Bitcoin miner MARA moved 1,318 BTC worth about $86.89 million to a mix of counterparties and custody locations over the past 10 hours, on-chain data tracked by Arkham shows.
The largest portion went to Two Prime. One transfer sent 653,773 BTC, around $42.01 million, to an address labeled Two Prime, along with a smaller top-up of 8,999 BTC worth around $578,000 minutes later.
The separate outgoing transactions sent 200 BTC and 99,999 BTC to a BitGo-tagged address, together worth around $20.4 million at the time of transfer, while another 305 BTC were moved to a new address, worth around $20.72 million.
Flow matters primarily because of time. Crypto markets have been swinging wildly since this week’s sell-off-driven sell-off, and traders are nervous about any sign that miners are turning into forced sellers.
Large mining-related transfers may be routine treasury management, custody reorganization, collateral moves or preparation for an over-the-counter sale, but in a tight market they are often read as a bid signal.
The Two Prime leg will attract the most attention because it is a credit and trading counterparty. Whether bitcoin is posted as collateral or rotated into a strategy does not necessarily imply a spot sale.
The transfers come amid a difficult period for miners, with bitcoin falling nearly 50% from peak prices of more than $126,000 last year.
Bitcoin is now about 20% below its estimated average production cost, as CoinDesk reported on Thursday, increasing financial pressure across the BTC mining sector.
The average cost of mining one bitcoin is about $87,000, according to Checkonchain data, while the spot price has fallen to a weekly low of $60,000. Historically, trading below the cost of production has been a characteristic of a bear market.
