Public Bitcoin mining companies are dumping billions of dollars worth of mined coins to wipe out debt and pay for artificial intelligence data centers, led by MARA Holdings’ recent disclosure that it sold 13,597 Bitcoin for roughly 1.1 billion USD.
By Michael Nguyen | November 15, 2026
For everyday crypto investors, this shift matters directly to your wallet: the companies that used to hoard newly minted Bitcoin are now steady sellers, adding fresh supply to a market where Bitcoin trades at 64,962 USD. When major industrial producers sell off large reserves rather than waiting for higher prices, it shows how tight mining margins have become—and how aggressively these firms are chasing steadier rent checks from tech tenants instead.
The Hardware/Software Landscape
Bitcoin mining runs on specialized computers called ASICs—think of them as warehouse-sized calculators built for one job: guessing the winning number that unlocks the next block of transactions. For years, public miners raced to plug in as many of these machines as possible. That playbook is splitting in two this month, with major operators either swapping mining rigs for artificial intelligence servers or building custom software to control how much electricity they burn.
In its third-quarter shareholder letter and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on November 9, 2026, MARA Holdings highlighted both sides of that shift. Even as it expanded its mining fleet, MARA spotlighted its Vertebrai software platform—a flexible power-management system designed to dial compute loads up or down so its facilities avoid grid bottlenecks. Meanwhile, rivals are physically pulling mining machines off the rack to make room for high-density AI chips.
- MARA Holdings — Scaled energized computing power by 18 percent year-over-year to 71.2 exahashes per second (EH/s) in Q3 while rolling out its Vertebrai energy software.
- Bitdeer Technologies Group — Reported proprietary mining capacity of 86.4 EH/s in its November 10 Q3 release while expanding its AI cloud pipeline.
- Riot Platforms — Grew deployed mining power to 44.9 EH/s as of its November 4 Q3 report, while committing 1,151 megawatts (MW) of capacity to leased data center tenants.
- IREN, Core Scientific, and TeraWulf — Combined to double AI-cloud and hosting revenue to roughly 478 million USD in Q3, up from 239 million USD in Q2, according to Blocksbridge Consulting’s Miner Weekly.
Hashrate & Difficulty
In plain terms, hashrate measures how many workers are actively mining on the Bitcoin network, while difficulty is the network’s automatic thermostat—it makes the math puzzle harder when more machines join and easier when operators unplug. When big companies swap Bitcoin rigs for AI hardware, their slice of the network shrinks fast.
According to Miner Weekly, the combined realized Bitcoin hashrate across IREN, Core Scientific, and TeraWulf dropped by roughly 49 percent in the third quarter, falling from 32.8 EH/s down to 16.8 EH/s as hardware was uninstalled for AI retrofits. Across the broader Bitcoin network, roughly 100 EH/s went dark in the first half of November as squeezed operators powered down older machines, pulling total network computing power down from above 1 zettahash per second (ZH/s) into a range between 825 EH/s and 977 EH/s, per CoinWarz and Bitcoin.com data.
That wave of unplugged rigs triggered an automatic reset on November 14, 2026. At block height 975,744, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty dropped 9.13 percent, falling from 148.36 trillion to 134.82 trillion. For surviving miners who kept their machines humming, that cut immediately reduced competition for each block reward—though the relief comes against a backdrop of heavy balance-sheet pressure.
Profitability Metrics
On the surface, several Q3 mining earnings reports looked like home runs, but the underlying cash numbers tell a tougher story. Think of a miner’s hashprice as the daily paycheck earned by each unit of computing power (measured per petahash per second). Over the November 14–15 weekend, Bitcoin.com reported that hashprice sat at deeply compressed levels between 28 and 30 USD per petahash per second per day, while direct production expenses for industrial peers like American Bitcoin Corp. reached roughly 42,100 USD per coin in Q3—sitting near the top of a broader 39,000 to 42,100 USD industry range reported by CryptoBriefing.
That margin squeeze helps explain why miners are turning their Bitcoin treasuries into cash:
- MARA’s 1.1 Billion USD Sale — After ending Q3 on September 30 with 34,012 BTC, MARA sold 13,597 BTC over the next roughly six weeks for about 1.1 billion USD, averaging roughly 81,039 USD per coin.
