Public Bitcoin miners spent $5.11 billion on capital assets during the first half of 2026 while reporting only $341.2 million in artificial intelligence and high performance computing revenue, according to an Aug. 20 analysis from BlocksBridge Consulting.

The figures produce a roughly 15 to 1 ratio between companywide capital spending and directly reported AI and HPC revenue. They show how much infrastructure miners are building before their newer operations reach full commercial capacity.

The comparison does not measure returns on AI investments alone. BlocksBridge included purchases and allocations involving hardware, property, equipment and other productive assets. Some spending may continue supporting Bitcoin mining operations.

Bitcoin miners face a costly infrastructure conversion

BlocksBridge examined nine comparable miners that disclosed AI or HPC revenue. Their combined revenue from those operations reached $205.8 million in the second quarter, up 52% from the previous quarter.

The increase implies first quarter revenue of approximately $135.4 million. Core Scientific, TeraWulf and Bitdeer were among the companies reporting higher revenue from data center hosting or AI computing services.

Mining facilities offer access to land, electricity and grid connections. However, those assets do not automatically meet the technical requirements of AI customers.

“Power contracts and available land may give miners a starting advantage, but converting those assets into AI-ready capacity requires substations, buildings, cooling systems, networking equipment and, in some business models, GPUs,” BlocksBridge said in its report.

These projects also require financing before tenants begin paying for capacity. Construction schedules, power availability and customer concentration can therefore affect how quickly miners recover their investments.

AI revenue is growing from a low starting point

Core Scientific provides one example of that growth and spending pattern. The company reported $136.7 million in second quarter colocation revenue, up from $77.5 million in the preceding quarter. Capital expenditure reached $797.5 million during the same period, according to its filing.

Core Scientific said it was billing customers for 437 megawatts of capacity by mid July. It also announced agreements with AMD that could eventually cover about 530 megawatts across five sites. The company described the contracts as carrying more than $14 billion in “potential” base revenue over 15 years.

TeraWulf has moved further toward recurring data center income. As crypto.news reported, HPC revenue overtook Bitcoin mining revenue at the company during the first quarter of 2026.

TeraWulf’s regulatory filing said HPC leasing represented most of its quarterly revenue for the first time. However, its planned facilities still depend on construction milestones, tenant demand and the delivery of contracted computing capacity.

Broader capital spending reached $30.7 billion

BlocksBridge’s wider group of 15 miners and AI data center companies spent $30.7 billion on capital assets during their latest 2026 reporting periods. The total was 42.6% above the $21.53 billion recorded across all of 2025.

The comparison includes companies at different stages of development. It should therefore be treated as a measure of sectorwide investment rather than a direct assessment of profitability.

Other miners are financing the transition through asset sales and balance sheet changes. In related coverage, MARA Holdings sold $1.5 billion of Bitcoin during the first quarter as it expanded its digital infrastructure strategy.

HIVE has followed a smaller expansion model. The company’s HPC revenue increased 94% to $19.5 million during its 2026 financial year, although mining remained its main revenue source.

CoinShares expands WGMI beyond Bitcoin mining

The transition has also reached investment products. CoinShares renamed WGMI as the CoinShares Bitcoin Mining and Digital Power ETF and expanded its eligible investment universe.

The actively managed fund now covers Bitcoin miners, data center operators, AI semiconductor companies, power producers and advanced computing businesses. CoinShares reported 29 holdings and approximately $225.6 million in assets as of Aug. 18.

WGMI must invest at least 80% of its net assets in qualifying companies, according to the fund’s official page. It does not hold Bitcoin directly or through derivatives.

The next tests will be whether miners deliver new capacity on schedule, secure creditworthy tenants and convert contracted power into recurring revenue. Until then, the expanding revenue base remains small compared with the capital committed to the transition.

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MANTRA’s native token has come under sharp selling pressure after the MANTRA Chain network stopped producing blocks, with the project citing an unexplained incident and ordering a precautionary halt. The pause has also triggered practical disruptions for users, as assets can’t move on the chain and exchanges have suspended deposits and withdrawals while they assess impact.

According to CoinGecko data, MANTRA fell from $0.005060 to an all-time low of $0.004126 shortly before 11:00 pm UTC on Thursday. Although the token later recovered to around $0.0044, it remained down roughly 10% over the past 24 hours. At the same time, trading volume reportedly climbed nearly 600% to $24 million, reflecting heightened attention around the outage.

Key takeaways

• MANTRA Chain halted block production and froze endpoints and transactions as a precaution while the team investigates an incident.
• CoinGecko shows MANTRA trading near a record low around 11:10 pm UTC Thursday, followed by a partial rebound.
• MANTRA’s status information describes a full outage affecting public endpoints, validators, bridge migration operations, and IBC relays.
• No root cause, timeline, or statement about whether assets were lost has been provided yet.
• Because the network is halted, exchanges and related services have paused deposits and withdrawals with no restart schedule.

Token rout coincides with a network halt

The timing of MANTRA’s sharp drop tracked closely with the chain’s sudden stop. CoinGecko’s pricing shows the token hitting its low around 11:10 pm UTC Thursday. A subsequent rebound to roughly $0.0044 did not erase the damage, as the token remained around 10% lower on the day.

While price swings during infrastructure disruptions are common, what stands out here is how quickly sentiment appears to have shifted once block production stopped. The volume spike to about $24 million—reported as nearly 600% higher—suggests many market participants were reacting to the operational halt and the uncertainty around what it means for funds on-chain.

MANTRA says endpoints and transactions are frozen

In a post Friday on X, MANTRA said it was “aware of an incident affecting MANTRA Chain” and had halted the network as a precaution while investigating. The project emphasized that it did not yet have a root cause or timeline to share.

