The breakeven point for many miners, particularly those running older machines, is around $35. That gap, small as it looks on paper, is pushing a large chunk of the industry into the red.
That figure eclipses everything those same companies sold across all four quarters of 2025. It also surpasses the previous quarterly record of roughly 20,000 BTC, set during Q2 2022 when the collapse of the Terra-Luna ecosystem sent markets into a tailspin.
Miner Reserves Have Been Draining For Years At the close of that year, miners collectively held more than 1.86 million BTC. That number has since dropped to approximately 1.8 million. The trend is slow but steady — and the first quarter’s record sales may have accelerated it further.
Asset manager CoinShares, in its Q1 2026 Bitcoin Mining Report, warned that more pain could be coming. Higher-cost operators should expect continued capitulation in the first half of this year, the firm said, unless Bitcoin’s price stages a meaningful recovery.
Treasury Buyers Step In As Miners Step BackFeatured image from MetaAI, chart from TradingView
