Miners are no longer mining Bitcoin; they are selling electricity to AI.

Writing by: Cathy

Mining one Bitcoin costs $87,000. When sold, the market only pays you $67,000.

For each Bitcoin mined, there’s a net loss of $20,000. It’s not just fees or electricity price fluctuations—it’s a real, solid loss of $20,000 per Bitcoin produced. This is the reality as of March 2026. Data from Glassnode and MacroMicro both point to the same conclusion: Bitcoin mining, at current prices, is a losing business.

But miners haven’t just sat around waiting to die. They’ve made a surprising choice—stop mining and sell electricity to AI.

Specifically, it’s not “stop mining,” but rather emptying the Bitcoin treasury and pouring all funds into AI data centers, turning mining into a side business.

Since Bitcoin’s peak of $126,000 in October 2025, publicly listed mining companies have sold over 15,000 Bitcoins. This isn’t sporadic cash-out; it’s an organized, strategic retreat.

01 Where did 15,000 BTC go after collective sell-off?

Core Scientific was the earliest and most decisive.

In January 2026, it sold about 1,900 Bitcoins, cashing out $175 million. The plan is to liquidate all remaining holdings in Q1. This once-bankrupt and restructured miner is now transforming its Texas mines into high-density AI hosting facilities, aiming to allocate all 1.3 GW of total power capacity to AI.

MARA is even more aggressive. Known for “never selling coins,” in its March 2026 10-K report, it quietly changed its treasury policy—53822 Bitcoins, fully authorized for sale. At the then-current price, nearly $4 billion worth of assets shifted overnight from “strategic reserves” to “liquid funds.” Soon after, MARA signed a joint venture with Starwood Capital to deliver 1 GW of AI data center capacity.

The most surprising is Cango. Originally a Chinese auto finance platform, it only entered Bitcoin mining at the end of 2024. By February 2026, it sold 4,451 Bitcoins—60% of its reserves—raising $305 million to pay debts and fund AI transformation. It also hired former Zoom executive Jack Jin as CTO of AI business, planning to deploy containerized GPU compute nodes across global mines. A car loan company turned miner, then AI inference service provider—such cross-industry shifts are unique to the crypto world.

BitDeer’s move seems like a calculated chess move. In February, it liquidated its Bitcoin holdings. Founder Wu Jihan explained frankly: holding zero doesn’t mean forever; they need liquidity to seize opportunities in electricity and land acquisitions. Unlike other miners, BitDeer is both selling off and accelerating—its Bitcoin production in January surged 430% year-over-year, with self-mining hash rate reaching 63.2 EH/s, surpassing MARA to become the largest listed self-mining operation. Selling off coins has fueled massive expansion in hash rate and infrastructure—decisiveness with a bold, ambitious outlook.

02 Same electricity, 10 times more value for AI

Why are miners collectively selling? Because the numbers make it clear.

Mining is losing money, but miners hold something everyone is fighting over: electrified land.

After the 2024 halving, Bitcoin mining profitability shrank from over 90% at peak to breakeven. Meanwhile, AI demand for electricity and data centers exploded. MarketsandMarkets predicts the global AI inference market will grow from about $106 billion in 2025 to nearly $255 billion in 2030.

Morgan Stanley calculated that shifting 1 MW of power from mining to AI hosting could yield over 10 times valuation premium.

This isn’t an exaggeration. AI hosting contracts are typically 10-15 years long, with clients like Microsoft and Meta—stable, predictable cash flows. In contrast, mining income depends entirely on coin prices—and you know how volatile they are.

Wall Street has already made its bets. Morgan Stanley extended a $500 million loan to Core Scientific, with an option to increase to $1 billion. This isn’t a loan to a “crypto company,” but a credit backing for a “digital infrastructure company.” TeraWulf and Cipher Mining, with successful hybrid models, are rated “overweight,” while MARA, once a steadfast Bitcoin holder, was downgraded due to overexposure to coin price risks.

The message from capital markets is clear: in Wall Street’s view, these companies’ value is no longer based on their Bitcoin holdings but on how much electricity they control.

03 On-chain indicators suggest the bottom may be near

Miners’ collective sell-off has caused market distress. But on-chain data reveals some interesting signals.

Hash Ribbon indicator inverted starting late November 2025, and by February 2026, it had persisted for three months—one of the longest miner capitulation periods in history. The last similar signal was December 2022, when Bitcoin bottomed at $15,500. As of early March, the 30-day moving average approached above the 60-day, signaling a potential recovery.

The MVRV Z-Score stayed between 0.43 and 0.49 in early March. This metric measures the deviation of market price from “realized value.” Historically, when Z-Score drops into 0-1 range, it almost always signals a strategic buying window.

Puell Multiple fell to around 0.6, meaning miners’ daily revenue has been compressed to about 60% of the annual average. Approaching the 2022 bear bottom of 0.3, miners’ profit margins are being squeezed to historic lows.

Extreme signals come from sentiment indicators. During February’s “Bitcoin Polar Vortex,” the Crypto Fear & Greed Index plunged to 5, and after a single-day correction on February 5, realized losses hit a record $3.2 billion.

Four independent indicators flashing red simultaneously—when this happened before, Bitcoin was forming a bottom.

04 Miner selling coins might actually be bullish?

This is the most counterintuitive part of the story.

In the past, miner sell-offs were seen as bearish signals—they are the “original sellers,” mining and immediately selling, exerting continuous downward pressure. But the 2026 sell-off is entirely different: after selling Bitcoin, these miners are shifting to earn USD from AI.

Think about what this means. Previously, Core Scientific needed to sell hundreds of Bitcoins monthly to cover electricity and operational costs. Now, with long-term contracts with Microsoft and Morgan Stanley’s credit lines, they plan to liquidate most remaining holdings (about 2,537 coins by year-end, most already sold). But this isn’t passive “selling to survive”; it’s active liquidation, redirecting funds into AI infrastructure. Once the MARA-Starwood joint project is operational, the 1 GW data center’s USD cash flow will cover all costs.

In other words, AI-focused miners are transforming from structural Bitcoin sellers into neutral or even potential buyers. The biggest “natural shorts” in the market are exiting permanently.

Bitcoin mining itself hasn’t disappeared; it’s just changing form. MARA’s hybrid model points the way: mine when electricity is cheap, switch to GPU computing during AI demand peaks. Bitcoin becomes a flexible load and insurance for the grid—AI makes money, mining provides a safety net.

05 Summary

In 2025, Bitcoin’s network hash rate just surpassed 1 Zetahash. In the short term, some mines transitioning to AI will slow hash rate growth—Cango, for example, has 31% of its capacity offline for upgrades. But this is a healthy capacity cleanup: inefficient miners exit, leaving more efficient, focused players, which actually enhances network security.

This isn’t miners surrendering; it’s evolution.

When mining becomes a side business and AI takes the main stage, Bitcoin loses a group of forced sellers but gains a healthier supply structure.

Miners have sold all their Bitcoin, but electricity remains.