U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs recorded $996 million of net inflows over the week, their strongest weekly intake since mid-January and a sharp turn from March's outflow-dominated stretch. The rebound was led by a late-week rush of buying, highlighted by a $663.9 million single-day inflow, as institutional investors rotated back into risk assets amid easing macro pressures and a softer dollar. Total assets across Bitcoin ETFs have now topped $100 billion, pointing to reaccelerating institutional demand for Bitcoin exposure after a volatile start to the year.

Bitcoin exchange-traded funds recorded $996 million in net inflows over the past week, marking the highest weekly total since mid-January.

Publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies sold more than 32,000 BTC in the first quarter of 2026, the largest quarterly liquidation on record based on Miner Weekly's analysis. The amount already exceeds the net BTC sold across all of 2025, even as several miners have yet to release complete first-quarter disclosures. Large operators cited in the selloff include MARA, CleanSpark, Riot Platforms, Cango, Core Scientific and Bitdeer. Miner Weekly said these firms collectively trimmed their bitcoin treasuries as conditions tightened early in the year. The scale rivals only prior stress periods for the sector and tops the roughly 20,000 BTC sold in Q2 2022 after the TerraLuna-driven market disruption. The turn toward selling contrasts with last year's accumulation. By the end of 2024, miners had added about 17,593 BTC to reserves, lifting combined holdings above 100,000 BTC. Pressure has intensified as hashprice—an estimate of mining revenue per unit of computing power—fell near historical lows, hovering in the low $30s per PH/s. At those levels, margins are sharply compressed, especially for operators running older fleets or paying higher power rates, making it harder to hold newly mined bitcoin. The profitability squeeze reflects longer-running network shifts. Total hash rate has surged since China's 2021 mining ban, driving rapid global capacity expansion. Bitcoin's block reward was cut in 2024, and network difficulty has climbed to roughly 10 times 2021 levels, intensifying competition. Even with bitcoin still elevated versus prior cycles—despite pulling back from highs above $120,000—the jump in difficulty has absorbed much of the revenue upside, prompting some miners to liquidate reserves. Selling is uneven across the industry, with financial stress varying by fleet efficiency, power contracts and access to capital. Separately, some observers argue the industry's public framing is shifting from "Bitcoin mining" toward "energy." Paul Sztorc, CEO of LayerTwo Labs, said Bitcoin mining is "dying," pointing to changes such as "MinerMag" being rebranded as "Energy Mag" and the "Mining Stage" at Bitcoin 2026 renamed the "Energy Stage." He also said MARA removed direct Bitcoin references from its website about two years ago, and that Cormint dropped the "Exahash" metric from its site, a common gauge of mining scale. The post Bitcoin Mining Giants Sold More BTC in Q1 Than Entire 2025 Combined appeared first on CryptoPotato.

Alcoa is close to an agreement to sell its idled Massena East aluminum smelter in New York to NYDIG, according to the newsletter. Designed for round-the-clock heavy industry, the facility already has robust power infrastructure, making it an attractive candidate for bitcoin mining and AI data center use. The potential deal reflects a broader U.S. trend of repurposing retired industrial hubs for energy-intensive digital operations.

John D'Agostino, an executive at Coinbase and former Vice President and Head of Strategy at the New York Mercantile Exchange, says Bitcoin may be on stronger structural ground today than it was at its prior all-time highs, even after the drawdown. In his view, the market has improved on several fronts: a markedly better regulatory backdrop, deeper liquidity, upgraded trading systems and infrastructure, and a larger base of institutional participants. He argues these changes are reshaping Bitcoin's role in the broader financial ecosystem and supporting more durable market conditions. D'Agostino also emphasized the central role exchanges play in capital markets. He described exchanges as the hub of market flow and price discovery, noting that without them, market infrastructure and liquidity formation would falter. On price discovery, he said quality can be evaluated through transaction frequency, volume, and transparency: more trades and clearer visibility generally support more reliable pricing. He added that price discovery is never purely quantitative, calling it "as much art as it is science," shaped by human behavior as well as models. He contrasted today's crypto markets with earlier practices in commodity derivatives, where final prices were often set after the close by committees selecting a handful of trades, building an options curve, and applying simple linear interpolation. By comparison, 24/7 trading in Bitcoin enables continuous, real-time price discovery tied to actual liquidity rather than a single closing print or a consensus set by a small, vested group. Addressing manipulation concerns, D'Agostino argued that large buy or sell orders from major participants do not automatically imply wrongdoing in a free market. He said Bitcoin's current size and liquidity make it difficult for any single firm, market maker, or participant to consistently control prices. He also pushed back on recurring claims that sophisticated firms such as Jane Street manipulate the market, calling the idea that they would repeatedly move prices by placing large orders at the same time each day "laughable."

Onchain Lens reported that a whale deposited 3 million USDC into Hyperliquid and opened a 30x leveraged Bitcoin short totaling 700 BTC. The position is valued at about $52.89 million, with an average entry price of $75,919 and a liquidation price of $80,839.93.

Breaking: Michael Saylor's Strategy has signaled it may buy more bitcoin.

Michael Saylor indicated that Strategy is set to announce a Bitcoin acquisition exceeding 15,000 BTC on Tuesday.