Riot Sold 4,300 Bitcoin Last Quarter to Bankroll Its AI Buildout

Riot Platforms sold 4,300 bitcoin during the second quarter — bringing first-half 2026 sales to 9,665 BTC — to help fund operations and its rapidly expanding data center business. The disclosure sharpens the picture of a miner deliberately converting its bitcoin treasury into AI infrastructure capital.

The pivot is anchored by Riot's 20-year, 191-megawatt lease with Anthropic, projected to generate roughly $9.1 billion in revenue through 2048. Even after the sales, Riot still held 11,380 BTC as of June 30, worth about $666 million at quarter-end prices.

The strategy shift is rippling across the sector, with bitcoin mining peers on the move as investors reprice miners as AI-compute landlords rather than pure-play hashrate operators. Analysts note the twist: if mining economics revive, the remaining hashrate could become a call option on top of the data center story.