🔽 Miners are moving to AI: in six months they wrote down $1.1 billion, and bitcoin mining is declining
Public mining companies in the first half of 2026 wrote down about $1.1 billion in the value of their assets: they are reshaping their business and shifting capacity from mining bitcoin to artificial intelligence.
• SEC filings recorded 12 public companies. IREN and Core Scientific accounted for almost 89% of the total amount
• Miners shut down about 75 EH/s of hashrate (the computing power used to mine Bitcoin). The equipment behind this is estimated at roughly $1.5 billion. This is a separate estimate and it can’t be added to write-offs
• Miners’ revenue from AI and high-performance computing increased by 52% over the quarter
• Write-offs are an accounting entry, not an immediate loss of money. But building new data centers and servicing debt require real expenses
For Bitcoin holders, there’s no reason to panic: less than 10% of the network’s hashrate has been shut off, and mining difficulty adjusts automatically, so the network works as usual.
But there is a risk to the price: to pay for AI data-center construction, some miners may sell their accumulated Bitcoin.