Crypto winter forces Riot Blockchain, Core Scientific, Bitfarms to sell some bitcoin.

In the wake of arguably the worst crypto market downturn in the industry's short history, miners Riot Blockchain (NASDAQ:RIOT), Core Scientific (NASDAQ:CORZ) and Bitfarms (NASDAQ:BITF) have been forced to sell a portion of their bitcoin (BTC-USD) stakes in a bid to free up capital. That comes as crypto miners’ performance metrics in aggregate have weakened somewhat again in June, as the number of bitcoins (BTC-USD) mined edged down 1.8% on average, though mining capacity as measured by the hash rate jumped 8.8%, according to the table below. As miners face tanking crypto prices, rising energy prices as well as heightened competition, Riot Blockchain (RIOT), for example, not only saw its bitcoin (BTC-USD) mining and hash rate growth decline M/M in June, but it also sold 300 bitcoins for net proceeds of approximately $6.2M to help cover operational costs, namely the development of its Whinstone facility in Rockdale, Texas. Still, the company holds over 22x that amount of BTC. Nevertheless, “it’s still important to us to have a strong bitcoin balance sheet, so we haven’t sold from the balance sheet per se,” Riot CEO Jason Les told Blockworks on July 14, adding that “There’s not a strict framework or policy around that. It’s a decision we are evaluating on a monthly basis.”SA contributor Dilantha De Silva, who started coverage on Riot (RIOT) with a Strong Sell rating towards the end of June, believes the company cannot “make susta...