Publicly listed / traded Bitcoin mining companies have reportedly reduced their dedicated computational capacity more rapidly than the broader network, as a growing number shift electricity and data-center resources toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing applications.
This development signals that many operators are prioritizing more predictable income streams over traditional cryptocurrency production.
Three months earlier, analysis had shown a redistribution of power within the sector.
Firms including Core Scientific, IREN, Cipher Digital, TeraWulf, and Keel Infrastructure were scaling back Bitcoin operations, while Bitdeer, MARA, Riot Platforms, and American Bitcoin absorbed much of the displaced share, keeping the overall public cohort roughly stable. Second-quarter results, however, indicate that this equilibrium is eroding.
Operators continuing to reduce exposure kept decommissioning equipment, yet fewer peers expanded sufficiently to offset the losses.
At the same time, colocation and related revenues climbed markedly among those furthest advanced in the transition.Core Scientific recorded $136.7 million in colocation income during the second quarter—nearly five times its $27.5 million from Bitcoin mining—accounting for 83 percent of total sales, up from 67 percent in the prior quarter.
TeraWulf followed a parallel path, with high-performance computing lease revenue reaching $31.9 million, or 71 percent of overall revenue, against $12.8 million from mining.
For these two companies, non-mining activities have already surpassed Bitcoin production as the primary revenue driver.
Elsewhere in the sector the shift remains less advanced: Riot Platforms reported $23.2 million in data-center revenue versus $113.7 million from mining, while Bitdeer generated $14 million from AI cloud services compared with $197.1 million from mining-related operations.
Hut 8 and MARA showed smaller contributions from compute services, and Cipher and Keel Infrastructure had not yet begun recognizing high-performance computing revenue.
Drawing on an expanded set of public miners and updated network data, TheEnergyMag calculates that the tracked cohort delivered a combined realized hashrate of 368.3 EH/s in the fourth quarter of 2025, 344.4 EH/s in the first quarter of 2026, and 319.0 EH/s in the second quarter—a 13.4 percent decline over six months.
The Bitcoin network’s quarterly average fell from 1,071 EH/s to 993 EH/s and then to 957 EH/s, a 10.6 percent reduction.
Public companies therefore contracted faster than the network as a whole.
In the first quarter, expansion by a few operators largely masked the scale of shutdowns elsewhere; by the second quarter those offsets proved insufficient.
Bitdeer provided the largest counterweight, increasing its realized hashrate 44 percent from the fourth quarter to the second quarter to reach 63.0 EH/s.
Excluding Bitdeer, the remaining cohort’s realized hashrate declined 21.2 percent, from 324.6 EH/s to 255.9 EH/s.
Bitdeer’s growth stemmed from its proprietary SEALMINER production line; by June the company reported 73 EH/s of self-mining capacity and 15.9 EH/s of co-mining capacity, producing 990 Bitcoin in the month—388 percent more than a year earlier.
MARA and American Bitcoin also continued to expand, yet their gains could not fully compensate for reductions at Cango, Cipher, Keel, Core Scientific, TeraWulf, and IREN.Cango illustrates the speed of the economic shift.
After entering Bitcoin mining in late 2024 and deploying 50 EH/s during 2025, the firm began decommissioning less efficient machines, leasing hashrate, and relocating capacity to lower-cost regions.
Its realized hashrate dropped from 44.8 EH/s in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 31.3 EH/s in the first quarter; estimates place second-quarter capacity near 16.5 EH/s—a 63 percent reduction in six months.
Keel Infrastructure advanced further, completing the decommissioning of all US Bitcoin mining operations in the second quarter ahead of data-center construction, while Canadian mining continues during the phased transition.
Replacement revenue has yet to materialize fully.Viewed over a longer horizon, the second-quarter data underscores the unwinding of the post-China expansion cycle.
China’s 2021 mining ban temporarily removed roughly half the network’s computing power, with hashrate bottoming at 57.5 EH/s in June 2021 before miners relocated and the network recovered by December.
The United States became the dominant hub, prompting an institutional build-out in which public miners raised capital, secured power sites, and ordered successive generations of ASICs, eventually driving the network past one zettahash per second.
Only one halving has occurred since that expansion.
Now, machines and electrical infrastructure accumulated during the post-China race are being idled, impaired, or depreciated so that power can be reassigned to GPUs.
The industry expanded at substantial cost, only for some of its most prominent operators to begin dismantling capacity after a single halving cycle. Unlike the China ban, the present contraction lacks a single dramatic catalyst; it arises from the combination of weak mining economics and a competing demand for capital and electricity.