Bitcoin hash rate falls as miners shift compute to AI

AmbCrypto reports Bitcoin’s network hash rate contracted in Q1, marking its first negative growth period in over five years, and is down about 4% year-on-year, a decline the article links to miners redirecting capacity into AI and data-center compute. AmbCrypto cites that AI accounted for nearly 80% of venture capital funding in early 2026, totaling $242 billion, and lists Riot Platforms, IREN, Bitfarms, TeraWulf, and Marathon Digital Holdings among miners moving into AI workloads. According to CryptoQuant, the Bitcoin Miner Position Index fell to -1.2. The original RSS summary also notes on-chain reserves at $140 billion, indicating continued accumulation despite the compute shift. Editorial analysis: For practitioners, the story highlights rising competition for rack space, power, and accelerators between crypto mining and AI compute markets.