11-12-2026 
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TL;DR: Bitcoin miners’ Q3 results show ASIC demand has collapsed as operators pivot to AI and HPC. MARA sold 40,581 BTC this year, Bitdeer posted a $125.5 million loss, Canaan faces Nasdaq delisting, Hive is holding off on expansion, and TeraWulf plans to exit mining by 2027.
Key Takeaways:
- MARA says mining is still core and is “taking advantage” of cheap ASICs, despite selling 40,581 BTC this year.
- Bitdeer says it has no plans to get into the ZCash mining rig business and posted a $125.5 million Q3 loss despite record revenue.
- Canaan says its ASIC business is “undergoing profound structural changes” after a 96% drop in sales.
- Hive says “nothing significant” is planned for mining expansion.
- Farewell, TeraWulf: mining revenue fell 70% as it prepares to exit mining by 2027.
Profits remain elusive for block reward mining operators, but pour one out for the poor sods who keep making ASIC mining rigs despite nobody being remotely interested in buying them.
No public company has sold more BTC this year than MARA (NASDAQ: MARA), which unloaded 40,581 BTC as of November 10 for a total return of over $3 billion. MARA once boasted a BTC treasury of some 53,250 tokens, but this fell to 34,012 at the end of Q3, and the company reduced this stack by another 13,597 in the current quarter.
MARA borrowed heavily to buy a lot of its BTC, much of it obtained at a significantly higher price than its current value. MARA used $750 million of the $1.1 billion generated by its Q4 sales to pay off its BTC-collateralized loans.
As of September 30, MARA’s remaining BTC was worth about $135 million more than its cost basis, but BTC is currently trading ~$10,000 below its September 30 price, so that treasury is almost certainly underwater at present.
While MARA is among the legions of miners ‘pivoting’ hard toward serving as data centers for artificial intelligence (AI) and other high-performance computing (HPC) clients, it insists that mining “remains a core business.”
Total Q3 revenue hit $164.2 million, down 35% year-on-year, with mining block rewards accounting for nearly $145 million (-37%) of that sum. Pool mining and hosting revenues added $14.6 million (-13%) while ‘other’ revenue fell nearly 4% to $4.8 million.
Despite this overall negative direction, MARA booked a Q3 profit of $632 million, five times the profit from the same period last year. But that includes $885 million in fair-value gains on its remaining BTC, and as noted above, those gains could turn negative once Q4 is in the books.
MARA mined 2,247 BTC in Q3, up 5% year-on-year. The company says it will “continue to modernize” its fleet of mining ASIC rigs “where the gain in efficiency and the expected payback justify the investment.” On the analyst call, MARA CEO Fred Thiel said the company has been “taking advantage of the extremely low pricing of Bitcoin mining hardware today” to engage in this modernization.
However, MARA will “direct power to the use that offers the best risk-adjusted return. At some sites, that will remain Bitcoin mining. At others, contracted AI/HPC infrastructure may be the better long-term use.”
As for MARA’s rapidly diminishing BTC treasury, CFO Salman Khan called BTC “a strategic asset for us and we’re utilizing it methodically.” That includes paying down debt, funding acquisitions, and share buybacks, the latter of which is particularly relevant as the company recently announced a repurchase program of up to $500 million.
MARA’s share price got an immediate boost following the release of its results, rising from ~$6.50 to over $7.50. MARA closed Wednesday at $7.66 (+4.4%), although it remains down nearly 13% since the year began.
Bitdeer: ASIC sales abysmal, but no plans to start making ZCash rigs
MARA lost its mining hash rate crown to rival Bitdeer (NASDAQ: BTDR) earlier this year because Bitdeer manufactures ASICs. With fewer customers for its SEALMINER rigs, Bitdeer has opted to use them to self-mine, with effective results.
Bitdeer reported record revenue of $320.7 million in Q3, up 40% from Q2’s figure and 89% better than the same period last year. The total number of BTC mined in Q3 was 3,855, up from 2,694 in Q2 and from just 1,109 in Q325.
