BTC miners face asset sales and AI pivots after 11% difficulty drop and price collapse
Bitcoin mining difficulty has plunged more than 11% — the sixth consecutive decline and one of the largest drops historically — bringing difficulty to roughly 125.86 trillion hashes, a low not seen since July. The fall was driven by winter storms that curtailed operations, ongoing miner capitulation as firms pivot toward AI/HPC data centres, and a prolonged BTC price decline. BTC traded below $60,000 in the latest period; estimated all‑in cost to mine one BTC is about $84,300, roughly $15k above spot, pushing hash price and miner margins toward multi‑year lows and rendering older ASICs unprofitable. Public miners are responding with BTC sales, loans against holdings, asset write‑downs and strategic pivots: Cango sold 4,451 BTC to repay a collateralised loan and fund AI expansion; Marathon moved ~1,300 BTC to trading desks/lenders and has large amounts pledged; Bitdeer, Bitfarms (now Keel Infrastructure), CleanSpark, Canaan and others report falling mining revenue, production hits, or shifts to AI/cloud services. January production among some public miners: Bitdeer 668 BTC, CleanSpark 573 BTC, Cango 496.3 BTC, Hive 297 BTC, BitFuFu 229 BTC, Canaan 83 BTC. Smaller operators face heightened insolvency risk (NFN8 filed Chapter 11); equipment demand is weakening and some miners are repurposing capacity for AI or exiting. Market implications for traders: increased miner sell pressure and borrowing-backed BTC sales may add near‑term downward pressure on BTC price; reduced willingness to add mining capex and potential permanent loss of pure mining capacity could limit new BTC supply growth longer term. Traders should monitor miner treasury movements, hash price, ASIC shutdown trends, and quarterly reports for signs of short‑term sell flows and structural shifts in miner behaviour.
Bearish
The combined reporting shows clear and direct downward pressure on BTC price. A large (>11%) difficulty decline reflects falling active hashrate and operational disruptions; at the same time miners face negative cashflow because the all‑in cost to mine a BTC exceeds spot. Public miners are liquidating holdings (BTC sales, loan collateral movements) and pledging coins, which increases short‑term sell supply. Equipment demand weakness and ASIC unprofitability point to further hashrate decline, but that may only partially offset selling pressure. Strategic pivots into AI/HPC reduce pure mining capacity growth and change long‑term supply dynamics, but in the near term the market impact is dominated by forced sales, leverage unwind and falling miner revenues — all bearish signals for BTC price. Traders should therefore expect elevated sell pressure and volatility in the short term; in the medium/long term the net effect is ambiguous and depends on whether reduced mining capacity eventually tightens supply versus prolonged price weakness continuing miner capitulation.