Public Bitcoin miners sold more BTC in the first quarter of2026 than in all of 2025, as low margins forced many operators to liquidatereserves to cover operating costs.Singapore Summit: Meet the largest APAC brokers you know (and those you still don't!).The surge in sales comes even though bitcoin’s price remainsabove the previous cycle peak, underscoring how rising difficulty and lowerblock rewards have squeezed profitability across the sector.Record BTC Sales as Hashprice SlumpsPublicly traded miners including Marathon, CleanSpark, Riot,Cango, Core Scientific and Bitdeer sold more than 32,000 BTC in Q1 2026, basedon preliminary disclosures and data compiled by TheEnergyMag.This already exceeds total net sales for all of 2025 andsurpasses the roughly 20,000 BTC miners sold in Q2 2022 during theTerra-Luna-driven market turmoil. Just over a year ago, the same group ended2024 by adding nearly 17,600 BTC to their balance sheets, pushing combinedreserves above 100,000 BTC.You may also like: EU Seeks Larger “European Champions”; CFD Brokers Already Leading the WayThe driver of the reversal is mining economics, not spotprice. Hashprice, expected mining revenue per unit of computing power, hashovered in the low 30 dollars per PH/s/day, near record lows. At those levels,margins are thin or negative for operators with older machines or higher powercosts, making BTC sales the fastest way to fund operations and meet debtobligations in a tougher financing environment.The industry, however, is not moving in one direction. Somefirms now sell aggressively to maintain liquidity, while others continue toaccumulate. American Bitcoin Corp.Bitdeer #BTC Weekly Update🔹 BTC Holdings: 0 (pure holdings, excluding customer deposits)🔹 BTC Output: 189.8 BTC🔹 BTC Sold: 189.8 BTC🔹 Net BTC Added: -943.1 BTC📅 Data as of February 20, 2026.#Bitcoin #BTC #BitcoinHoldings #BitcoinCommunity #BTCMining $BTDR pic.twitter.com/vtvBVEui0Q— Bitdeer (@Bitdeer) February 21, 2026ABTC, the proprietary mining arm of Hut 8,has built reserves of more than 7,000 BTC since early 2025 while ramping itsproprietary hashrate to about 28 EH/s. The company reports an all-in cash costnear 55,000 dollars per bitcoin, giving it room to hold production rather thansell into weakness.Miners Split Between Sellers and AccumulatorsElsewhere, private operators with ultra-low-cost power, suchas those using flared natural gas, continue to mine profitably even at currenthashprice levels. At the same time, miners are increasingly turning to softwaretools and fleet optimization to squeeze more efficiency from existing hardware,rather than relying solely on large-scale expansions.In one classic case, Bitdeer shifted from holding Bitcoin onits balance sheet to using it primarily as a source of liquidity. In January2026, the Singapore-based miner produced 668 BTC, a 430% year‑on‑year increase,and pushed its self‑mining hash rate to 63.2 EH/s, with total proprietary hashrate at 65.1 EH/s. Around the sametime, other miners are following the same path, with Riot Platforms sellingabout 200 million dollars’ worth of bitcoin to finance its day-to-dayoperations and support its expansion into artificial intelligence.This article was written by Jared Kirui at www.financemagnates.com.