Bitcoin miners sell 28,000 BTC worth $2B amid rising costs

Bitcoin miners are selling. Fast. Publicly traded mining companies have offloaded approximately 28,000 BTC in 2026, a liquidation worth around $1.78 billion at current prices, as the gap between what it costs to produce a coin and what the market will pay for it keeps widening.

Their collective reserves have fallen from 127,000 BTC at the start of the year to roughly 99,000 BTC, a drawdown of about 22% in just a few months.

The cost problem is the whole problem

Average production costs for publicly traded miners sit at approximately $74,300 per BTC. With Bitcoin’s price down 27% year-to-date in 2026, a meaningful slice of the industry is running at a loss on every coin it produces. Around 20% of miners are estimated to be operating in the red under current conditions.

The companies driving the bulk of the sales include some of the sector’s biggest names: MARA Holdings, CleanSpark, Riot Platforms, Cango, Core Scientific, and Bitdeer.

Mining difficulty has dropped roughly 18% since its November 2025 peak, which marks the longest sustained difficulty decline on record. In plain terms: the network has gotten easier to mine because weaker operators are shutting off machines and leaving.

Miners are not the only sellers, but they are consistent ones