Miners Sold 32K BTC in H1 as Difficulty Drops 15% — AI Pivot Accelerates
MARA sits 78% above its 52-week low of $6.66.
Summary
MARA and RIOT liquidated a combined 32,758 BTC in H1 2026, generating roughly $2.3B, while Bitcoin's network difficulty fell 15.1% YTD with ten downward adjustments. The selling is strategic, funding AI data center builds like MARA's $1.5B Long Ridge acquisition and RIOT's 191 MW Anthropic lease, not forced capitulation. Both miners reported massive Q2 losses—MARA $611M, RIOT over $150M—yet their stocks outperformed spot Bitcoin by wide margins as the market reprices them for AI infrastructure optionality. This confirms a structural decoupling: mining economics are deteriorating, but the companies are pivoting to power-intensive AI compute, permanently removing capacity from Bitcoin mining. Watch for further difficulty declines and BTC price recovery above $80K as key variables for mining profitability.
At the time of this announcement, MARA was trading at $11.82 on NASDAQ in the Crypto Assets sector, with a market capitalization of approximately $4.6B. The 52-week trading range was $6.66 to $23.45. This news item was assessed with negative market sentiment and an importance score of 8 out of 10. Source: Coinpedia.