Bitcoin mining companies, including Canaan and MARA, reported major losses as falling BTC prices, rising hashrate, and shrinking mining profits pressure the industry.
The Bitcoin mining industry is facing one of its hardest phases in recent years. Falling Bitcoin prices, rising mining difficulty, and lower profits are putting strong pressure on major mining companies. After dropping from its $126K high to around $76K, Bitcoin’s sharp fall has made mining less profitable.
As losses grow, some miners are now being forced to sell part of their BTC holdings just to keep operations running.
The biggest problem for miners right now is profitability. Over the past few years, competition inside the Bitcoin mining industry has intensified. Global Bitcoin network hashrate reached an all-time high of 1.25 zettahashes per second in late 2025 and remains extremely high in 2026 at around 933 EH/s.
That massive growth means miners now need significantly more computing power and electricity just to earn the same amount of Bitcoin rewards.
At the same time, mining revenue has dropped sharply.
According to Hashrate Index data, the daily revenue earned per unit of mining power has fallen more than 90% since its 2021 peak. Mining profitability dropped from around $0.400 per TH/s/day in 2021 to only $0.035 today.
As network difficulty continues increasing, the estimated cost to produce one Bitcoin for many corporate miners has climbed to nearly $86,944.
This is creating major financial stress across the entire sector, as the bitcoin price continues to trade around $77K.
One of the latest companies hit by the slowdown is Canaan, which reported a net loss of $88.7 million during the first quarter of 2026. The company’s revenue dropped heavily to $62.7 million compared to $196.3 million in the previous quarter.
Its mining equipment business, which remains the company’s biggest revenue source, fell nearly 75% during the quarter as demand weakened alongside Bitcoin prices.
Canaan also recorded a $25 million inventory write-down, which further increased losses.
Despite the difficult market, the company said its self-mining operations remained relatively stable. Canaan expanded its self-mining computing power to 11 exahashes per second, marking a 66% increase compared to last year.
The company also held around 1,808 Bitcoin worth roughly $121 million by the end of March.
However, investors reacted negatively to the earnings report. Canaan shares dropped more than 3.5% during trading and continued falling in pre-market activity afterward.
Canaan is not alone. Several of the industry’s largest mining companies also posted widening losses during the first quarter of 2026.
MARA Holdings reportedly reduced its Bitcoin treasury from 53,822 BTC in March to around 35,303 BTC by May 19. The company sold nearly $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin within one quarter to support operational costs and infrastructure expansion.
Other large miners, including Riot Platforms, Core Scientific, CleanSpark, and TeraWulf, also reported growing financial pressure during the quarter.
The situation is becoming so difficult that some miners are now selling large portions of their Bitcoin reserves just to fund operations.
As mining margins continue shrinking, many Bitcoin miners are now trying to diversify beyond crypto mining.
Several firms are entering artificial intelligence infrastructure and high-performance computing businesses to create alternative revenue streams.
Recently, HIVE Digital Technologies announced plans to build a 320-megawatt AI data center campus near Toronto capable of supporting over 100,000 GPUs once fully completed.
Industry analysts believe this trend could accelerate as miners search for more stable income sources outside Bitcoin mining.
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