Publicly traded Bitcoin miners have mostly stopped selling their coins. On-chain data suggests they are holding now, and the reason looks less like market panic and more like a structural shift.
Over the past six months, public miners cut their realized hashrate by 15 percent. That equals roughly 56 EH/s of computing power taken offline. This was not the usual kind of capitulation. Companies are shifting resources toward high-performance computing and AI infrastructure instead.
The Biggest Unplug
Charts describing the Biggest Unplug show Cango and IREN led the move during the first half of the year. Cango disconnected 29.5 EH/s. IREN followed with 21.9 EH/s. Together, they account for 68 percent of the total decline among public companies. Cipher, Riot, TeraWulf, and CleanSpark also recorded drops.
None of this is cheap. Industry-wide spending on repurposing data centers for AI has passed $30 billion. The six largest infrastructure providers have spent nearly 15 times their operating revenue on this transition. That gap is enormous. I suspect it also explains the odd selling pattern we saw over the summer.
A Short Burst of Selling
CryptoQuant data shows the Miner Position Index, or MPI, jumped to 2.8 in August as Bitcoin prices rose. That level usually signals widespread profit-taking to cover costs. Miners needed cash for AI equipment, so they sold into strength.
But once the main purchases were covered, the selling stopped. Fresh Bitfinex exchange data for September 2026 shows the MPI has fallen to -1.2. That is well below the annual average. The flow of BTC from miner wallets to exchanges has nearly dried up. The earlier surge was a one-off event, not a new pattern.
What This Means
For the market, this is a meaningful signal. Miners are no longer flooding exchanges with extra coins. They have settled into their positions and appear willing to wait for better prices. Supply pressure has faded, at least for now.
There are still questions. The AI pivot carries real costs, and not every miner will handle that burden the same way. But the on-chain picture right now is fairly clear. After spending heavily on supercomputers and repurposed facilities, these companies no longer need to sell Bitcoin to fund the next stage. They paused. That alone is worth paying attention to.
