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1. Core Scientific sets the end of Bitcoin mining for 2026
Core Scientific said on Thursday, November 5, that it expects to stop Bitcoin mining entirely by the end of 2026 and to begin 2027 as a data center company serving artificial intelligence and high-performance computing customers. Chief Financial Officer Jim Nygaard made the remarks on the company's third-quarter earnings call, adding that mining accounted for only 7.5% of quarterly revenue.
Nygaard told investors that the company expects to complete the wind-down during the fourth quarter and enter 2027 as what he called a pure-play, high-density colocation provider. The comment turns a gradual retreat from mining into a firm target date for leaving the business.
The announcement involves a company that was once among the largest publicly traded Bitcoin miners in North America. Its decision to leave the activity completely, rather than keep a reduced operation alongside its new line of business, marks one of the clearest examples so far of a mining firm converting itself into infrastructure for AI workloads.
2. How big is mining in Core Scientific's quarterly results?
Mining is now a small slice of the business. For the third quarter of 2026, Core Scientific reported total revenue of $232.9 million, of which colocation services contributed $215.4 million. Revenue from mining Bitcoin for its own account was $12.3 million.
Colocation means renting data center space, power and cooling to customers who run their own computing equipment. Hosting for other Bitcoin miners is a version of this service, but the revenue that now dominates comes from customers in AI and high-performance computing, who need dense racks and large, reliable power supplies.
The company said its mining revenue represented 7.5% of the quarter's total. By comparison, colocation provided the large majority of revenue, a mix that illustrates how thoroughly the company's income has shifted away from the activity that built its public profile.
3. Why is Core Scientific leaving Bitcoin mining?
Core Scientific is leaving mining because it has chosen to use its power capacity for contracted colocation services, which offer steadier income than mining. Electricity and grid connections are the scarce resources in both businesses, and customers running AI systems have been willing to sign long contracts to secure them.
Mining revenue depends on the price of Bitcoin and on hashprice, the amount miners earn for a given unit of computing power. When either falls, margins narrow, and the value of mining machines in the secondary market tends to decline as well. Fixed-term colocation agreements are less exposed to those swings.
Nygaard also said the company had nearly 50% fewer miners online at the end of September than at the end of 2025. That reduction in active machines is the practical form the wind-down has taken: capacity is switched off and its power is reassigned rather than sold off in a single step.
4. How did the AI pivot begin?
The shift toward AI hosting began in 2024. Core Scientific signed an initial hosting agreement with the cloud computing provider CoreWeave in March of that year, and a much larger agreement followed in June 2024. Those contracts laid the foundation for the colocation business that now generates most of the company's revenue.
At that stage, the company described AI hosting as an addition to its mining operations rather than a substitute for them. Its June 2024 announcement emphasized that Bitcoin mining capacity would remain intact. The latest guidance reverses that framing completely, with mining set to disappear within about two and a half years of those first agreements.
A year-end exit also advances the timetable that had been discussed publicly. In December 2025, a newspaper report said the company was aiming to wind down mining by 2028. The new target is roughly two years sooner than that.
5. What losses did the mining business produce?
Mining has also brought accounting charges during 2026. In the second quarter, Core Scientific ended its mining equipment agreement with Block and Proto, and it recorded a $41.9 million loss tied to the transition. The termination released the company from an arrangement that involved mining machines.
Companies record impairments when the carrying value of an asset on their books exceeds what it can reasonably be expected to produce or sell for. For miners, that risk rises when hashprice sits at low levels and equipment resale prices fall, which is the environment the industry has faced this year.
The company has also stated that it will not invest in new mining equipment to maintain or expand its Bitcoin mining capacity. With no replacement of aging machines planned, the economic case for continuing to run a small mining fleet weakens further, which supports the decision to close the activity rather than shrink it indefinitely.
6. What did earlier filings say about the timing?
The year-end date was not entirely new. A quarterly filing in July had already stated that hosted mining, meaning the hosting of machines owned by other miners, would end by December 31. What the earnings call added was a specific completion target for the whole mining exit, covering the company's own self-mining operations as well.
The distinction matters for how revenue is reported. Core Scientific earns money from mining in two ways: by operating machines it owns and by hosting machines that belong to other firms. Both lines have been shrinking, and both are now scheduled to be wound down by the end of the year.
Because the third-quarter figures show mining at only 7.5% of revenue, ending it should have a limited effect on the company's total sales. The larger question for investors is how quickly the freed-up power can be converted into additional colocation capacity.
7. What does the exit mean for the wider mining industry?
Core Scientific's decision adds to evidence that some public mining companies see more value in data center infrastructure than in Bitcoin production. Power contracts, land and grid connections that were assembled for mining have become sought-after assets for companies building out AI capacity.
For the Bitcoin network, one large operator leaving does not alter how mining works. Network difficulty adjusts to the total computing power online, so other miners can absorb the capacity that disappears. The effect is more visible in the corporate strategies of public miners than in the protocol itself.
Miners that remain will find the market somewhat different. Hosting capacity for other companies' machines is shrinking as operators such as Core Scientific reassign their sites, and that can matter for smaller miners that relied on third-party facilities rather than owning their own data centers. Those firms now have fewer places to plug in their equipment.
The move also shows how sensitive the sector is to the economics of Bitcoin price and hashprice. When margins tighten, firms with access to cheap and reliable power have an alternative use for it, and Core Scientific has now chosen that alternative over mining.
8. What is hashprice and why does it matter?
Hashprice measures how much revenue a miner earns for each unit of computing power over a given period, typically expressed per terabit of hashrate per day. It rises when Bitcoin's price rises or when transaction fees increase, and it falls when the network's total computing power grows faster than revenue or when the price declines.
Because miners' costs, mainly electricity and equipment, do not fall at the same pace, a low hashprice squeezes margins. Companies with expensive power or older machines are hit first, and some choose to switch off equipment rather than run it at a loss. The reductions in Core Scientific's active miners are consistent with that logic.
The company's filings tie the drop in its self-mined Bitcoin to lower average Bitcoin prices and to a deliberate reallocation of power capacity toward colocation. In other words, the decline in mining revenue reflects both a weaker market and the company's own strategic decision.
9. How does colocation differ from mining?
A miner earns Bitcoin by solving the network's proof-of-work puzzle, so its income varies with the market. A colocation provider earns fees from tenants under contracts that can run for years, so its income is set largely in advance. The same buildings, substations and cooling systems can serve either activity, which is why a conversion is feasible.
AI and high-performance computing tenants generally need denser racks, more cooling per square foot and stronger network connections than mining machines do. That is why the company describes its future business as high-density colocation. Meeting those requirements can mean redesigning parts of a site, not simply swapping the equipment inside it.
For Core Scientific, the first hosting contracts with CoreWeave were the proof of concept. The third-quarter results, with $215.4 million from colocation out of $232.9 million in revenue, show that the approach has since become the core of the company.
10. What happens next?
The next milestone is the fourth quarter, when Core Scientific expects to finish winding down its remaining mining activity. By the start of 2027, the company intends to operate only as a colocation provider, with revenue coming from its data center contracts rather than from Bitcoin.
The exit also leaves the company dependent on a single type of customer demand. Colocation revenue now supports almost the entire business, so contract renewals, the pace of new capacity coming online and the availability of power at each site become the main variables for results in 2027 and beyond.
Investors will be watching the company's next earnings report for confirmation that the wind-down finished on schedule and for details on how the vacated power capacity is being used.