- Debt Cleared and Collateral Freed — MARA used 750 million USD of those proceeds to fully pay off Bitcoin-backed term loans from lenders including Coinbase Credit and Two Prime, unlocking 17,477 BTC that had been tied up as loan collateral and cutting pledged coins below 5 percent.
- MARA’s Accounting vs. Cash Reality — While MARA posted 632.1 million USD in Q3 net income, TheEnergyMag noted that roughly 885.3 million USD came from non-cash accounting gains on coin prices; actual Q3 revenue dropped 35 percent year-over-year to 164.2 million USD.
- Riot Platforms’ Liquidation — Over the first nine months of 2026, Riot sold 20,264 BTC for roughly 1.5 billion USD to fund data center construction, bringing its remaining stash down to 2,418 BTC by September 30.
- Bitdeer’s Zero-Holding Rule — On November 14, Bitdeer reported mining 256.1 BTC during the week ending November 13 and selling all 256.1 BTC immediately, keeping pure proprietary coin holdings at zero despite posting record Q3 revenue of 320.7 million USD.
I checked MARA’s 34,012 BTC third-quarter balance against its post-quarter 13,597 BTC sale: liquidating roughly 40 percent of the stack at an average of 81,039 USD cleared the 750 million USD loan book well above today’s 64,962 USD spot price. That timing looks disciplined on paper, especially because borrowing against volatile Bitcoin acts like taking out a mortgage on an asset whose value can swing sharply in a single weekend.
Environmental Impact
Every major mining pivot in November 2026 comes back to one scarce resource: electricity hookups. Securing grid connections, substations, and cooling water takes years, which is why tech companies chasing AI compute are buying or leasing power directly from Bitcoin miners.
MARA now controls roughly 1.9 gigawatts (GW) of energized power capacity across nearly 20 sites globally, with a development path toward 4.8 GW. Those 750 million USD in loans it just repaid had originally helped finance its acquisition of the Long Ridge natural gas power plant, alongside expanding power footprints at its Matagorda County, Texas facility and wind-powered Texas operations where Vertebrai helps curb excess demand during grid strain. Elsewhere, Riot locked in a 15-year, 910-megawatt powered-land lease at its Corsicana, Texas site representing roughly 28 billion USD in contracted revenue (within 38 billion USD in total data center contracts), while CleanSpark reported controlling more than 1.8 GW of power under contract. Whether powered by natural gas or renewables, industrial crypto sites are increasingly operating as multi-use energy campuses rather than single-purpose coin factories.
Strategic Outlook
For everyday investors, the takeaway is clear: the era when public Bitcoin miners acted like leveraged piggy banks—borrowing cash to hoard every coin they mined—is fading fast. MARA’s management told shareholders it plans to keep using strategic Bitcoin sales to fund AI infrastructure, manage upcoming convertible debt, and support a newly approved 500 million USD share buyback program. Bitdeer is pointing to a 2.9 billion USD AI cloud backlog inside a 7.6 billion USD contracted revenue pipeline, while Riot and CleanSpark are prioritizing predictable multi-year data center leases.
That shift turns public mining stocks into hybrid energy and AI infrastructure plays, while removing a reliable buyer—and adding steady corporate sellers—from the Bitcoin spot market. In the short run, investors watching Bitcoin at 64,962 USD should factor in ongoing treasury sales from miners alongside normal ETF and retail flows.
Michael Nguyen’s take
Clearing 750 million USD in Bitcoin-backed debt shows me that survival now favors miners with clean balance sheets over companies hoarding coins on borrowed money. Fourth-quarter SEC filings from MARA will reveal whether 28 to 30 USD hashprice forces another wave of treasury liquidations. A strong recovery in hashprice alongside Bitcoin holding comfortably above 42,100 USD production costs could still persuade miners to return to keeping their rewards.
The cryptocurrency market remains highly volatile. This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
13,597 BTC sold by MARA alone and people still wonder why price sits under 65k. that is real supply hitting the market every week
@Dmitri its 1.1B spread over time tho, not one giant dump. still bearish signal from the biggest holder among public miners tho
1.1 billion to fund AI power plants. sad but the megawatts pay better than the sats right now
Every top miner pivoting to AI data centers while BTC is at 64,962. Reading this as the sector quietly giving up on the next halving cycle.