Riot Platforms sold 4,300 $BTC in the second quarter of 2026, nearly three times the 1,587 coins it pulled from its rigs. The harder number: all-in mining costs ran to $90,631 per bitcoin, which the company said amounted to 126.5% of each coin's $71,667 average production value, meaning every coin produced cost more than it fetched.
The mechanism is plain. Riot mined 11% more bitcoin than it did in Q2 2025, yet bitcoin mining revenue fell 19% year over year to $113.7 million. Lower average bitcoin prices and rising power costs explain the gap, the latter amplified by ongoing expansion of the company's Kentucky mining facility. When unit economics run inverted, the treasury functions as a funding line. The read-through from $174.2 million in quarterly revenue, a 14% gain from $153 million the prior year, is that data center income is doing real work: that segment contributed $23.2 million to the total. Riot sold 3,778 BTC in Q1 2026 as well, raising roughly $289.5 million from those sales, and the capital has a stated destination. After the quarter closed, Riot signed a 20-year agreement to supply 191 megawatts of IT capacity at its Rockdale, Texas campus to Anthropic. The company said that contract is expected to generate approximately $9.1 billion through June 2048, with extension options that could raise the total to roughly $16.1 billion. CEO Jason Les said that together with an earlier 25 MW deal with AMD at the same campus, contracted critical IT capacity now stands at 241 MW, representing roughly $9.8 billion in long-term revenue.
The counterargument
Riot ended June with more than $1.2 billion in liquid assets, including $548.9 million in cash and 11,380 BTC still in its treasury. The company has described its approach as balancing bitcoin retention with operational and growth needs, stopping short of committing its full mined output to liquidation. The reserves, on their face, are substantial.
On balance, the Q2 net loss of $237.2 million sits against net income of $219.5 million in the same quarter of 2025, a $456 million swing. Mining runs at a loss on a unit cost basis. The line to watch is whether Anthropic contract revenues materialize on schedule and whether the mining operation requires further treasury draws in the quarters ahead. Riot stock has risen 69% over the past 12 months and was trading at $19.58.