Bitcoin’s 30-day imply hash price has fallen 19% since November 2025, dropping from 1,108 EH/s to 898 EH/s over 9 months, the longest sustained decline within the community’s historical past, based on Glassnode knowledge, as main mining firms redirect energy and capital towards long-term AI internet hosting contracts.
A Decline Not like the Final Two Downturns
Bitcoin has solely seen two comparable hash price drawdowns earlier than this one, and each resolved shortly.
| Interval | Hash price transfer | Depth | Length | Driver |
| Might – July 2021 | 165 to 95 EH/s | -42% | ~10 weeks | China mining ban |
| April – July 2024 | 626 to 578 EH/s | -8% | ~3 months | Put up-halving purge |
| November 2025 – August 2026 | 1,108 to 898 EH/s | -19% | ~9 months, ongoing | Margin squeeze and AI pivot |
The Might-to-July 2021 collapse, triggered by China’s mining ban, minimize the hash price by 42%, from 165 to 95 EH/s over about 10 weeks, however reversed inside 6 months as relocated Chinese language {hardware} got here again on-line within the US and Central Asia.
The April-to-July 2024 dip, a routine purge of inefficient rigs after that 12 months’s halving, minimize the hash price by 8%, from 626 to 578 EH/s over roughly three months, with new, extra environment friendly machines changing the misplaced capability inside a single quarter.
The present decline breaks that sample on two fronts. In absolute phrases, the community has shed roughly 210 EH/s, extra hashpower than all the community possessed in early 2021, and as of early August, the 30-day common nonetheless reveals no signal of bottoming out.
The mechanism driving it appears structural somewhat than cyclical. Miners are signing 12- to 20-year AI internet hosting leases on the identical energy capability that used to run Bitcoin-specific {hardware}.
Mining Issue Simply Turned Detrimental for Solely the Second Time
Community issue now sits 1.1% under the place it stood a 12 months in the past, marking the primary adverse year-over-year studying since August 2021, when China’s ban pushed the identical metric to -21.2 %.
Bitcoin’s issue has recorded a adverse annual studying solely twice in its total historical past, and each instances mark a real mass departure of mining capability somewhat than routine turnover.
Issue has contracted 19.9% from its November 2025 peak close to 156 trillion right down to 126.23 trillion, among the many deepest sustained contractions of the ASIC mining period.
BitcoinArchive estimated Bitcoin’s present manufacturing value close to $54,939 per coin, based mostly on an assumed electrical energy value of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour, and famous that Bitcoin has spent solely 10 days buying and selling under its estimated manufacturing value since 2017.
That determine is a third-party estimate contingent on the acknowledged electrical energy assumption, not a confirmed value determine, although every successive adverse issue adjustment does mechanically decrease manufacturing prices for the miners who stay lively.
The AI Contracts Clarify Why This Capability Isn’t Coming Again
Bitcoin traded close to $65,000 on the time of this writing, up modestly over the prior 24 hours however nonetheless roughly 49% under its October 2025 peak. The hash worth is sitting close to $30 to $32 per petahash per day, under breakeven for older mining fleets, with trade estimates suggesting 15% to twenty% of lively machines are at present operating at a loss. Public mining firms bought greater than 32,000 BTC within the first quarter alone to assist fund their transition into AI infrastructure.
That transition is nicely underway. Hut 8 stories $26.6 billion in contracted AI portfolio worth. Core Scientific leases roughly 1.1 gigawatts of capability to CoreWeave. TeraWulf signed a 20-year internet hosting lease with Anthropic price roughly $19 billion. IREN and Cipher Mining have individually signed offers with Microsoft and AWS price $9.7 billion and $5.5 billion, respectively.
Mixed, public mining companies now maintain greater than $70 billion in AI-related contracts. The explanation this capability is unlikely to return to Bitcoin mining comes right down to easy economics, as AI internet hosting reportedly pays 3 to 25 instances as a lot per megawatt as Bitcoin mining does. Our rating of high Bitcoin mining firms by hashrate breaks down the place a number of of those similar firms stand within the broader trade.
The squeeze has already produced casualties past capability shifts. Poolin, as soon as the world’s largest mining pool, filed for Chapter 11 chapter safety in late July, becoming a member of different mining-adjacent Chapter 11 filings that month.
Not Everybody Agrees on What This Means
Opinions on how a lot this issues for Bitcoin itself are cut up amongst these carefully watching the area.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has dismissed considerations that the shift towards AI internet hosting will meaningfully harm Bitcoin’s worth.
Chamath Palihapitiya takes a extra cautious view, describing the shift as structural for miners somewhat than a short lived rotation.
Bitwise Europe’s head of analysis, André Dragosch, has provided a center place, suggesting miners may come to remorse changing capability away from Bitcoin if mining profitability finally recovers.
What Comes Subsequent
The clearest sign to observe from right here is whether or not the issue chart’s year-over-year studying stays adverse via autumn. If it does, the community will verify its first sustained contraction in its safety finances in Bitcoin’s historical past.
What this implies for you: both contemporary mining capability replaces the departing AI-focused miners by 2027, or Bitcoin heads into its subsequent rally with a meaningfully thinner hashpower cushion than it’s had earlier than, a dynamic price monitoring alongside worth no matter which aspect of this debate you discover extra convincing.
Disclosure: The author holds Bitcoin.