Riot Platforms (NASDAQ: RIOT) filed its quarterly report for the period ended March 31, 2026 with the SEC on April 30, 2026, and it hands the Cost Per Coin desk the number we actually came for. Per the filing, Riot's cost to mine one bitcoin, excluding bitcoin miner depreciation, was $44,629, versus $43,808 in the comparative period. That single figure is the spine of a miner's economics: it is what it costs Riot, on a direct basis, to produce one bitcoin before the heavy non-cash charge of depreciating its mining rigs.

The disclosure of a discrete, named cost-per-coin metric is exactly what makes a listed miner readable. Riot defines a Bitcoin Mining segment, and the filing references the inputs that drive segment economics — facilities, the number and value of bitcoin rewards and transaction fees earned, and the production value of one bitcoin mined. By publishing a direct cost to mine one bitcoin of $44,629, the company gives investors a clean comparison point against the market price of the asset it produces. Above that line, every coin mined is produced at a direct loss; below it, at a direct gain.

Cost to mine one bitcoin, excluding bitcoin miner depreciation ​ $ 44,629 ​ ​ $ 43,808 ​ Cost to mine one bitcoin, excluding bitcoin miner

Two things deserve emphasis. First, the metric is explicitly stated to exclude bitcoin miner depreciation. That exclusion is a deliberate accounting and presentation choice, and it cuts both ways: it isolates the cash-like cost of mining — power, hosting, direct operations — from the large, non-cash depreciation of the mining fleet, but it also means the figure is not a full all-in cost. A reader has to hold both facts at once. The $44,629 is the direct cost; the economic cost of running and replacing the machines is higher once depreciation is layered back in.

Second, the cost moved — from $43,808 to $44,629. A rising direct cost to mine is the expected consequence of a tightening network: as more hash power competes for the same block rewards, network difficulty climbs, and each miner's energy and infrastructure buy a smaller share of the same bitcoin. Riot's filing references hash calculations and the network's implied hash as determinants of what it earns, which is the mechanism behind a creeping cost per coin. The number going up is not, by itself, a sign of mismanagement; it is the math of mining in a more competitive network.

For an investor, the discipline is to read the $44,629 against the disclosed structure rather than against a price target. Riot's economics turn on the spread between this direct cost and the value of a mined bitcoin, on how much of the network's hash it commands, and on the energy contracts that set its largest variable input. The 10-Q frames mining as a segment with named drivers — facility capacity, reward and fee value, production value per coin — which is precisely the framing that lets you stress-test the business without speculating about where bitcoin trades next.

What the filing does not invite is a leap from one quarter's direct cost to a verdict on the whole company. The metric excludes depreciation, it reflects a single period, and it sits inside a segment with other moving parts. The honest takeaway is narrow and well-grounded: Riot disclosed a direct cost to mine one bitcoin of $44,629, up modestly from $43,808, and that spread against market price — not a slogan about scale — is what governs the Bitcoin Mining segment's profitability.

That is the value of reading the 10-Q. The cost-per-coin line is the most consequential number a miner discloses, and Riot put it on the record: $44,629, excluding miner depreciation. Disclosure or it didn't happen — and here it's a specific, comparable figure investors can hold the company to.