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A growing shift by public Bitcoin miners toward artificial intelligence infrastructure could increase the market supply of BTC, according to comments from Quinn Thompson of Lekker Capital. Thompson wrote on X that worsening mining economics and heavy capital needs for AI computing projects may push miners to sell bitcoin previously held as treasury assets.
He noted that listed miners hold nearly 80,000 BTC on their balance sheets. These reserves may become a funding source for new data centers and high-performance computing projects. His analysis followed a chart showing bitcoin holdings among public miners rising through 2024 and 2025 before declining in 2026.
Thompson argued that miners shifting resources to AI compute infrastructure may sell BTC to fund expansion while abandoning the strategy of holding large reserves. The argument focuses on near-term market pressure rather than long-term network damage.
Could the industry’s expensive shift toward artificial intelligence infrastructure create temporary selling pressure for Bitcoin?
Thompson described mining economics as a growing challenge for the sector. He wrote that lower profitability could eventually force a decline in global mining hash rate. He said early AI compute adopters already lead that shift. Companies including Core Scientific, TeraWulf, Cipher Mining, and Iris Energy have moved toward high-performance computing operations.
According to Thompson, the change could improve long-term mining economics because fewer operators may compete for rewards. Yet he also said the transition itself requires large capital spending. That funding need may force miners to liquidate bitcoin reserves.
He argued that companies building AI infrastructure must secure capital for new data centers, GPU clusters, and high-density computing facilities. At the same time, miners shifting away from BTC production may see little reason to keep large bitcoin holdings.
Corporate filings from 2025 provide evidence of that strategic shift. At Core Scientific, fourth-quarter results showed falling mining revenue and rising AI infrastructure income.
Self-mining revenue dropped to $42.2 million from $79.9 million one year earlier. Meanwhile, colocation revenue climbed to $31.3 million from $8.5 million. Management linked the change to a strategy that favors high-density data center colocation.
For the full year 2025, Core Scientific reported $402.5 million in proceeds from digital asset sales. The company ended the year with 2,537 BTC on its balance sheet. Meanwhile, TeraWulf reported a similar shift toward high-performance computing hosting.
The company said it secured more than $12.8 billion in long-term HPC customer contracts and expanded to 522 critical IT megawatts under contract. Even so, legacy mining activity still generated revenue as the transition progressed.
Fourth-quarter digital asset revenue reached $26.1 million, while HPC lease revenue totaled $9.7 million. Company data showed 1,496 BTC mined in 2025 and 1,500 BTC sold. Only three BTC remained on its balance sheet at year-end.
Other companies reported similar trends. Cipher Mining said it increased its focus on HPC operations during 2025. The firm also signed two tenants for 600 megawatts of data center capacity. During the same year, Cipher sold bitcoin worth about $214.7 million.
By year's end, the company classified $94.9 million of mining rigs at its Black Pearl site as held for sale after signing a sublease to convert the location to HPC infrastructure. Meanwhile, Iris Energy adopted a different treasury approach.
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The company reported nearly 99,900 GPUs installed or on order as of December 2025. It also said it usually liquidates all the bitcoin mined each day. As a result, the company held no BTC on its balance sheet at the end of 2025.
Another major miner, Marathon Digital Holdings, remains earlier in the transition. The company deployed its first ten AI racks at its Granbury facility in November 2025 and later announced an AI infrastructure partnership with Starwood. Still, Marathon holds the largest bitcoin treasury among listed miners.
Company disclosures showed it sold about 4,076 BTC for $413.1 million during 2025. Despite those sales, Marathon ended the year with roughly 53,822 BTC on its balance sheet.
Public bitcoin miners have begun shifting from traditional mining toward AI and high-performance computing infrastructure. Industry filings show rising capital needs and increasing bitcoin sales to fund these projects. As miners hold nearly 80,000 BTC, the transition may add market supply while the sector restructures its business model.
