Bitcoin Miners Face Widening Profit Squeeze as Power Costs Rise and Hashrate Climbs

02 November 2026

Bitcoin miners are facing an intensifying profitability squeeze as rising production costs outweigh the benefits of a higher bitcoin price. The weighted average cash cost to produce a single bitcoin climbed to $29,500 for publicly listed miners in the final three months of 2023, while the revenue per petahash per second per day fell to $0.28-0.30. Toss in a network hashrate that just climbed to new all-time highs and miners find themselves pressured from all sides.

The cash cost to mine one bitcoin increased to $29,500 for major listed miners in the last three months of 2023, while revenue per unit of computing power delivered slid to $0.28-0.30 per petahash per second per day (PH/s/day), according to industry reports. That's a drop of around 9% from 2023's opening average of about $0.31 PH/s/day.

Falling hashprice means miners make less money per unit of computing power. Analysts point to consecutive Bitcoin network difficulty adjustments downward as a sign that some miners are no longer able to turn a profit and have been shutting down. Hashprice declined to an average of about $0.28 in the last quarter of 2023, representing the lowest level in several years.

The network's hashrate reached an all-time peak in early October 2023, according to blockchain data. The combined processing power surpassed 400 exahashes per second late last August, and spiked to an average high of around 450 exahashes per second (EH/s) in October. By the end of December, it had eased back to about 420 EH/s.

Rising hashrate increases the competition between miners and pushes up the profit threshold to a higher bitcoin price. In late October, the 6.09% spike in mining difficulty coincided with a 4.21% drop in the bitcoin price. That squeezed unit economics, reducing profitability.

More on this is available via casinochoice.org/wager-free-spins.

Industry reports show that transaction fees made up less than 0.7% of miners' revenue in October, a multi-year low. The dwindling take from transactions leaves miners more dependent on newly minted BTC, as reflected in the block subsidy, which is currently fixed at 6.25 BTC.

Numerous publicly traded miners are branching out beyond mining, into AI services, data centers and other ventures, to offset the weak profitability of Bitcoin operations. The November difficulty adjustment downward signals that some miners are curtailing operations. That's backed up by reports that listed miners sold over 32,000 BTC in the first quarter of 2023. Analysts estimate that 15% to 20% of the worldwide mining sector could be unprofitable at current hashprice levels.

Older, less-capable machines and smaller mining operations appear to be most affected. Defensive strategies include turning off rigs, selling mined bitcoin, or moving to less-intensive activities like cloud-mining contracts. Few public companies have an option but to keep mining with the rigs they already own.

With the next halving approaching, firms may look to technical upgrades or relocating rigs where electricity and regulation are more favorable. Firms may also pursue partnership deals or large-scale operations. The addition of external revenue streams could ease the pressure.