
Gizmodo · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from RSS
Bitdeer's decision "should not be a concern for the broader market," it says.
Bitcoin miner Bitdeer has sold its remaining 943.1 bitcoin treasury holdings, pushing its corporate bitcoin balance to zero as of Friday. The liquidation capped an eight-week process that started from roughly 2,000 BTC at the end of 2025. In the final week alone the company also sold the 189.8 bitcoin it mined during that period. That said, Bitdeer Chairman and CEO Jihan Wu posted on X that holding zero bitcoin today does not necessarily mean the company will also hold zero bitcoin in the future. Alongside the sales, Bitdeer closed a $325 million convertible notes offering and a $43.5 million equity placement. The proceeds target powered land acquisitions, data-center expansions, and a broader pivot into artificial-intelligence and high-performance computing. As part of this push, Bitdeer will be converting some existing U.S. and European bitcoin mining sites for AI workloads. Our decision to sell Bitcoin should not be a concern for the broader market. We are currently evaluating multiple non-binding powered land acquisition opportunities, and we believe it is prudent to prepare liquidity now. Our hash rate will continue to grow, and we will continue… — Bitdeer (@BitdeerOfficial) February 23, 2026 On X, Bitdeer claimed it plans to also keep expanding its mining hashrate and that the sale “should not be a concern for the broader market.” The company is reviewing multiple non-binding powered land opportunities and believes holding cash now is prudent ahead of those commitments. Reactions on X reflected skepticism. CoinDesk senior analyst James Van Straten called the timing “panic selling at the lows,” noting Bitdeer had just raised fresh capital. Braiins CEO Eli Nagar argued better liquidity tools exist and said selling bitcoin, “the hardest asset,” should be the last option, not the first. This latest action fits a pattern that has played out across the bitcoin mining sector for more than a year. Companies have increasingly converted bitcoin holdings into cash to fund diversification efforts beyond the crypto sector. Cango provided the most recent high-profile example, selling 4,451 bitcoin for approximately $305 million in Tether’s USDT stablecoin. The proceeds paid down a bitcoin-collateralized loan, strengthened its balance sheet, lowered leverage, and supported entry into distributed AI computing infrastructure. Additionally, Riot Platforms sold about $200 million worth of bitcoin late last year to support operations and AI expansion. Activist investor Starboard Value, which holds about 12.7 million shares, recently pressed Riot to accelerate its AI and data-center push. In a February 18, 2026 letter, Starboard urged the company to urgently leverage its 1.7 gigawatts of available power capacity at Texas sites, noting that Riot’s shares have lagged peers with larger AI agreements. A number of other publicly-traded bitcoin miners have taken comparable steps toward AI diversification, while others, such as Bitfarms, have abandoned bitcoin mining entirely. Bitdeer’s AI pivot is particularly notable due to its long history in the space, as it was spun out from longtime bitcoin mining ASIC manufacturing giant Bitmain in 2021. The firm now holds the largest self-mining hashrate among public companies, according to JPMorgan analysts. Bitcoin itself has traded roughly 47% below its October all-time high near $125,000. Skeptics have questioned its digital-gold credentials as physical gold has held up better amid geopolitical flare-ups such as the Greenland tensions. Separate concerns around quantum-computing threats to cryptography and privacy have circulated, though industry insiders generally view quantum risks as distant and addressable through ongoing upgrades. Of course, lower bitcoin prices clearly squeeze miner revenue. Each facility’s production cost varies mainly by local electricity rates, so blanket average-cost estimates often miss the reality on the ground. A recent case in point came during Winter Storm Fern, when U.S. grids saw sharp price spikes from residential heating demand. Bitcoin network hashrate plunged from above 1,000 exahashes per second to roughly 687 exahashes during the storm before Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment algorithm restored normal block times. At the same time, some operators are turning mining’s waste heat into a revenue offset for heating applications. In Finland, Marathon Digital’s district-heating pilot expanded to serve nearly 80,000 residents by late 2024, with earlier phases covering more than 11,000 homes in a 67,000-person community. Similar projects capture ASIC exhaust to warm greenhouses in Canada and the Netherlands, power space heaters, and heat entire homes. The model effectively lets mining revenue subsidize the cost of generating usable heat. Going forward, it’s clear many datacenters are going to pivot anytime a more profitable venture pops up; however, those who keep their treasuries stocked with bitcoin are likely making long-term bets on the future of the potential global reserve asset.