Bitcoin’s Great Unplug: $1.5 Billion in Hardware Behind the AI Pivot

The hashrate public bitcoin miners shed in the first half of 2026 carries an uncomfortable price tag: roughly $1.5 billion in equivalent hardware investment, even at an assumed acquisition price of just $20 per terahash (TH/s).

A previous Miner Weekly issue estimated that public miners lost 75 EH/s of realized hashrate while their directly reported HPC and AI revenue rose 52% quarter over quarter. Much of that retreat reflected a redirection of power toward AI infrastructure.

The revenue growth showed what operators were gaining. But putting a purchase price on the disappearing hashrate helps illuminate what they had already paid for.

At $20 per TH/s, 75 EH/s corresponds to $1.5 billion of mining machines. That excludes the buildings, electrical equipment, cooling and installation needed to operate them.

That is an often-overlooked cost of the AI transition: investors had already financed the mining capacity being displaced. At some sites, equipment was marked down within months of starting production, raising questions about how much of that investment mining could recover before AI took over.

And the accounting consequences are becoming visible.

A separate review by TheEnergyMag of 12 tracked companies identified approximately $1.1 billion in asset impairments and held-for-sale markdowns during the first half of 2026. IREN and Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ) accounted for almost 89% of the total.