Miners' revenue has fallen, yet hashrate hasn't collapsed—those still expanding aren't traditional high-cost farms, but players with cheap electricity, efficient firmware, or those pivoting to AI data centers. The hashrate hasn't dropped because a structural transformation is underway.
How Much Revenue Has Declined
Let's first look at how bad the revenue side is. Data from June 25, 2026 shows that Bitcoin miners' daily revenue has dropped to around $30 million, down from over $50 million during the 2025 summer peak. On-chain transaction fee income has fallen below $250,000, making up a tiny share of total miner revenue.
JPMorgan estimates the current network-wide average mining production cost at approximately $78,000, and Bitcoin's price has been below this cost line for five consecutive months. Listed mining companies' cash mining cost per BTC (including electricity, operations, and depreciation) has climbed to about $79,995, meaning miners are losing roughly $19,000 on average for every Bitcoin mined.
About 20% of miners are currently operating at a loss. In the first quarter of 2026, listed miners collectively sold over 32,000 BTC, exceeding their total sales for all of 2025.
Cost Pressure — Who Exits First
High-cost miners are stepping away. By early August 2026, Bitcoin's total network hashrate had declined roughly 15% from its early-year peak. Since October 2025, hashrate has been in continuous decline, one of the longest downtrend cycles in history.
In the second week of June 2026, mining difficulty dropped about 10%, the second such sharp reduction this year. Hashprice has hit a five-year low, around $0.023 per TH/s per day.
The "mine and HODL" strategy has been completely abandoned. Marathon Digital sold 15,133 BTC over three weeks in May 2026, breaking its long-held reserve record. Bitfarms' CEO publicly stated, "We are no longer a Bitcoin company."
Who Is Still Expanding — Two Types of Players
A. New mining farms in low-electricity-cost countries
High-cost operations in Europe and the US are cutting hashrate or pivoting to AI, while countries with cheap power are taking over. Regions like Kyrgyzstan, Paraguay, and Ethiopia, with cheap hydropower and surplus energy, are attracting second-tier mining rigs flowing out of high-cost areas.
B. Pure-play miners snapping up cheap ASICs
The AI boom has had a side effect: many miners are exiting, causing ASIC miner prices to plummet. American Bitcoin (a Hut 8 subsidiary) purchased 11,298 new ASIC miners between March and April 2026, bringing its total fleet to nearly 59,000 units and hashrate to 25 EH/s, with a reported cost of about $50,000 per BTC. It deliberately avoids the AI pivot, staying focused on pure Bitcoin mining.
High-risk warning: If you're still using the old framework "hashrate up = miner confidence strong," your conclusion is wrong. The geographic distribution of hashrate is being redefined—Wall Street miners are shifting to AI, remote low-cost regions are taking over mining, and the US share of global hashrate is declining. Rising hashrate doesn't mean your mining pool is safe; falling hashrate doesn't mean the network is insecure. The key lies in the cost structure and geographic distribution.
Verification: Open Hashrate Index or Bitinfocharts, and check the network hashrate and difficulty adjustments over the past six months. If you see hashrate down 15% from its peak and difficulty dropping 10% in June, you'll understand the premise that "hashrate is rising" no longer holds. The ones still expanding are players like American Bitcoin snapping up cheap ASICs, and new low-electricity-cost farms in Paraguay and Ethiopia.
