PANews reported on April 17th, citing Cointelegraph, that publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies, including MARA, CleanSpark, Riot, Cango, Core Scientific, and Bitdeer, sold over 32,000 Bitcoins in the first quarter of 2026, exceeding the total sales volume for the entire year of 2025 and setting a new record for single-quarter mining company sales. The previous record was 20,000 Bitcoins sold during the Terra-Luna crash in the second quarter of 2022. Currently, the hashrate price has fallen to a historic low of below $35 per PH/s per day, with the level of approximately $33 leaving about 20% of miners operating at a loss. Miners face multiple pressures, including rising hashrate, halving of block rewards, and macroeconomic headwinds.

CryptoQuant data shows that the total amount of Bitcoin held by miners has decreased from 1.86 million at the end of 2023 to approximately 1.8 million currently. CoinShares predicts that unless the price of Bitcoin rebounds significantly, high-cost miners will further exit the market in the first half of 2026. In contrast, Bitcoin treasury companies such as Strategy continue to buy.