Riot Platforms sold 3,778 Bitcoin during the first quarter of the year, generating $289.5 million at an average sale price of $76,626 per coin, according to an operational update released Thursday. The miner produced 1,473 Bitcoin over the same period and held 15,680 coins on its balance sheet at the end of Q1. Bitcoin was trading at $66,867 as of Friday. Blockchain intelligence platform Arkham separately flagged a 500 Bitcoin outflow from a wallet it attributed to Riot Platforms on Thursday.
The sales come amid a broader wave of Bitcoin liquidations across the crypto mining sector. In the past week alone, companies including MARA Holdings, Genius Group, and Nakamoto Holdings disclosed a combined sale of 15,501 Bitcoin, with the largest portion attributed to MARA. The trend reflects mounting financial pressure on miners navigating a difficult operating environment.
Blockchain developer, investor, and co-founder of AI company Compance, Kadan Stadelmann, attributes the selling pressure largely to rising energy costs. He links the increase in energy prices to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which escalated in February and has pushed oil prices higher while weighing on cryptocurrency markets and broader financial markets alike. Less efficient mining operations are being forced offline as a result of these compounding cost pressures.
Stadelmann predicts further capitulation among smaller or less efficient miners, which he says will ultimately benefit larger operators that remain active. As struggling miners go offline, the overall Bitcoin network hashrate and mining difficulty decline, making it easier and more profitable for those still operating to mine new coins. “This leads to a fall in hashrate and difficulty in Bitcoin mining. This makes it easier and more profitable to mine Bitcoins for those miners who remain online,” he said.
Data from CoinWarz shows that Bitcoin mining difficulty dropped from approximately 145 trillion to 133 trillion on March 20. The network hashrate has also declined since the start of the month, falling from 1.16 zettahash to around 990 exahash as of Friday. These figures reflect the contraction in active mining capacity across the industry.
Despite the current downturn, Stadelmann sees conditions that could reverse the trend. A decline in energy prices or a recovery in Bitcoin’s price could draw less efficient miners back into operation. He also noted that more efficient miners might expand through hardware investments or acquisitions of other mining operations, which could push hashrate and difficulty back upward. “Hashrate and difficulty could increase if efficient miners expand their operations as a result of the friendlier mining environment, possibly through investments in hardware or acquisitions of other miners,” he added.
Originally reported by CoinTelegraph.
