Regulation Turns Energized Sites Into Scarce Assets as Miners Transition Away from Bitcoin
The listed mining sector fell below cash breakeven in aggregate during Q2 2026. Bitcoin's price ended the quarter at $58,400, roughly half its October 2025 all-time high. The hashrate declined by about 50% from trend due to a six-month slump following China's ban, while the monthly average hash price set an all-time low of $27.7/PH/s/day in June.
Three key themes emerged during Q2: miners paying to stop mining, regulation turning energized sites into scarce assets, and the premium being priced but revenue not yet materializing for companies with contracted AI or HPC capacity.
In the first theme, Core Scientific paid $41.9m to cancel 15 EH/s of next-generation Proto hardware. Keel ceased mining on June 29th and will record zero mining revenue in Q3, while at least 35 EH/s is scheduled to leave the publicly listed cohort as IREN and Cipher complete their exits.
In the second theme, regulation has become increasingly difficult for new data centre development, with at least 225 moratoriums or restrictions recorded across 30 states. New York became the first state to enact a statewide moratorium, pausing environmental permits for facilities of 50MW or more for one year.