Core Scientific is the latest in a line of bitcoin miners accelerating the shift toward AI, selling 1,900 BTC and indicating more to come.
Core Scientific expects to sell all of its bitcoin holdings in Q1 2026
Core Scientific has filed its annual report with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and it reveals key insights about the direction the company is currently taking.
Originally a company focused on Bitcoin mining, Core Scientific is one of the largest public miners in the world, but recently, the company has been moving into the AI computing business.
At the end of 2024, the company had a total computing power or “Hashrate” of 20.1 Ehas per second (EH/s). The 2025 annual report shows that this figure has dropped to 17.9 EH/s as the expansion of AI has occurred.
Not only that, the report also noted that Core Scientific expects to monetize essentially all of its Bitcoin holdings by 2026, with the majority of sales occurring in the first quarter. This sale has already begun, as the company announced in its Q4 2025 earnings that it sold more than 1,900 BTC worth $175 million in January.
Before the sale, the company had 2,537 BTC, but now that number is down to 630 BTC. Subject to the SEC filing, Core Scientific plans to eventually participate in these remaining tokens as well.
So where do the funds from selling BTC go? It seems that mining is not. The company stated in the application:
Apart from the miners received in 2025 and those expected from the Block, we do not expect to receive any new purchase agreements for Bitcoin mining equipment as we continue to allocate capital to the HDC infrastructure.
While Core Scientific has recovered its Hashrate through 2025, the company remains among the top 10 public BTC miners, according to BitcoinMiningStock. With expansion halted in favor of artificial AI, it remains to be seen how well the company will maintain its relevance as a miner.
How the BTC mining firms compare against each other in terms of operating Hashrate | Source: BitcoinMiningStock
The demand for high performance computing (HPC) business is actually something that is currently being observed throughout the Bitcoin mining industry. Bitdeer, Cango, and Bitfarms, which ranked in the top 10, fifth, and tenth, respectively, are all turning to data centers.
Bitfarms in particular plans to shut down its mining facilities between 2026 and 2027, signaling a complete exit from the space. Ben Gagnon, CEO of the company, believes that this helicopter is very profitable and explains:
With less than 1% of our total development portfolio, we believe that converting just our Washington site to GPU-as-a-Service could generate more net revenue than we’ve ever generated with Bitcoin mining.
BTC price
At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $68,200, up more than 6% over the past week.
Looks like the price of the coin has overall moved sideways over the last few days | Source: BTCUSDT on TradingView
Featured image from Dall-E, chart from TradingView.com
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