Core Scientific, a leading US-based Bitcoin mining firm, has announced plans to liquidate nearly its entire Bitcoin holdings throughout 2026, marking a sharp pivot from cryptocurrency accumulation to a focus on artificial intelligence infrastructure. Closing out 2025 with a balance of around 2,537 BTC, the company moved swiftly in January, offloading 1,900 BTC for approximately $175 million in revenue. Management aims to redirect this capital into a new portfolio of AI data centers with a total planned capacity reaching 1.5 gigawatts, and is targeting $10 billion in contracted income from its new ventures.
Diverging Institutional Sales Strategies
Unlike many in its sector, Core Scientific has opted to aggressively monetize its Bitcoin assets instead of holding them as a long-term investment. The company’s BTC balance dropped dramatically—from 2,537 coins at the end of 2025 to roughly 630 BTC after its January sale. Sales will continue through the first quarter of 2026, with the aim of fully liquidating its remaining reserves.
This stands in stark contrast to the approach of Michael Saylor’s firm, which added 3,015 BTC to its balance sheet during the same period. Both companies remain high-profile players in corporate Bitcoin portfolios, yet their philosophies couldn’t be more different: while one buys the dip, the other is cashing in its entire position to fund GPU clusters. The differences in institutional Bitcoin strategies are especially pronounced during this transition period.
A Radical Shift in Revenue Strategy
Core Scientific’s revenues from mining have fallen by 40% year-over-year, leading to a loss of $0.42 per share in the last quarter of 2025. Factors such as the most recent Bitcoin halving and a rising global hash rate have squeezed profit margins across the board. Additionally, the drop in Bitcoin’s price below $126,000 has intensified operational pressures on miners.
In response, Core Scientific has set its sights on the high-potential artificial intelligence data center market, where it estimates $10 billion in contracted revenue potential. The company’s partnership with CoreWeave, a specialist in high-density computing, involves transforming existing mining sites into facilities tailored for AI. By repositioning itself, Core Scientific is moving away from the shrinking profitability of Bitcoin mining and towards the rapidly expanding AI sector.
“We do not see our Bitcoin reserve as a core company asset but rather a byproduct of mining operations. Funding $10 billion in contracted demand by liquidating these reserves is an easy decision,” Core Scientific management explained in an official statement.
Miners Pivot Toward AI as New Growth Engine
Core Scientific intends to reach a rentable energy capacity of 1.5 gigawatts by 2028, dedicating this entire infrastructure to AI initiatives over time. This move places the company alongside tech giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google in the AI data center race. Other leading miners are similarly rethinking their strategies: Riot Platforms, for instance, is building new sites in partnership with AMD, while MARA Holdings has started selling Bitcoin to fund its own AI investments.
Across the industry, miners are increasingly channeling their energy resources into AI centers, financing this shift by selling off their Bitcoin inventories. Yet the approaches are varied: Core Scientific is rapidly liquidating all its reserves, MARA takes a more measured “as-needed” sales approach, while Riot opts for equity issuance to raise operational funds.
Market Impact: Institutional Sales and Price Pressures
Core Scientific’s big January sale—1,900 BTC at an average of roughly $92,000 per coin—wasn’t individually decisive for the market, but contributed to broader supply-side pressures from institutional selling. That same month, Bitcoin’s value slid by 10.1%, marking one of the weakest stretches in its recent decline. While the direct effect of Core Scientific’s offload is hard to isolate, it formed part of the cumulative sell-side forces shaping the marketplace.
