Bitcoin miners sell reserves as hash rate drops 21%

Bitcoin's network hash rate fell 21% to 900 EH/s as miners sold reserves and redirected power toward AI, one of the longest capitulation cycles.

Miner Net Positions have turned negative, with operators selling at rates last seen during the 2022 market lows, according to Glassnode data. Transaction fees now contribute just 0.69% of miner revenue, near decade-low levels.

The 30-day mean hash rate has declined roughly 21% from its peak, while Checkonchain estimates the decline at 33% from an October 2025 peak of 1.3 ZH/s to 861 EH/s. Bitcoin has dropped 45% over the past eight months, pushing hashprice from $63 to about $31.80 per PH/s.

The contraction reflects economic restructuring rather than forced shutdowns, unlike China's 2021 ban which caused a 41% decline. Miners are converting coin reserves into electrical capacity for AI tenants, with CoinShares tallying $70 billion in cumulative AI and HPC contracts secured by miners by the end of the first quarter.

Miner selling adds supply pressure

Public mining companies have been liquidating treasury positions to fund AI infrastructure and repay debt. Hyperscale Data sold roughly 685 Bitcoin for about $43 million, cutting its treasury to 275 coins to fund a Michigan data center buildout. The Las Vegas company, which trades on the NYSE American under the ticker GPUS, used about $30 million of the proceeds to pay down corporate debt.

MARA Holdings sold about $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin in May, directing cash toward AI infrastructure and debt repurchases. Core Scientific has announced plans to liquidate virtually its entire Bitcoin reserve this year to fund AI data center construction. Bitdeer cleared its treasury in February and ended June holding just 150 coins, even as quarterly production climbed to 2,694 from 565 a year earlier.

The divergence between AI-focused miners and pure-play operators has become one of the clearest signals in crypto markets this year. Companies with HPC contracts trade at 12.3 times enterprise value, versus just 5.9 times for pure-play bitcoin miners, according to CoinShares' first-quarter mining report. Early adopters including TerraWulf, IREN and Cipher Digital have more than doubled in value over the past year, while MARA Holdings fell 40% over the same stretch. Riot Platforms recently signed a 20-year lease with AI company Anthropic valued at $9.1 billion, one of the largest such agreements to date.

Dormant supply tells a different story

While miners return treasury coins to circulation, older holders are largely keeping their positions idle. One wallet holding approximately 8.54 BTC worth $539,000 moved its balance for the first time in fifteen years — coins originally received in 2011 when Bitcoin averaged around $14. The transfer to an exchange represents dormant supply becoming immediately available, though the size is too small to spark meaningful market-wide selling pressure.

The broader dormant supply puts this transfer into perspective. Over 3.5 million BTC have remained idle for more than ten years, accounting for 17.7% of total supply. Another 14,000 BTC joined this cohort within the last 30 days, further reducing coins readily available for trading. Coin Days Destroyed is currently reading approximately 8.2 million compared to historical spikes above 500 million, indicating older holders are not rushing to sell.

CoinShares estimates that a bitcoin recovery to $126,000 — last October's all-time high — could lift hashprice back up to around $59 per PH/s, substantially improving mining economics. But the underlying lesson of the past year is that the real value in this industry comes from controlling scarce power and infrastructure, capabilities that translate directly into AI and HPC contracts offering steadier revenue streams than mining bitcoin alone.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.