Bitcoin mining revenue hits historic low as infrastructure is sold to AI giants permanently altering the network’s security

The euphoria of October’s file highs has evaporated, leaving the industrial spine of the Bitcoin community dealing with a brutal actuality examine.

According to CryptoSlate’s information, Bitcoin is at the moment buying and selling close to $78,000, a stage that represents a punishing decline of greater than 38% from its all-time high of over $126,000 simply 4 months in the past.

While informal observers may see a regular market correction, the view from inside the mines is way more dire. The steep drop in the flagship digital asset’s worth has collided with stubbornly high community problem and rising vitality prices to create an ideal storm for operators.

Analytics agency CryptoQuant just lately described miners as “extraordinarily underpaid,” given the present mixture of depressed costs and problem, with its profit-and-loss sustainability index slumping to 21. That is the lowest studying since late 2024.

Notably, the monetary pressure is already inflicting machines to go offline, leading to Bitcoin’s complete hashrate declining by about 12% since final November, the steepest drawdown since the China mining ban in 2021. This has left the community at its weakest stage since September 2025.

For a system that sells itself as the most safe pc community in the world, this is greater than only a bear-market story. It is a stress check of Bitcoin’s security mannequin at a second when miners have better-paying options than ever earlier than.

Bitcoin miners’ capitulation maths

Bitcoin’s security depends on a easy incentive construction wherein the community pays a hard and fast block subsidy plus transaction charges to whoever solves the subsequent block.

When costs had been above $126,000 in October, the “security funds” was ample to cowl inefficiencies. However, the margin for error has vanished as costs have crashed underneath $80,000.

New figures from the mining pool f2pool illustrate how extreme the revenue compression has turn out to be.

On its Feb. 2 {hardware} electrical energy value dashboard, the pool estimates Bitcoin’s worth at round $76,176, community hashrate at close to 890 exahashes per second (EH/s), and each day revenue at about $0.034 per terahash for miners paying $0.06 per kilowatt-hour.

To put that in perspective, Luxor Technology’s Hashrate Index recorded spot hashprice close to $39 per petahash per second (PH/s) per day just a few months prior.

That determine was already skinny by historic requirements earlier than falling towards an all-time low of round $35 as of press time.

The present f2pool determine of $0.034 per terahash, equal to $34 per PH/s, confirms that miners are working at the historic ground.

When these economics are mapped onto particular person machines, it turns into clear why hashrate is falling.

At a reference Bitcoin worth of $75,000 and the similar six-cent energy value, electrical energy accounts for about 52% of revenue for Bitmain’s latest Antminer S21 XP Hydro items, which mix roughly 473 TH/s of hashpower with 5,676 watts of draw. Those are the greatest numbers accessible.

As the effectivity curve worsens, the math turns crimson. Mid-generation rigs, such as an Antminer S19 XP or an Avalon A1466i, exhibit electrical energy value charges of roughly 92%-100% at that worth level.

Meanwhile, older or much less environment friendly fashions, together with the Avalon A1366, Whatsminer M50S, and S19 Pro traces, present electrical energy value charges starting from roughly 109% to 162%.

In plain English, which means at $75,000 Bitcoin and a mainstream energy tariff, huge fleets of {hardware} are mining at a money loss earlier than even accounting for debt, internet hosting charges, or normal bills.

The AI escape hatch

This present revenue crash differs from earlier crypto winters as a result of the miners’ distressed property, like energy contracts and grid connections, have a brand new, deep-pocketed suitor.

The similar infrastructure that allows Bitcoin mining is exactly what hyperscale AI compute requires. And not like the struggling Bitcoin community, AI infrastructure providers are willing to pay up.

The former mining operation CoreWeave has turn out to be emblematic of this shift. It pivoted from crypto to turn out to be a specialist “neocloud” for AI workloads and just lately secured a $2 billion fairness funding from Nvidia to speed up its information middle buildout.

In 2025, it sought to acquire miner Core Scientific in a multibillion-dollar deal, explicitly framing miners’ websites and energy contracts as prime actual property for GPUs quite than ASICs.

