Bitcoin miners sell BTC to fund gas plants and GPUs

Publicly traded Bitcoin miners are selling mined Bitcoin to finance AI-focused infrastructure, replacing ASIC rigs with GPUs, signing large multi-year contracts and acquiring power and land for data centers. Company filings and disclosures show a reallocation of capital from mining operations to GPU capacity and on-site power.

MARA Holdings on April 30 agreed to acquire Long Ridge Energy & Power for $1.5 billion, including $785 million in assumed debt. The purchase transfers a 505 MW natural gas plant in Hannibal, Ohio, and more than 1,600 acres of industrially permitted land intended for a data center campus. MARA expects to have a tenant lined up around the planned close in 2026 and filed a consent solicitation on May 7 to amend an indenture tied to $600 million of senior secured notes because the acquisition triggers a change-of-control clause. The company holds 38,689 BTC on its balance sheet.

IREN Limited reported Q3 FY26 revenue of $144.8 million, down 22% from the prior quarter, and disclosed $3.1 billion in annual recurring revenue under contract with a target of $3.7 billion by year-end. The company signed a five-year AI cloud agreement with NVIDIA valued at $3.4 billion. NVIDIA will supply air-cooled Blackwell GPUs to be installed inside 60 MW of existing data center space at IREN’s Childress, Texas facility beginning in early 2027. IREN also announced a 5 GW strategic partnership with NVIDIA on infrastructure design across its global power portfolio. Co-founder and co-CEO Daniel Roberts commented that the market faces a shortage of delivered data center and GPU capacity.

Smaller public miners are taking similar actions. DMG Blockchain Solutions reported mining 21 BTC in April, down from 23 BTC in March, and launched a subsidiary, DMG Infrastructure, to convert its Christina Lake site to AI and high-performance computing workloads. CEO Sheldon Bennett noted the site’s access to wholesale power at 3.5 to 5.0 Canadian cents per kilowatt-hour as a cost advantage during periods of lower Bitcoin prices. Bitdeer reported that BTC holdings separate from customer deposits are now zero, saying it mined 193.8 BTC and sold every coin produced. Cango Inc., which holds roughly 1,026 BTC, commercially launched an AI subsidiary, EcoHash, in April after selling about $305 million in Bitcoin to reduce debt and reset its balance sheet.

Company disclosures indicate deployments and builds are scheduled across 2026 and 2027, with GPU installations and data center buildouts timed to meet contract start dates. Some firms are repurposing existing data centers for AI workloads, while others are acquiring grid-connected power plants and large parcels of land to host new campuses.

Public filings show Bitcoin mining revenue has declined from prior highs, and companies have begun monetizing mined coins and balance sheet assets to fund capital expenditures for AI infrastructure. At the same time, large multi-year contracts for GPU-based compute have been reported by several firms seeking to supply AI cloud customers.