The bulk of Bitdeer’s revenue ($217.5 million) came via putting all those surplus ASICs to work in its self-mining operations. But running all those extra rigs costs money, and gross profit from Bitdeer’s self-mining was just $6.2 million. Meanwhile, ASIC hardware sales fell to just $300,000, 25% below Q2’s figure and 97% below Q325’s $11.4 million.
Bitdeer’s nascent AI Cloud operations contributed $20.4 million, a decent rise from Q2’s $14 million. But rising interest costs and fair value changes on both digital asset loans and derivative instruments resulted in Bitdeer booking a net loss of $125.5 million in Q3, one-third higher than Q2 and quadruple its Q325 loss.
With AI buildouts underway in Norway, Malaysia and elsewhere, Bitdeer has been plundering its BTC treasury and selling newly mined BTC as fast as it comes in. Bitdeer held just 47 BTC as of September 30, down from 2,029 tokens one year prior. Combined with sales of mined BTC, Bitdeer has sold ~10,500 tokens so far this year.
On the analyst call, Bitdeer CEO Jihan Wu admitted feeling “a little bit uncertain after the midterm election” regarding in-development data center projects in America, including its Rockdale, Texas site. But Wu expressed hope that “eventually lots of the data centers will still get permission from the local community to go, to start.” The delays could mean “a little bit higher cost … but I think that’s fair.”
Asked about the future of its SEALMINER business, Wu offered a somewhat cryptic response, saying Bitdeer would “continue to invest into the expansion of our mining operations. I think next year we will slow down a little bit on the pace of investing new capital, but we will continue to expand our mining operations.”
Asked whether Bitdeer might follow rival manufacturer Bitmain by expanding into producing rigs to mine the ZCash (ZEC) token, Wu said “we have no plan” for that. Despite ZCash mining being highly profitable at present, Wu said “the competition for the ZCash mining, I think, will also be very fierce. Lots of potential new ZCash mining rig developers are already in the market … I think to strategically give up ZCash is good for us.”
Canaan in last-ditch bid to avoid Nasdaq delisting
Another miner/manufacturer, Canaan Inc. (NASDAQ: CAN), is also playing ‘Where’s Waldo?’ in terms of locating customers for its ASIC rigs. The ‘products revenue’ segment of Canaan’s Q3 results shows revenue of just $4.8 million, down from $13.6 million in Q2 and an Everest-level tumble from Q325’s $118.6 million.
On the analyst call, Canaan CEO Nangeng Zhang acknowledged the 96% year-on-year sales decline, saying the “mining hardware industry is undergoing profound structural changes.” Between weak demand, elevated inventories, and advanced chip competition from AI operators, “even higher performing next-generation mining machines may be difficult to produce at a reasonable cost and generate adequate commercial returns.”
Zhang said higher prices for BTC in Q3 “have not translated sufficiently into new equipment orders. Customers remain very focused on payback periods and the current mining returns and the equipment price are not yet attractive enough to support large-scale new purchases.”
Zhang said Canaan’s ‘next generation’ ASICs already in development “are sufficient to meet market needs over the next several years.” This will allow Canaan to “significantly reduce ongoing R&D spending on new products while retaining the ability to begin mass production when commercial conditions are appropriate.”
Asked what specific market conditions would need to occur for Canaan to start mass production, Zhang hedged, saying only that the company would “pursue economically attractive mining equipment opportunities while directing more resources towards energy and AI/HPC infrastructure.”
Canaan’s Q3 mining revenue also took it on the chin, falling by nearly half from Q2 to $9.5 million. Total revenue was $14.5 million, down from nearly $32 million in Q2 and from $150.5 million in Q325. Sadly, operating expenses were down a more modest ~15%, resulting in an operating loss of $43 million.
However, the revived fortunes of the BTC in Canaan’s treasury pulled its butt out of this fire, resulting in a net profit of $8 million. Canaan finished the quarter with 1,875 tokens in its kitty, but this tally is set to take a tumble due to Canaan’s pressing financial needs.
