Canaan Reports $88.7M Loss in First Quarter as Bitcoin Prices Slide
The mining company's first-quarter performance suffered from a $25 million write-down on inventory and equipment sales that plummeted 75% quarter-over-quarter during Bitcoin's price pullback from peak levels.
For the opening quarter of 2026, Bitcoin mining firm Canaan disclosed an $88.7 million net loss, as declining Bitcoin (BTC) valuations put pressure on profit margins and resulted in a substantial inventory write-down.
The firm generated total revenues of $62.7 million during the three-month period that concluded on March 31, marking a steep drop compared to the $196.3 million it brought in during the preceding quarter, based on a press release issued on Tuesday.
Commercial mining hardware sales continued to serve as the firm's main source of income at $39.6 million, despite experiencing a 75% plunge compared to the previous quarter. The company's proprietary mining activities generated $19.1 million in revenue, whereas the residential mining division accounted for $2.7 million, representing a segment that expanded by more than double on a year-over-year basis.
"Although average Bitcoin prices and hashprice declined significantly quarter-over-quarter, our bitcoin production experienced a comparatively smaller decrease, reflecting the resilience of our mining operations and continued hashrate deployment,"
Jin (James) Cheng, chief financial officer of Canaan
The quarter's gross loss of $23 million was impacted by a $25 million write-down of inventory, and operational losses totaled $54.3 million.
Canaan's self-mining hashrate surges 66%
The company grew its proprietary mining operations to 11 exahashes per second in deployed computational capacity, representing a 66% increase compared to the same period one year prior. As of March 31, Canaan's balance sheet showed holdings of 1,808 Bitcoin, which carried an approximate valuation of $121 million.
During the three-month period, Canaan also finalized its purchase of Cipher Mining's 49% ownership interest in three joint venture facilities located in West Texas, representing approximately 4.4 EH/s of hashrate capability and 120 megawatts of electrical power. This transaction, which was executed through stock issuance instead of a cash payment, provides Canaan with access to electricity pricing under three cents per kilowatt-hour within the ERCOT power grid.
For the second quarter, Canaan projected revenues ranging from $35 million to $45 million, indicating another consecutive decrease.
On Monday, Canaan's stock price finished trading down 3.54% at $0.4827, before declining an additional 7.71% during pre-market hours to $0.4455, based on data from Yahoo Finance.
Major miners report losses in Q1
Throughout the industry, prominent mining operations such as Riot Platforms, Core Scientific, CleanSpark and TeraWulf all disclosed expanding losses during the first quarter. MARA led the sector with a $1.3 billion net loss, with approximately $1 billion of that amount attributed to non-cash mark-to-market valuation adjustments related to its Bitcoin portfolio.
With mining profitability under pressure, an increasing number of mining companies are shifting their focus toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing as alternative sources of income. HIVE Digital Technologies revealed on Monday its intention to construct a 320-megawatt AI data center complex in the Toronto area, designed to accommodate over 100,000 GPUs when fully developed.