Riot Platforms Liquidates April Bitcoin Holdings for $38.8M as Network Difficulty Climbs
Riot Sells 475 BTC for $38.8M Amid Mining Strain and Declining Production.
Key Takeaways:
- Riot sold 475 BTC in April, generating $38.8M in proceeds.
- This is the company’s first BTC sale since January 2024.
- Bitcoin production dropped 13% MoM as mining difficulty and reduced block rewards strain profit margins.
Riot Platforms just made a big move, selling every Bitcoin it mined in April.
The US Bitcoin miner offloaded 463 BTC plus another 12 BTC from reserves, raking in $38.8 million. This sale marks its first major sale in over a year, signaling a strategic shift as Bitcoin mining gets tougher.
Riot Platforms Ends 16-Month Bitcoin Holding Streak with Major Selloff
In a May 5 press release detailing its April 2025 operations, Riot’s CEO Jason Les confirmed the sale and cited strategic financial planning as the motive.
Riot Platforms April 2025 Bitcoin Holding and Production Update/ Source: Riotplatfroms.com
“We made the strategic decision to sell our monthly production of bitcoin to fund ongoing growth and operations,” said Les. “We continuously evaluate the best funding sources considering a multitude of factors and prioritizing a strong balance sheet.”
The Bitcoins were sold at an average price of $81,731. This price level helped the company minimize equity fundraising needs and limit shareholder dilution.
Riot’s move comes amid mounting pressure on Bitcoin miners following the network’s fourth halving event in April 2024, which cut block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC.
While these events are typically bullish for Bitcoin's long-term price, they also bring miners an immediate revenue shock.
Riot produced 463 BTC in April, a 13% decline from March. The average daily Bitcoin production fell by 10% despite the company maintaining a flat deployed hash rate.
The root cause lies in rising network difficulty, which climbed 10.19% over the past 90 days to reach 119.12 trillion hashes, according to data from CoinWarz.
Miners Under Pressure: Halving and Rising Costs Force Sales
Riot Platforms is not alone in ramping up Bitcoin sales.
Bitcoin miners sold roughly 15,000 BTC on April 7, a $1.12 billion dump. According to CryptoQuant, this was the third-largest single-day outflow of the year. The sell-off came as Bitcoin slipped below $80,000 in April, highlighting miners’ exposure to sudden price swings.
These large-scale liquidations are a defensive strategy. Mining operations, which rely on power-intensive computers to validate transactions, must cover hefty electricity and infrastructure costs.
Despite the recent sell-off, Riot remains one of the top Bitcoin-holding public companies.
Riot ranks as the 3rd largest public company that owns Bitcoin/ source: BitcoinTreasuries
As of May 5, the company retained 19,211 BTC, worth over $1.8 billion, ranking it second among mining firms and third among all public companies, trailing only Marathon Digital and Michael Saylor’s Strategy.
Jimmy Aki
Drawing from his background in economics, Jimmy has monitored blockchain development for years, firmly believing in its power to democratise finance. Beyond offering commentary on the latest crypto developments, he also spends his time analysing open-source codes of promising projects on GitHub. Jimmy holds Bitcoin and Ethereum.
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