So, Riot just sold off 3778 BTC, which is quite the move.
Also, MARA Holdings, Genius Group, and Nakamoto Holdings together let go of a whopping 15501 BTC last week, according to what I've seen.
But what's the deal with this news? I mean, miners are usually mining to cash out their coins, right?
Still, I can’t help but wonder if we’ll hit a point where miners decide to hold onto their coins instead of selling. That could be a sign of a bull market coming up. What do you all think?
I feel like the fuss is real since the amount being sold off by miners is massive.
Holding is the wise choice for making a better profit once the price is going to be bullish again, but the question is how they will survive if they do not sell some BTC to pay their electricity bills.
And I do not believe it indicates a bullish market. If they have free or nearly-free power, holding is a wise decision because I believe most miners understand that if they hold until the next cycle, they will profit more than if they sold their holdings while prices are low.
Miners need money to purchase equipment for AI and Digital Infrastructure, but some believe this is another bubble that will quickly deflate.
15501 BTC is definitely not the amount of coins that will have a big impact on the market price. But please note that miners are leaving, and the hashrate is still at the level of 900-1000 EH/s
For the fact that the price of Bitcoin is going to be bullish again is why I believe that they did the right thing selling their Bitcoin, but I guess they sold almost too late, what were they waiting for at 120k 90k 70k,? It's and will always be a good strategy to sell your Bitcoin at a higher price after you have clearly seen that we heading down or we are just starting a bear market, Bitcoin miner or bitcoin investor it doesn't matter, making and taking profit is what everyone should care about.
I dont see anything wrong if miners decide to sell their bitcoin, this people are paying electricity bills and any amount of bitcoin they decide to sell I dont see anything wrong with that after all is their Bitcoin, and again theres one thing you guys should understand, you can never hold Bitcoin forever at a point you will surely sell your bitcoin. A lot of miners the main reason they are mining is to get Bitcoin they can sell and make profit, its a business you min you sell.
That's the core of it really. Mining is a business with real operating costs, electricity being the biggest one. They can't just hodl their way through expenses like a retail investor can. Some of these operations are running massive facilities, the bills don't pause because the market is down.
The ones who can afford to hold are usually the ones with cheaper power deals or stronger balance sheets. For smaller miners it's basically sell or shut down.
Even if the Bitcoin price falls, miners cannot turn off their ASICs due to their contract with the energy company. Turning off the ASICs would cost the miner more in contractual penalties. Therefore, mining has become a business for large companies with sufficient capital to bear temporary losses.
I assume you're talking about the bigger players? How common are those? Because I don't think I've heard of any contract like that here, at best, the company will offer higher supply with slightly lower price, but the consumption still depends on how much electricity they consume per month. Certainly not to the point that stopping their operation results in more losses for them.
In my country, to get 5 megawatts, a miner needs to undergo numerous inspections and obtain the necessary permits. Data centers consume anywhere from 30 to several hundred megawatts, and shutting them down would cause problems for energy companies.
The problem is that a miner or any consumer cannot exceed their consumption by 10-15% or decrease it.
It is only a person that has not min Bitcoin before will complain about the selling of Bitcoin done by miners, it is only rich miners that will min Bitcoin and then hold it for long term.
An average minner has a lot of bill to pay, hope you know electricity is not free and that's one of the things that consume money in mining, so after mining he should hold the Bitcoin, as for me I would always sell some Bitcoin immediately and then hold some that is how it is done except you are very rich.
Some miners usually sell all the Bitcoin and for me I don't encourage miners to do that, sell some and then hold some.
Tell me what will be cheaper: mining at a loss or paying penalties under the contract?
There was a time recently when the production cost was significantly lower than the market price of Bitcoin, and miners were able to hoard their excess Bitcoin. At such a price, not every miner can make a profit and HODL their Bitcoin.
so a 5 megawatt 3 years contract would be prepaid.
so 5 x 24 =120 megawatts a day for a year =43800 megawatts for the year at 40 bucks a megawatt =
1,752,000 a year prepaid or 8,500,000 million for the 5 years.
you own the power for 5 years. you prepay it.
So the question is what to do with it.
you can sell it at a discount to an AI center maybe 80%
so lets say a year was spent.
the math would be
8,500,000x.8=6,800,000
6,800,000 worth of power over 4 years.
sell it for 6.8x.8=
5.44 million the loss is 1.36 million plus the infrastructure plus the purchased gear.
So some people are saying I will mine and as the gear breaks sell some power to a smaller ai setup.
some are bailing.
clear evidence of bailing out is below
maybe this trend sticks for a while
4 cents per kilowatt is a very good price, and with this price you can mine profitably even on 21x ASIC models.
Here's a comparison of electricity prices in Russia and the US. Major mining company MARA pays 4 cents per kilowatt.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5450117.msg66594772#msg66594772
And many mining companies pay 4.7-5.7 cents per kilowatt.
You're right. I'm sure this amount they sold off doesn't scratch the surface of what they've mined just this year so it's like losing something to gain more. Also, the reason for this massive sale is that Riot is looking to pivot in a different direction from pure mining into infrastructure hosting and this switch will require enough capital, hence the sale.
I think the main question is why are they selling off their bitcoin. Do they know something that we don't? Questions like this should be asked. But personally, if they are selling that huge amount I think it's for running of the machines. They are still in the business of mining. And they need to make profit to continue running the business. One last question, what is the percentage of miners that are actually selling their bitcoin? Could be like 3% out of 97%.
Public Bitcoin Miners Sell Record 32,000 BTC in Q1 2026 as Margins Collapse
Public Bitcoin miners offloaded more than 32,000 BTC during the first quarter of 2026, a new industry record.
link
The liquidation wave surpassed full-year 2025 net sales. It also exceeded the roughly 20,000 BTC dumped during the Terra-Luna collapse in Q2 2022.
MARA and NAKA are seriously led by very dumb people.
They saw the success of what Microstrategy is doing and they were like, sure, let's also become BTC treasury companies.
Well first of all, this model can't work in perpetuity for every single company trying to apply it to its assets. They're basically accelerated versions of what will happen to MSTR's stock too, but for MSTR it might take years even because they have a lot of capital to squeeze through before a complete collapse in its stock price comes.
These companies had the opportunity to keep earning moderate profits through mining, but they were super greedy and at the same time also unoriginal.
Just imagine if only they had invested in something innovating like AI chip research. Hundreds of billions burned for cost of capital over nothing. Now their BTC is sold and treasuries decimated.
MARA was late to the competition with Microstrategy, but they may be able to participate in the AI competition because they already have cheap electricity, engineering experience, and the necessary space for building data centers.
But we won't see the results until a couple of years after the first data centers are built. Their first data center is expected to open in 2028.
I want to point out that every miner has a cost of mining Bitcoin, and statistically, with the average price at $85,000, miners are reluctant to sell coins for $100,000. Miners are waiting for a better price, but the sudden price drop from $120,000 to $60,000 was difficult for everyone in the crypto world.