Riot Dumps Record $162M in Bitcoin as Hashprice Crisis Forces Largest-Ever Selloff
Riot Platforms has carried out the biggest bitcoin selloff in its historical past, dumping $161.6 million price of BTC in December as deteriorating mining economics compelled a pointy shift in treasury technique.
The sale got here regardless of Riot producing extra bitcoin month over month, displaying how stress from collapsing hashprice is now overriding the long-standing “hodl” method as soon as favored by massive public miners.
Riot Steps Up Bitcoin Sales as Hashprice Slumps to Five-Year Lows
The US-listed miner offered 1,818 bitcoin through the month at a mean web worth of $88,870, according to its newest manufacturing and operations replace launched on January 6.
That marked a 375% improve from November gross sales and pushed Riot’s bitcoin holdings right down to 18,005 BTC, in contrast with greater than 19,300 a month earlier. t
Despite producing 460 bitcoin in December, the corporate liquidated almost 4 instances that quantity, underlining the severity of the present profitability squeeze.
Average every day manufacturing rose barely to 14.8 BTC, whereas deployed hash charge climbed to 38.5 exahash per second in December, up 22% year-on-year, whereas common working hashrate rose to 34.9 EH/s.
The selloff comes as hashprice, a key measure of miner income per unit of computing energy, continues to hover close to $37 per petahash per second, near a five-year low.
While Bitcoin reached new all-time highs in 2025, rising community issue and relentless hashrate progress eroded margins throughout the business.
Glassnode knowledge shows complete community hashrate has slipped from round 1.1 zettahash per second to simply above 1 ZH/s, displaying that some miners are already capitulating or curbing operations.
Fleet effectivity improved to twenty.2 joules per terahash, down from 21.9 J/TH a yr earlier. Power prices remained aggressive at 3.9 cents per kilowatt hour, supported by $6.2 million in energy and demand response credit.
That would supply restricted short-term reduction, however the broader pattern stays difficult. Following the April 2024 halving, block rewards dropped to three.125 BTC per block, or roughly 450 BTC per day throughout the community.
Transaction charges contributed lower than 1% of income for a lot of 2025, leaving operators extremely uncovered to issue will increase.
As Mining Costs Soar, Bitcoin Miners Rethink Their Playbook
Bitcoin issue reached a document 155.98 trillion in October and at present sits close to 148.2 trillion, with solely a modest 3% decline anticipated in the subsequent adjustment.
Data from CoinShares reveals that in the second quarter of 2025, the typical direct money price to mine one bitcoin for public miners was about $74,600.
When non-cash bills such as depreciation are included, complete prices rise above $137,000. By late 2025, median “hash price” estimates urged many miners have been working at or beneath breakeven, even with environment friendly fleets and favorable energy contracts.
Riot’s determination to promote extra bitcoin relatively than maintain mirrors a broader shift amongst massive miners.
Throughout 2025, companies responded to stress by increasing hashrate, tightening prices, and more and more diversifying into synthetic intelligence and high-performance computing.
Firms like CleanSpark, TeraWulf, Cipher Mining, and Bitfarms have signed multi-year, multi-billion-dollar AI infrastructure deals, whereas others are repurposing whole mining websites.
@Bitfarms_io shares dropped 18% as it introduced a wind-down in $BTC operations to pivot to AI infrastructure after a $46M Q3 loss. #Bitcoin #AI https://t.co/3Q7tsldFzS
— Cryptonews.com (@cryptonews) November 14, 2025
Riot executives have beforehand mentioned the corporate now views mining as a option to monetize energy entry relatively than an finish in itself.
That logic is broadly shared throughout the sector, even as combination miner debt has surged, rising from about $2.1 billion to $12.7 billion over the previous yr as firms financed enlargement and diversification.
Riot additionally introduced that December can be its ultimate month-to-month manufacturing report. Going ahead, the corporate plans to offer quarterly updates targeted on broader enterprise efficiency, knowledge middle technique, and mining operations.
The submit Riot Dumps Record $162M in Bitcoin as Hashprice Crisis Forces Largest-Ever Selloff appeared first on Cryptonews.