Other public Bitcoin miners have taken the trace and are pivoting laborious in direction of AI. For instance, Canadian operator Hut 8 just lately signed a 15-year, 245-megawatt AI information middle lease at its River Bend campus, with a said contract worth of roughly $7 billion.

This deal successfully locks in long-term economics that differ markedly from the volatility of mining rewards.

For shareholders, these pivots supply a rational exit from the bleeding brought on by the 30% worth drop. They can swap cyclical Bitcoin revenues for contracted AI cash flows that buyers at the moment worth at a premium.

For the Bitcoin community, nonetheless, this raises a tougher query: what occurs when a element of its security infrastructure discovers a enterprise that provides increased compensation?

Bitcoin’s community security funds underneath siege

Jeff Feng, co-founder of Sei Labs, referred to as the present interval “the largest bitcoin miner capitulation since 2021,” arguing that giant miners pivoting to AI compute are amplifying the drawdown.

The key distinction from prior cycles is that a few of this hash isn’t simply powering down till the worth recovers. It is being reallocated permanently.

Once a 245 MW website is totally re-racked for AI underneath a long-term lease, that energy is, in apply, unavailable for future hashrate enlargement.

Make no mistake, Bitcoin stays extraordinarily safe in absolute phrases. Even after current declines, the value of amassing ample hashpower to assault the community stays immense.

However, the concern is about route and composition quite than quick collapse. A sustained decline in hashrate lowers the marginal value of attacking.

With much less trustworthy hash on-line, it takes fewer assets to purchase a disruptive share of the network’s compute, whether or not by renting capability or constructing it outright.

This pattern additionally narrows the base of stakeholders paid to defend the chain. If older, higher-cost operators exit and solely a handful of ultra-efficient miners stay worthwhile, management over block manufacturing turns into more and more centralized.

This creates a fragility that is masked by the headline hashrate numbers.

So, CryptoQuant’s “extraordinarily underpaid” label is successfully a warning that, at right now’s block rewards and costs, a significant slice of business hash is working on skinny or adverse margins.

It serves as a ahead indicator of how sturdy the network’s security funds actually is relative to competing makes use of of capital and electrical energy.

How will Bitcoin miners survive?

From right here, the miner squeeze might affect Bitcoin’s evolution in a number of distinct methods.

One path is quiet consolidation. Difficulty resets, the most effective operators seize a bigger share of block manufacturing, and hashrate grows extra slowly than in earlier cycles however stays giant sufficient that few exterior specialists discover.

For buyers, the main impact is volatility, as every market drawdown compresses a narrower group of miners, thereby rising their promoting and hedging habits.

Another path would speed up Bitcoin’s transition to fee-driven security quicker than the halving schedule alone implies. If subsidies stay mild relative to AI returns, the ecosystem could have to rely extra on transaction charges to preserve miners totally engaged.

That might imply higher concentrate on high-value settlement at the base layer, extra exercise on second-layer techniques, and a wider acceptance that block house is a scarce useful resource quite than an affordable commodity.

A 3rd, extra speculative path would see exterior backstops turn out to be express. This would imply that the similar establishments that normalized spot Bitcoin ETFs may finally view the security funds as they view financial institution capital ratios, as one thing that may require deliberate assist.

That might take the type of increased charges for sure transaction lessons, industry-funded incentives for miners, or scrutiny of AI conversions that materially dent hashrate in key areas.

Notably, none of these outcomes would require a break with Bitcoin’s core design. All contain the {industry} deciding, in a extra crowded vitality market, how a lot it is ready to pay to preserve hash on the community quite than in GPU clusters.

At current, the f2pool dashboard gives a snapshot of that negotiation. A system with about 890 exahashes per second of compute and a worth of roughly $76,000 is paying roughly 3.5 cents per terahash per day for its security.

Whether future vitality investments settle for that fee or demand one thing nearer to AI economics will decide how the mining market in the end pivots.

The put up Bitcoin mining revenue hits historic low as infrastructure is sold to AI giants permanently altering the network’s security appeared first on CryptoSlate.