BTC miners dey face difficulty stress, treasury selloffs and pivot go AI

BTC miners dey face tighter mining economics as network difficulty don rise and corporate “treasury selloffs” still dey. Right after difficulty tick up by near 4% to ~139T hashes, estimates put di all-in cost to mine 1 BTC just over $83,000, while BTC dey below $69,000. Even small block wins no dey prevent financial strain. Public miners don dey sell BTC to fund balance-sheet needs and to pivot into AI/HPC. Riot Platforms (RIOT) sold 3,778 BTC in Q1 2026, more than double di 1,473 BTC wey dem mined, and dem cut their BTC holdings from 19,233 to 15,680. MARA also reduce their treasury—sold 15,133 BTC from 53,822—to help repurchase about $1B of debt, and reportedly reduced payroll by ~15% as dem shift capacity into AI/HPC data centers (including deals like Starwood Digital Ventures and stake in Exaion). Pressure dey spread beyond individual firms. Bitfarms/Keel (now Keel Infrastructure) talk say dem no be “Bitcoin company” again and dem plan full mining wind-down by year-end, go dispose remaining BTC opportunistically. Cango (CANG) also dey sell BTC and dey face NYSE delisting risk while funding its AI/HPC transition. New development for latest update: hashrate security risk dey rise. Q1 2026 see hashrate fall 4% (first quarterly decline in six years), after start of U.S.-Iran conflict. U.S. policy talks around Mined in America Act and Russia’s regional mining bans add more friction, increase operational and compliance costs. For traders, BTC miner weakness plus falling hashrate fit amplify downside volatility. If treasury selling continue while difficulty remain elevated, sell-pressure around BTC fit remain key near-term theme.