Miners, not ETFs, are building the financial backbone of Bitcoin

The following is a guest post and opinion from Armando Aguilar, Head of Capital Formation and Growth at TeraHash.

ETFs may dominate the headlines, but the real architects of Bitcoin’s liquidity are the miners quietly building balance sheets. Since the April 2024 halving, the role of miners as a whole has shifted from pure producers to systemic stabilizers. While institutions celebrate inflows, miners are doing the hard work of anchoring Bitcoin-native finance (BTCFi).

In this article, I explore the way miners are emerging as financial actors, how they’re deploying balance-sheet strategies, and what BTCFi infrastructure still lacks in order for this evolution to succeed.

From Hashrate to Balance Sheets: The Post-Halving Pivot

The 2024 halving slashed block rewards, tightening margins across the industry. As a result, many miners had to restructure their operations not just to survive, but to manage capital with greater precision. No longer content with selling block rewards at market, miners began behaving more like corporate treasuries: timing BTC sales, collateralizing reserves, and building financial buffers.

As of mid-2025, statistics show that Bitcoin miners collectively hold over 104,500 BTC (roughly $12.7 billion), while corporate treasuries added 159,107 BTC in Q2 alone. What appears to be passive “HODLing” is, in fact, a deliberate liquidity strategy—one that reduces exposure to short-term volatility while preserving long-term upside.

This shift coincides with aggressive growth in network scale: by mid-2025 Bitcoin’s hashrate surged past 970 million TH/s, achieving almost 60 % YoY growth. As miners scale up operations, they’re also expanding financial exposure, treating balance-sheet management as strategically as hashrate optimization.

We’re witnessing a full-cycle pivot. Rather than merely producing Bitcoin, miners are actively shaping its capital markets.

Treasury-Driven Mining: Three Pillars of Strategy

• Collateralization: Rather than diluting equity, miners are borrowing against BTC holdings to fund operations. This approach allows for tactical spending without giving up long-term exposure.
• Timing: Some firms now treat BTC sales like macro trades, holding through downturns or locking in gains during rallies. These are not knee-jerk moves, but properly thought-out, structured exit strategies based on clear goals and market signals.
• Liquidity Buffers: Miners are no longer operating paycheck-to-paycheck. Many are building BTC reserves as…