Public miners are unplugging hash faster than the network, and rebilling it as colocation

The publicly listed bitcoin mining cohort tracked by TheEnergyMag delivered a combined realized hashrate of 368.3 EH/s in the fourth quarter of 2025, 344.4 EH/s in the first quarter of 2026 and 319.0 EH/s in the second, a 13.4 percent decline in six months ^[1]. Over the same stretch the network's quarterly average went from 1,071 EH/s to 957 EH/s, a 10.6 percent fall ^[2], which means the listed operators shrank faster than the thing they are supposedly a levered bet on ^[3].

The reason is on the revenue lines. Core Scientific booked $136.7 million of colocation income in the second quarter against $27.5 million from bitcoin mining, with colocation reaching 83 percent of total sales, up from 67 percent the prior quarter ^[5]. That is roughly five times the mining number ^[7] and a 16 point shift in a single quarter ^[4]. TeraWulf reported $31.9 million of high-performance computing lease revenue, 71 percent of its total, against $12.8 million from mining ^[6]. For both companies, non-mining activity has already displaced bitcoin production as the primary revenue driver ^[7].

Elsewhere the transition is earlier. Riot Platforms recorded $23.2 million of data-center revenue against $113.7 million from mining ^[8], about 17 percent of those two lines combined ^[5]. Bitdeer took $14 million from AI cloud services against $197.1 million from mining-related operations ^[9], roughly 7 percent ^[6]. Hut 8 and MARA showed smaller compute contributions, and Cipher and Keel Infrastructure had not yet recognised any HPC revenue at all ^[10].

Three months earlier the arithmetic still balanced. Core Scientific, IREN, Cipher, TeraWulf and Keel were scaling back while Bitdeer, MARA, Riot and American Bitcoin absorbed the displaced share, leaving the cohort roughly flat ^[19]. That offset has now failed ^[14]. Strip out Bitdeer, which raised realized hashrate 44 percent to 63.0 EH/s on its own SEALMINER line ^[11][13], and the rest of the cohort fell 21.2 percent, from 324.6 EH/s to 255.9 EH/s ^[12] - double the network's rate of decline ^[3]. Bitdeer alone is now close to a fifth of the listed cohort's hash ^[2], and by June reported 73 EH/s of self-mining plus 15.9 EH/s of co-mining capacity and 990 bitcoin mined in the month, 388 percent more than a year earlier ^[13]. One company is carrying the category's growth statistics.

Cango shows how fast the exit can be. It entered mining in late 2024, deployed 50 EH/s during 2025, then began decommissioning less efficient machines, leasing hashrate out and relocating capacity to cheaper regions ^[15]. Realized hashrate went from 44.8 EH/s to 31.3 EH/s to an estimated 16.5 EH/s, down 63 percent in six months ^[16]. Keel Infrastructure finished decommissioning all of its US bitcoin mining in the second quarter to clear ground for data-center construction, with Canadian mining continuing through the phased transition ^[17].

The awkward part is the gap. Replacement revenue has not fully materialised ^[18], so investors holding these names are paying for capacity that no longer mines and does not yet bill a tenant. This cohort's post-2021 build was a response to China removing roughly half the network's hashrate, with the bottom at 57.5 EH/s in June 2021 before recovery by December ^[20]; that cycle is now unwinding.

Watch whether Cipher and Keel recognise their first HPC revenue, whether Bitdeer's SEALMINER expansion continues to mask cohort contraction, and whether index and screen providers keep classifying companies like Core Scientific and TeraWulf as miners when most of the money arrives from leases ^{[5][6][10][11]}.