🇺🇸 Bessent Says US Treasury Still Weighing BTC Purchases

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has clarified that the department is still exploring “budget-neutral” ways to purchase Bitcoin for the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, walking back earlier remarks that had been widely interpreted as ruling out further acquisitions.

His initial comments to FOX Business, stating that the Treasury would not be buying BTC and would rely solely on confiscated assets, triggered a sharp sell-off, wiping nearly $55b from Bitcoin’s market cap within 40 minutes.

In a follow-up post on X, Bessent reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to building the reserve and to President Trump’s goal of making the U.S. the “Bitcoin superpower of the world,” though he offered no new details on how purchases would be executed.

The Treasury has been “exploring” such budget-neutral strategies for five months, with ideas floated including revaluing gold certificates and using tariff revenue, but progress may be stalled by the need for congressional approval.

While the buying timeline remains uncertain, Bessent confirmed the U.S. will stop selling its current BTC holdings, which he valued between $15b and $20b, in line with estimates that the government holds roughly 198,000 BTC.

🗞️ In the News

• 🤖 TeraWulf Lands $3.7b AI Hosting Deal with Google-Backed Firm
  TeraWulf signed a 10-year, $3.7b colocation deal with AI provider Fluidstack, backed by Google’s $1.8b lease guarantees and debt financing. The agreement will add 200MW of capacity in New York and includes Google warrants for 8% of WULF shares. Stock jumped 37% on the news.

• 🏭 MARA to Buy Majority of EDF’s AI Arm for $168m
  MARA will acquire 64% of Exaion, EDF’s AI and HPC subsidiary, in a $168m deal, with an option to raise its stake to 75% by 2027. Exaion partners with Nvidia and Deloitte on AI and cloud infrastructure. The move marks MARA’s biggest AI push yet, as rising BTC difficulty pressures mining profitability.

• 🛠️ Trump-Backed Miner Buys $314m in Bitmain Rigs
  American Bitcoin, backed by Trump family members, ordered 16,299 Bitmain Antminers worth $314m, adding 14.02 EH/s capacity. The deal avoids price hikes from new U.S. tariffs on China-made mining gear. Bitmain will open its first U.S. manufacturing plant by year-end to sidestep tariffs.

• ⚡ Cango Buys 50MW Georgia Mining Facility for $19.5m
  Cango acquired a fully operational Bitcoin mining site in Georgia, USA, marking its first owned facility. The company will use 30MW for self-mining and 20MW for third-party hosting, with plans to expand into HPC and broader energy infrastructure.

• 👔 CleanSpark Names Co-Founder Matt Schultz CEO
  CleanSpark appointed co-founder and executive chairman Matt Schultz as CEO following Zachary Bradford’s resignation. Schultz, who previously led the company’s energy and Bitcoin mining growth, will focus on stability and executing CleanSpark’s strategic plans as one of North America’s largest miners.

• 🔧 Block Unveils 10-Year Bitcoin Mining Rig
  Jack Dorsey’s Block launched the Proto Rig, a modular system designed to last over a decade by allowing hashboard swaps, potentially cutting upgrade costs by 20%. The company also introduced Proto Fleet, an open-source fleet management tool, aiming to give miners a cost and longevity edge in a capital-intensive, AI-integrating industry.

• 🤝 Tether and Rumble Plan $1.17b Northern Data Takeover
  Tether and Rumble offered to buy all shares of AI and HPC firm Northern Data, valuing it at $1.17b. Tether, already the top shareholder, would become Rumble’s largest holder post-deal. Northern Data plans to sell its Bitcoin mining unit to focus on AI and cloud services.

• 💸 South Koreans Shift from Tesla to Ethereum Plays
  Korean “seohak ants” — retail investors who trade foreign stocks, sold $721m in Tesla and cut Alphabet and Apple stakes, moving $269m into BitMine, Coinbase, Robinhood, and Sharplink Gaming. Public companies now hold 1.88% of ETH’s supply, mirroring Bitcoin treasury strategies.

📜 Miner Reports

🧑‍🌾 Bitfarms Q2

• Reported Q2 2025 revenue of $78m, up 87% YoY and 6% MoM, with a gross mining margin of 45% compared to 51% YoY and flat MoM.

• Earned 718 BTC during the quarter at a direct production cost of $48,200 per BTC, up slightly from $47,800 MoM; sold 1,052 BTC at an average price of $95,500 for $100m in proceeds.

• Advanced U.S. pivot and HPC/AI strategy by submitting the Panther Creek campus Master Site Plan to Macquarie and partnering with T5 Data Centers for project design and development approvals.

• Expanded U.S. energy pipeline to over 1.3 GW, with 82% of the current energy portfolio in North America and 100% of active development in the U.S.; Panther Creek capacity projected to reach 300 MW by 2027.

• Executed corporate share buyback program, repurchasing 4.9m shares (10% of shares available) at an average price of $1.24 since July 28, 2025.

• Announced shutdown of Argentina mining operations by November 2025 due to halted energy supply and economic uncertainty, expecting $18m in proceeds from asset sales and cost savings.

• Ended the quarter with total liquidity of $230m, including $85m in cash and $145m in unencumbered BTC holdings.

🐝 HIVE Q1

• Revenue of $45.6m in fiscal Q1 2026, a record for the company, driven by a 45% QoQ increase in average hashrate to 8.9 EH/s and strong contributions from both Bitcoin mining and HPC hosting.

• Digital currency mining revenue rose 44.9% QoQ to $40.8m, with 406 BTC mined, up 34% from Q4 2025, despite a 10.2% increase in network difficulty.

• HPC (BUZZ) revenue hit a record $4.8m, up 59.8% QoQ, reflecting strong demand for HPC services.

• Gross operating margin expanded to $15.8m (34.7%), up from $8.8m (28.2%) in Q4 2025, supported by operational efficiency and scale gains.

• GAAP net income reached $35m, boosted by $23.2m in realized and unrealized digital asset gains, $8.2m from equity investments, and a $16.4m gain from derivative revaluations.

• Adjusted EBITDA came in at $44.6m, with $71.9m in cash and digital currencies on the balance sheet at quarter-end.

• Current hashrate of over 15 EH/s produces ~7.5 BTC per day; company remains on track to reach 25 EH/s by Thanksgiving 2025.

• Advanced HPC growth with the planned acquisition of a 7.2 MW Tier 3 Toronto data center and launch of an NVIDIA Hopper GPU cluster in Quebec, targeting $100m in AI cloud revenue run-rate by 2026.