Bitdeer miners enter the 9 J/TH era, MARA fully shifts to AI infrastructure, and mining companies experience a Q1 cash reserve sell-off wave

ME News News, April 8 (UTC+8), according to BBX Cryptocurrency Concept Stock Information Disclosure, yesterday the global cryptocurrency market experienced an extremely real and brutal “structural clearing.” As the entire network hash rate recorded its first quarterly negative growth in six years, the survival logic of leading mining companies has been completely torn apart: one faction pushes the energy efficiency ratio to physical limits through self-developed chips, while the other chooses to sell off Bitcoin reserves on a large scale to exchange for fiat currency, fully transitioning to AI computing power centers (HPC).

【Core Dynamic Highlights】

• Historic leap in energy efficiency ratio: Bitdeer Technologies Group (NASDAQ: $BTDR) officially released the SEALMINER A4 series mining machines (covering water-cooled and air-cooled versions) equipped with their self-developed SEAL04 chips yesterday. Its flagship model A4 Ultra Hydro achieves a maximum hash rate of 886 TH/s, with a historic breakthrough in energy efficiency ratio to 9.45 J/TH. This marks the industry’s official entry into the “single-digit energy consumption era,” creating a significant performance gap over existing mining machines.
• AI transition and hash rate loss: Influenced by the entire industry’s rush towards AI, Bitcoin’s total network hash rate decreased by 4% in Q1 2026, a rare decline in the first quarter over the past six years. MARA Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: $MARA) has been active recently, not only announcing a joint venture with Starwood Digital Ventures to transform mining farms into AI/HPC data centers but also completing a 64% acquisition of French data center company Exaion. Its aggressive AI transition caused the stock to rise against the trend to $8.85 yesterday.
• Leading mining companies’ treasury blood loss: Financial reports show that Riot Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: $RIOT) sold a total of 3,778 BTC in Q1 2026, far exceeding its mining output of only 1,473 BTC for the quarter. As of now, its BTC holdings have shrunk from 19,233 BTC at the same period last year to 15,680 BTC. The company stated that the sales are to cope with ongoing capital expenditures (CapEx).
• Cross-sector capital strategy retreat: Cango Inc. (NYSE: $CANG), which made a high-profile crossover into mining 16 months ago, has undergone a 180-degree turn in its treasury strategy. Recent disclosures show that the company has sold more than half of its Bitcoin reserves (original holdings of about 7,528 BTC), officially shifting from a “HODL” mode to liquidation and exit.
• Breaking the compliance privacy mining barrier: The world’s largest Bitcoin mining pool, Foundry USA, owned by Foundry Digital, announced yesterday that it will officially launch a Zcash (ZEC) institutional mining pool in April. The pool is designed for listed companies and requires KYC/AML review. This is Foundry’s first expansion beyond Bitcoin, directly driving a new round of pricing for privacy coins in the institutional sector. (Source: BBX)