Critically for users, the team stated that all endpoints and transactions were frozen. In practical terms, that means the chain is unable to process activity—so transfers, contract interactions, and bridging-related operations depending on on-chain state cannot proceed.

Consistent with that, multiple exchanges have reportedly paused deposits and withdrawals for affected users. With no timeline provided, users may face delays even if funds were never compromised—because services typically wait until they can confirm that the network is operating safely again.

Status page lists a full outage across critical components

MANTRA’s status page classified the incident as a full outage affecting public endpoints, validators, bridge migration operations, and MANTRA-managed Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) relays. The team also said it would not restart the network until it was confident it was safe.

Operationally, the last recorded block provides a reference point for the stoppage. MANTRA’s public RPC status listing showed block 17,449,398 produced at 11:13 pm UTC on Thursday as the latest block. The initial incident notice was posted at 11:44 pm UTC, after CoinGecko data showed the token reaching its low around 11:10 pm UTC.

As of this reporting, MANTRA has not clarified whether the token’s price movement was directly related to the outage, nor has it confirmed whether any assets were lost or placed at risk. Cointelegraph said it contacted the MANTRA team for additional information but did not receive a response by publication.

What this means for a token that has already faced major disruptions

This latest event lands after a turbulent history for MANTRA’s token ecosystem. Earlier coverage from Cointelegraph noted that MANTRA’s former OM token collapsed in April 2025, falling by more than 90% from about $6.30 to below $0.50 and wiping out more than $5 billion in market value. That kind of drawdown can leave parts of the market more sensitive to operational uncertainty, especially when outages prevent movement of assets.

Broader corporate developments have also shaped MANTRA’s narrative. In June, Cointelegraph reported that Inveniam Capital Partners announced plans to acquire MANTRA after investing $20 million in 2025. The acquisition followed January layoffs and restructuring, after CEO John Patrick Mullin described 2025 as the project’s most challenging year.

Against that backdrop, the chain halt raises investor questions that go beyond short-term price action: whether operational reliability is improving, how quickly the team can identify and remediate incidents, and what safeguards exist for bridges and IBC relays—components specifically listed by the status page as impacted.

With MANTRA Chain still halted, the immediate priority for market participants is clarity: readers should watch for an update that provides a root cause assessment, confirms asset safety, and outlines conditions for restart. Until then, the key uncertainty is whether this was an isolated infrastructure failure or a signal of deeper systemic risk—and how quickly exchanges and on-chain services can safely resume deposits and withdrawals.

MANTRA Chain halted its network on Aug. 21 while investigating an unidentified incident, freezing transactions and preventing assets from moving across the RWA focused Layer 1 blockchain.

The team initially described the shutdown as a precaution. Its latest status update said the network remained halted as engineering and security teams investigated alongside external partners.

Affected components include validators, public blockchain endpoints, MANTRA Bridge migration operations and MANTRA managed Inter Blockchain Communication relays. Deposits and withdrawals through affected exchanges have also been paused.

MANTRA has not disclosed the suspected cause, the block height where the incident began or whether an attacker gained access to funds. It has not reported any stolen, minted or otherwise compromised assets.

MANTRA Chain halt prevents assets from moving

The shutdown stops validators from processing new transactions. Users therefore cannot complete transfers, interact with applications or move assets through affected bridges while the halt remains active.

MANTRA said no action was required from users. It also warned against people offering “recovery” assistance, a common method used by scammers during blockchain disruptions.

“We will not resume the network until we are confident it is safe to do so,” the team said. It promised regular updates but did not provide a recovery estimate.

The project has notified exchanges and ecosystem partners. Upbit is among the platforms that have suspended deposits and withdrawals for the native MANTRA token. Trading can continue independently on centralized exchanges because internal orders do not require transactions on MANTRA Chain.

A network halt can preserve the existing ledger state while developers investigate. However, the action also demonstrates that validators or core participants can coordinate to suspend block production during an emergency.

Root cause and financial exposure remain unknown

MANTRA has not characterized the event as an exploit, validator failure, consensus problem or infrastructure outage. Claims assigning a cause remain unverified until the team publishes technical evidence.

No independent security researcher had released a confirmed transaction trail showing stolen funds at the time of writing. The halted network also prevents new onchain transfers, limiting the immediate movement of native assets.

The next update will need to identify the affected software or infrastructure, establish whether the chain’s recorded state remains valid and explain any required patch. Validators would then need to install or approve the relevant changes before block production could resume.

Developers may also need to determine whether the restart can continue from the latest accepted block. MANTRA has not indicated that it is considering a rollback, asset freeze or chain state modification.

The incident affects infrastructure developed for tokenized real world assets. MANTRA previously created a $108.8 million fund for RWA projects with a planned four year deployment period.

MANTRA price falls as trading activity increases

MANTRA traded near $0.0045 at the time of writing, falling approximately 9.8% over 24 hours, according to CoinGecko data. Its seven day decline reached about 12.8%.

Trading volume rose by roughly 591% to more than $22.7 million. The increase shows greater market activity but does not establish whether every transaction was a direct response to the network shutdown.

The token reached a 24 hour low near $0.00413. Its market capitalization stood at approximately $27.8 million, based on CoinGecko’s estimated circulating supply of 6.3 billion tokens.

The current MANTRA token followed a March 2026 rebrand and denomination change. As previously reported, the project completed a one for four token split, replacing the former OM ticker without changing holders’ proportional value.

That change means current prices cannot be compared directly with the legacy OM price without adjusting for the split. The original OM token separately lost more than 90% during its 2025 collapse, which the project attributed to forced exchange liquidations. Other researchers questioned that explanation.

MANTRA said it would keep the network offline until its teams confirm that a restart is safe. Users must wait for an official root cause assessment, recovery plan and notice that validators and exchange transfers have resumed.