For a year now, Canaan has been trying to get back in the good books of Nasdaq, which requires companies to maintain a minimum $1 share price. Canaan has until January 11, 2027, to regain that price, but multiple rounds of share buybacks have failed to move that needle. Canaan shares closed Wednesday at $0.18 (+10%), only slightly above their all-time low of $0.15.
On November 10, Canaan announced two new Hail Marys, including another $20 million round of buybacks, part of a recently approved program that could see Canaan spend $100 million repurchasing its stock over the next 12 months. There’s also a reverse stock split that translates into exchanging every existing 25 advanced depositary shares (ADS) for one ADS. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Loudly.
Hive says “nothing significant” planned for mining expansion
Hive Digital (TSXV: HIVE) bucked the downward trend by reporting revenue of $84.9 million in its fiscal Q2, 7.3% better than its Q1 report. Mining revenue was up 5.5% to $76 million, as BTC production totaled 1,070, some 66 more than Q1. While Hive sold 3,056 BTC this year, the value of the remaining tokens on Hive’s books more than doubled in the past six months.
Three months ago, CEO Aydin Kilic said, “100% of our growth is in HPC and AI,” adding that while Hive’s Q1 revenue split was 10% AI and 90% mining, that split would be 40/60 “within the next few months.”
It didn’t quite turn out that way. Hive’s Q2 HPC revenue, generated by its BUZZ offshoot, totaled $8.8 million. While that’s nearly one-quarter better than Q1 and up nearly three-quarters year-on-year, it’s still only 10.3% of the total.
Worse, rising operating costs, as well as $55 million in depreciation and $31.2 million in equipment impairment charges, resulted in an operating loss of $78.5 million and a net loss of $78.7 million for the quarter.
On the analyst call, Kilic was asked whether Hive was still interested in expanding its mining operations. Kilic said it was “really a function of ROI [return on investment] … if the price of an ASIC is attractive enough where you’re going to realize a net ROI after electrical costs of 12 months … right now, our capacity is full globally … So we wouldn’t really be expanding per se.”
But Kilic added that “if there are small orders that are very attractively priced, I mean we’re talking $3 a terahash, then doing a small order to replace some older machines in existing infrastructure, but that’s just more being opportunistic and not like … we’re talking maybe $100,000 spend. So nothing significant.”
Och, Terawulf, we hardly knew ye
TeraWulf (NASDAQ: WULF) is doing just a little better than Hive at flipping its revenue mix. TeraWulf reported revenue of $76.2 million in Q3, up more than 50% year-on-year. But mining accounted for just $13.2 million, down 70% year-on-year, while HPC lease revenue rose nearly ninefold to $63 million.
TeraWulf is on record saying it expects to be effectively done with mining once the calendar flips to 2027, so you won’t be surprised that neither ‘mining’ nor ‘Bitcoin’ received any mention whatsoever on the company’s analyst call. And while nearly all miners, even those pivoting hard, have seen their share prices fall since this year began, TeraWulf is up over 16%. It’s almost as if they know something.
FAQs:
Why are Bitcoin miners selling BTC?
To pay down debt, fund AI and HPC buildouts, and buy back shares. MARA has sold 40,581 BTC this year, and Bitdeer held just 47 BTC as of September 30.
Is MARA still mining Bitcoin?
Yes. MARA calls mining a core business and mined 2,247 BTC in Q3. It’s also shifting some sites to AI and HPC.
Why are ASIC sales falling?
Weak demand, high inventories, and long payback periods. Canaan’s hardware sales fell 96% year-on-year, and Bitdeer sold just $300,000 in ASICs.
Will Bitdeer make ZCash mining rigs?
No. CEO Jihan Wu said Bitdeer has “no plan” to make ZCash rigs, citing fierce competition.
Will Canaan be delisted from Nasdaq?
Possibly. Shares closed at $0.18, and Canaan must reach $1 by January 11, 2027. It’s trying buybacks and a 1-for-25 reverse split.
Is TeraWulf leaving Bitcoin mining?
Yes. TeraWulf expects to exit mining by 2027, as HPC revenue reached $63 million and mining revenue fell 70%.
Watch: Bitcoin Mining Meets AI at Mining Disrupt 2025
