Major Bitcoin Mining Companies Sold More BTC in Q1 2026 Than All of 2025

By Thiago Alvarez

Major bitcoin miners started the year by leaning on their treasuries instead of their usual hold-first playbook, as weaker unit economics turned stored BTC into an operational funding source.

According to TheEnergyMag, major bitcoin miners sold more than 32,000 BTC in Q1 2026, exceeding their total net sales across all of 2025 and setting the tone for a sharper treasury shift among listed operators.

For public miners that investors track closely, including MARA, Riot Platforms, CleanSpark and Bitdeer, the important distinction is that coins mined and coins sold are not the same thing: a company can keep producing bitcoin while liquidating a larger share of treasury inventory to fund operations, debt service or equipment spending.

Why Major Bitcoin Miners Sold So Much BTC in Q1 2026

CoinShares said the weighted average cash cost to produce one bitcoin among publicly listed miners rose to about US$79,995 in Q4 2025, a level that left little room for balance-sheet comfort once revenue conditions weakened.

CoinShares also said hash price fell to US$29/PH/s/day in Q1 2026 after running at about US$36-38/PH/s/day in Q4 2025, cutting the daily revenue miners could earn from each unit of deployed hashpower.

The combination of a US$79,995 cash cost and a US$29/PH/s/day hash price points to treasury sales as a response to margin compression rather than a broad retreat from bitcoin exposure, which is why the story is more operational than speculative.

How Q1 2026 Already Surpassed All of 2025

Cointelegraph reported that the Q1 2026 selloff also cleared the previous single-quarter public-miner sales peak of 20,000 BTC in Q2 2022, making the latest quarter notable not just against last year but against the prior cycle’s stress point.

The quarter-versus-year comparison matters because Q1 2026 accounts for only one quarter of activity, yet it already outran all of 2025; if that pace persists, public miners could keep favoring spot sales over balance-sheet accumulation through the rest of 2026.

That use of bitcoin as working capital is far closer to treasury triage than to the strategic reserve debates explored in Europe Bitcoin Treasury Model Won’t Mirror Strategy at PBW 2026, where the central question was whether companies would choose to accumulate coins rather than monetize them.

What Higher Miner Selling Means for Bitcoin and Mining Stocks

For bitcoin traders, another wave above 32,000 BTC matters because it adds visible supply from a class of holders that usually advertises its treasury discipline, although miner selling is still only one input among broader market flows and liquidity conditions.

For mining-stock investors, heavier selling can be both defensive and strategic: converting coins into cash may relieve near-term funding pressure, but it also weakens the treasury-upside narrative that once made listed miners feel like leveraged bitcoin proxies.

That broader focus on liquidity over optics also showed up in Tether Leads $150M Drift Protocol Recovery Plan, where capital deployment was framed around stabilizing operations, and in French Minister Seeks Measures Against Crypto Wrench Attacks, Kidnappings, where custody risk became part of the treasury conversation.

CoinShares noted that Texas SB 6, signed in June 2025, added new requirements for large mining and data-center loads connecting to ERCOT, but the report still presented the Q1 2026 liquidation record as a miner-economics story first rather than a regulation-led shock.