Bitcoin Mining Enters a New Reality: Even the China Ban Wasn’t This Bad

Bitcoin’s mining business is displaying uncommon weak point, whilst the community stays extremely worthwhile.

With the issue metric nonetheless under its October 2025 file greater than a 12 months later, the focus has shifted as to if miners face a momentary downturn or whether or not capital and electrical energy are completely migrating elsewhere.

Unwanted Record Hit

According to on-chain information, the Bitcoin mining issue reached an all-time high of virtually 156 trillion on October 29, 2025. As of press time, it stood at simply over 148 trillion, which continues to be 5% under that peak and hasn’t been capable of break it ever since. This signifies that the present interval with out a new issue file has now exceeded the earlier longest stretch, which lasted roughly 364 days between August 2011 and July 2012.

Back then, Bitcoin’s value collapsed by roughly 94%-95%, whereas one other exceptionally lengthy issue downturn in 2021 adopted China’s sweeping ban on home crypto mining, which compelled a substantial portion of worldwide hash price to relocate. Saifedean Ammous, writer of The Bitcoin Standard, famous that the present slowdown has occurred with out something remotely comparable.

In an replace on mining, which he reshared now, he noted that the present interval has turn out to be the longest in Bitcoin’s historical past. His clarification, although, is structural.

In half, he blamed it on Bitcoin’s pre-programmed halvings. Since the block subsidy drops by 50% roughly each 4 years, BTC’s value should improve quick sufficient to compensate miners for the discount. He estimated that mining economics require the cryptocurrency’s worth to understand by nearly 19% yearly over 4 years, earlier than accounting for greenback devaluation and the rising alternative value created by AI infrastructure.

If anticipated returns are under that threshold, allocating extra capital and electrical energy towards mining turns into progressively much less engaging.

More Lucrative Alternative

Ammous argued that Bitcoin miners not have the similar monopoly over low-cost energy and data-center infrastructure they as soon as loved. AI corporations are competing aggressively for exactly these assets, doubtlessly providing miners a extra worthwhile use for his or her amenities.

Core Scientific is a prime instance, as the firm just lately said it plans to totally exit the Bitcoin mining area by the finish of the 12 months and enter 2027 as a devoted AI and high-performance computing colocation supplier. It has already decreased its mining fleet by nearly half because it redirects electrical energy and data-center capability towards infrastructure clients.

The monetary incentive is evident: colocation income jumped 58% QoQ to $215.4 million in the third quarter, up from $15 million a 12 months earlier.

However, Ammous doesn’t suppose that is essentially bearish for BTC. In reality, he famous that if mining turns into much less engaging than merely holding BTC, capital that may have gone towards machines, amenities, and electrical energy might as a substitute move instantly into Bitcoin. He additionally expects declining electrical energy consumption to weaken one in all the asset’s most persistent criticisms, and that of the community behind it.

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