Mining Weekly – The Great Bitcoin Mining Power Shift: Q1 Who Won?

This article originally appeared in Mining Weekly, Bloxbridge Consulting's weekly newsletter on energy, computing, infrastructure and data analytics from The Energy Mag. The original article can be viewed here.

BitcoinAverage network HashratePublicly based blockchain Data, decreased from approximately 985 EH/s in Q4 2025 to 873 EH/s in Q1 2026. Separately, TheEnergyMag compiled quarterly production statements from major publicly traded miners to calculate their respective earnings. Hashrate From rotating Bitcoin Product results.

At first glance, the overall change between the large public mines seems relatively modest. He realized the combination Hashrate Of the top 10 monitored by TheEnergyMag, it is expected to increase from 297 EH/s in Q4 2025 to 291 EH/s in Q1 2026. HIV and Cango (NYSE: CANG ) were excluded from the comparison because their first quarter production data was incomplete.

But beneath that seemingly stable aggregate figure was the redistribution of industry-standard hashing power.

Companies such as Core Scientific (NASDAQ: CORZ ), IREN , Cipher Digital (NASDAQ: CIFR ), TeraWulf (NASDAQ: WULF ) and Keel Infrastructure (NASDAQ: KEEL ) have fallen significantly. Hashrate While decommissioning or repurposing mining planes for AI and HPC infrastructure, others, including Bitdeer (NASDAQ: BTDR ), MARA (NASDAQ: MARA ) and American Bitcoin (NASDAQ: ABTC ), have expanded significantly to capture some of the displaced network share.

Among the biggest failures, IREN realized Hashrate It fell from 42.96 EH/s to 35.83 EH/s, while Sipper dropped from 16.55 EH/s to 11.14 EH/s after ceasing mining operations at its Black Pearl facility in February. Kell Infrastructure, formerly BitFarms, dropped from 16.52 EH/s to 11.51 EH/s as it sheds legacy mining operations and shifts to North American AI infrastructure.

CleanSpark (NASDAQ: CLSK ) saw a modest decline but indicated that it intends to continue generating revenue at the same rate. Bitcoin Infrastructure is picking up the possibilities of AI. Executives said the older ASIC fleet could eventually be sold or relocated once AI deployments are fully operational, although the company acknowledged that future site conversions could result in additional impairment charges.

In contrast, Riot Platforms (NASDAQ: RIOT ) has actually increased. Hashrate In the quarter from 34.21 EH / s to 42.29 EH / s. BitDeer rose from 43.20 EH/s to 50.26 EH/s on the power of SEALMINERS, MARA rose from 51.92 EH/s to 55.52 EH/s, despite simultaneous expansion efforts by their businesses around AI and HPC initiatives.

The differences highlighted a growing divide in the public mining sector, a shift that became particularly apparent in corporate filings and earnings calls, with several miners disclosing large-scale scrapping efforts, asset write-offs and mining infrastructure failures linked to AI conversions.

Core Scientific Mining Operations He announced that they will continue to decline in 2026. Bitcoin mining By the end of the year, the company will prioritize CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV )'s large-scale colocation infrastructure. The company recorded an impairment charge of $266.5 million in Q1 2026, with $151.6 million related to mining equipment and $114.9 million related to mining infrastructure.

Sipper Digital has separately disclosed $30.8 million worth of mining holdings held for sale after ceasing Black Pearl mining operations. Terawolf owned about 54,100. Bitcoin As of March 31, miners, but only about 35,500, were employed at the Lake Marine campus. The remaining approximately 18,600 miners are under maintenance, awaiting disposal, or are assigned to replace units under repair.

Instead of keeping idle equipment in times of poor economics, operators are constantly repurposing substation cooling systems and data center layouts for AI deployments. Once the infrastructure changes for GPU workloads, it's likely to revert back quickly. Bitcoin mining.

American BitcoinOne of the few companies still expanding its mining fleet, he argued, the transition could create a long-term opportunity for commitment. Bitcoin Miners are willing to keep scaling when competitors activate fleets.

In the year The company increased its fleet capacity from 25 EH/s to 28.1 EH/s in April following the restart of the Drumheller site, which remains offline from 2024. Much of the offline growth from 2024, like 2025, has been financed through an unconventional structure it has promised. bitcoin Instead of cash to acquire new generation ASIC miners from Bitmain.

As of March 31, 2026, ABTC has pledged a total of 3,090 bitcoin Purchase to Bitmain for 18 EH/s of computing power, which alone represents nearly 64% of ABTC's 28.1 EH/s proprietary mining fleet. ABTC Mining 817 bitcoin In Q1 2026, it was up 505% from a year ago. At the current rate of production, and in consideration Bitcoin network Hashrate It is somewhat stable, the company can theoretically return as much as it originally promised. bitcoin About six quarters container.

If the network hashrate continues to decrease as industrial miners activate more hashrate to channel the AI ​​infrastructure, ABTC's turnaround time in bitcoin's case could accelerate as the remaining miners capture a larger share of the reward.

Overall, the ongoing migration has changed the financial logic of industrial mining. In previous downturn cycles, miners often pulled plugs because falling bitcoin prices or rising energy costs made operations uneconomical. In the year By 2026, however, miners are shutting down fleets because AI infrastructure has more stable long-term cash flows, stronger financial conditions, and higher expected returns on energy potential.

It will be worth watching how the dynamics play out in the coming quarters. But now the system is balanced.