Bitcoin hashrate falls 17% as miners pivot to AI

Bitcoin’s network hashrate has declined roughly 17% from its late-2025 peak, according to CryptoQuant analyst Maartunn and blockchain trackers. The combined computing power securing the blockchain eased from above one zettahash per second to a range near 850–920 exahashes per second over the summer.

Mining difficulty, which adjusts approximately every two weeks to target a 10-minute block time, also fell. One estimate put difficulty as much as 19.9% below its record as of early August. Hasrate and difficulty figures vary by provider because both are inferred from block timing rather than measured directly.

The pullback coincides with a stretch of weak mining profitability. Publicly listed miners were losing an estimated $19,000 on every bitcoin produced as of late March, with a weighted average cash cost near $80,000 per coin while spot prices were lower at the time. Many companies raised cash instead of expanding mining fleets, selling about 32,000 BTC in the first quarter, a volume larger than their total sales across 2025.

Several publicly traded miners have signed multibillion-dollar hosting agreements to provide space, power and connectivity for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing customers. Hut 8, Core Scientific, TeraWulf and IREN are among the firms with such deals. Hut 8’s contracted AI infrastructure portfolio is reported at $26.6 billion, and cumulative AI and HPC contracts across the listed mining sector now exceed $70 billion, per company disclosures and industry data.

Operators point to practical advantages in converting mining sites for AI work: existing facilities have grid connections and access to low-cost electricity, which can speed deployment compared with building new data centers. Many agreements are multiyear contracts that trade potential mining capacity for predictable hosting revenue.

Market response has been mixed. A basket of publicly traded mining stocks rose about 56% in early 2026 while bitcoin’s market price declined roughly 17% over the same period. Research firm CoinShares projects AI and HPC services could account for as much as 70% of listed miners’ revenue by the end of 2026, up from about 30% in its most recent report. CoinShares also noted that Bitcoin hashrate could return toward 1.8 zettahash per second by year-end 2026 if bitcoin’s price recovered toward $100,000; otherwise, significant power capacity at public mining sites is being used to host AI and cloud computing workloads rather than increase hashing capacity.