net loss of $20,000. This is not due to transaction fees or fluctuating electricity costs, but a solid, tangible loss of $20,000 for every Bitcoin produced. This is the reality as of March 2026, with data from Glassnode and MacroMicro pointing to the same conclusion: Bitcoin mining, at the current price, is a losing business.

However, miners are not sitting back and waiting to die. They made a choice that the entire market didn’t expect—stopped mining and began selling electricity to AI.

To be precise, it isn’t so much "stopped mining," but rather emptied the Bitcoin treasury and invested all the funds into AI data centers, relegating mining to a side business.

Since Bitcoin peaked at $126,000 in October 2025 and then turned downward, publicly listed mining companies have collectively sold over 15,000 Bitcoins. This isn't a sporadic cash-out, but a well-organized and strategic retreat.

01 Miners collectively liquidate: Where did the 15,000 BTC go?

Core Scientific was the first and most decisive to act.

In January 2026, it sold approximately 1,900 Bitcoins all at once, cashing out $175 million. The remaining stock is planned to be cleared in Q1. This mining company, which had previously gone through bankruptcy restructuring, is now transforming its Texas mines into high-density AI hosting facilities, aiming to allocate the entire 1.3GW of total power capacity to AI.

MARA was even bolder. This company, famous for "never selling coins," quietly changed its treasury policy in its 2026 10-K annual report—53,822 Bitcoins were all authorized for sale. At the then-current price, it represented nearly $4 billion worth of assets, which overnight transformed from "strategic reserve" to "available funds." Shortly thereafter, MARA signed a joint venture agreement with Starwood Capital to deliver 1GW of AI data center capacity.

The most surprising was Cango. This company, which started as a car finance platform in China and only entered Bitcoin mining at the end of 2024, ended up selling 4,451 Bitcoins in February 2026—making up 60% of its reserves—cashing out $305 million for debt repayment and AI transformation. It also brought in former Zoom executive Jack Jin as AI business CTO, planning to install containerized GPU computing nodes in global mines. A company that made car loans transformed into a miner in two years and then became an AI inference service provider—the speed of this crossover can only be seen in the cryptocurrency world.

Meanwhile, BitDeer's choice resembles a meticulously calculated move. It cleared its Bitcoin holdings in February, with founder Wu Jihan candidly stating: having zero holdings does not mean it will always be zero; liquid funds are needed now to seize opportunities in power and land acquisition. Unlike other mining companies, BitDeer cleared its holdings while aggressively ramping up operations—January Bitcoin production surged by 430% year-on-year, and self-operated hash rate reached 63.2EH/s, surpassing MARA to become the listed mining company with the largest self-operated hash rate in the world. Clearing out reserves brought a substantial expansion in hash rate and infrastructure. With decisive moves akin to "cutting off one’s hand," they also carried the ambition of "loading ammunition."

02 The same electricity is worth 10 times when used for AI

Why are miners so uniformly selling? Because after calculations, the answer is crystal clear.

Mining is losing money, but mining companies possess something everyone in the world is fighting for: electrified land.

After the 2024 halving, the profit margin for Bitcoin mining dropped from over 90% during peak times to the break-even line. Yet during the same period, demand for electricity and data centers from AI has exploded. According to MarketsandMarkets, the global AI inference market is projected to grow from approximately $106 billion in 2025 to nearly $255 billion by 2030.

Morgan Stanley calculated that transitioning 1 megawatt from mining to AI hosting could yield a valuation premium of over 10 times.

This is not an exaggeration. AI hosting contracts typically span 10 to 15 years, with clients such as Microsoft and Meta—investment-grade giants—with stable and predictable cash flows. In contrast, mining income entirely depends on coin prices—and you know what that means.

Wall Street has cast its vote with real money. Morgan Stanley granted Core Scientific a $500 million loan facility, with terms that could increase it to $1 billion. This isn’t a loan for a "crypto company," but a credit endorsement for a "digital infrastructure company." TeraWulf and Cipher Mining were rated "overweight" by Morgan Stanley due to their successful hybrid models, while MARA, which once steadfastly held onto Bitcoin, was downgraded due to excessive exposure to coin price risks.

The signal from capital markets is clearer than ever: in the eyes of Wall Street, these companies' value is no longer determined by how many Bitcoins they hold, but by how much electricity they control.

03 On-chain indicators suggest a possible bottom

Miners are collectively shedding their Bitcoins, and the market is in despair. But if you look at on-chain data, you will find an interesting set of signals.

The hash ribbon went into inversion at the end of November 2025, and by February 2026, it had persisted for a full three months—this is one of the longest miner capitulation periods in history. The last time a similar signal combination appeared was in December 2022, when Bitcoin bottomed at $15,500. As of early March, the 30-day moving average was approaching above the 60-day moving average, with recovery signals about to trigger.

MVRV Z-Score maintained between 0.43 and 0.49 in early March. This indicator measures the degree of deviation of market price from "actual value." Historically, when the Z-Score falls into the range of 0 to 1, it almost always corresponds with strategic accumulation windows.

The Puell Multiple has dropped to around 0.6, indicating that miners' daily income has been compressed to about 60% of the annual average level. It is not far from the 0.3 level at the bottom of the 2022 bear market, and miners' profit margins are being squeezed to historic lows.

The most extreme signals come from sentiment. During February's "Bitcoin Polar Vortex," the Crypto Fear and Greed Index fell to 5 at one point, with a record loss of $3.2 billion from a single day of real adjustments on February 5.

Four independent directional indicators are flashing red at the same time, and the last time this happened, Bitcoin was forming a bottom.

04 Miners selling coins might be a positive signal?

This is the most counterintuitive part of the entire story.

In the past, miner sell-offs have always been taken as a bearish signal—these are the "native sellers" of Bitcoin, who sell what they mine, creating continuous selling pressure in the market. However, the nature of the selling in 2026 is entirely different: these mining companies, after selling Bitcoins, turned to earn revenue in AI dollars.

Think about what this means. Previously, Core Scientific had to sell hundreds of Bitcoins each month to cover electricity and operating costs. Now, with long-term contracts signed with Microsoft and a credit line from Morgan Stanley, although it still plans to liquidate most of its remaining Bitcoin holdings (around 2,537 by year-end, having already sold more than half), it is no longer a passive "selling coins to survive," but actively clearing out and concentrating funds toward AI infrastructure. Once the MARA and Starwood joint venture project is realized, the $1GW data center generated cash flow will be enough to cover all costs.

In other words, mining companies transforming to AI have shifted from structural sellers of Bitcoin to neutral or even potential buyers. The largest batch of "natural shorts" in the market is permanently exiting.

And Bitcoin mining itself hasn't disappeared; it has just changed its mode of existence. MARA's hybrid model has pointed to the direction: mining when electricity prices are low, switching to GPU computing when AI demand peaks. Bitcoin has become the "flexible load" and "insurance mechanism" of the power grid, with AI responsible for profit-making, while mining acts as a safety net.

05 Conclusion

In 2025, the Bitcoin network hash rate just broke through the milestone of 1 Zettahash. In the short term, some mines transforming to AI will indeed slow down hash rate growth—for example, Cango has taken 31% of its hash rate offline for upgrades. But this is a healthy capacity clearing: inefficient miners exiting the market mean that the remaining players are more efficient and focused, and network security will not only not decrease but instead increase.

This is not the surrender of miners; it is the evolution of the mining industry.

When mining becomes a side business and AI the main venture, Bitcoin loses a group of forced sellers while gaining a healthier supply structure.

The Bitcoins in miners' hands are sold out, but the electricity remains.

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