In mid-November of 2025, Hashprice fell to about $38.2 per PH/s per day. Crypto mining operators keep installing new ASIC rigs, yet many sites now cut load or shut down racks to avoid mining loss.
Operators treat runtime as a controllable input, since electricity pricing can erase efficiency gains within weeks.
Hashprice Compression
Bitcoin miners track hashprice to estimate daily revenue per unit of hashrate. Industry data defines hashprice as the expected value of 1 TH/s of hashing power per day, so the figure moves with Bitcoin price and network difficulty. When difficulty rises or prices pull back, hashprice falls quickly and squeezes operators.
In mid-November 2025, hashprice fell to roughly $38.2 per PH/s per day, its lowest level in over 5 years, which tightened margins across the mining industry.
Source: Hashprice (Luxor)
Many high-cost miners cut load to limit losses, while low-cost operators kept more machines running to hold or gain market share. New rigs improve joules per terahash, yet network revenue still sets the top line.
A 3.51 kW rig uses about 84 kWh per day at full uptime. A $0.10 per kWh rate can push power cost above $8 per day, so miners idle rigs when revenue falls below the cost.
Higher rates or demand charges can erase profit quickly when hashprice weakens. As a result, operators stage new deliveries and energize them only in profitable windows.
Halving-era Payouts Shrink
Bitcoin’s halving on April 19, 2024 reduced the block subsidy to 3.125 BTC per block. Miners immediately faced a smaller baseline payout, so many operators needed higher bitcoin prices, stronger transaction fee income, or lower operating costs to protect fiat margins.
Source: CoinShares
As a result, operators increased the retirement of older, less efficient fleets and shifted capital toward sites with cheaper electricity. Meanwhile, many firms slowed expansion plans because the lower subsidy stretched payback periods and raised the risk of running new capacity during weak revenue cycles.
Transaction fees still add revenue, yet fee income varies with demand for block space. A 2025 mining report described fees falling to historic lows and representing less than 1% of total block rewards during May and June 2025. Low fees increase reliance on the reduced subsidy, so miners lose a stabilizing revenue stream during quiet periods. Therefore, operators increase curtailment and tighten power risk management.
Related: Staking vs Cloud Mining 2025: Which Pays Better Returns?
Rising Network Hashrate
Network growth raises competition because miners split a fixed pool of rewards and fees. In early September 2025, Bitcoin’s seven-day average hashrate crossed 1 zettahash per second. Difficulty climbed soon after and cut revenue per terahash across the network. As a result, efficient rigs can still earn less per day when total hashrate grows faster than Bitcoin’s price. Many operators respond by shifting capacity to lower-cost sites and accelerating consolidation.
Hardware upgrades can accelerate the race. Industry listings show high-output models, including water-cooled units listed near 473 TH/s with about 12 J/TH efficiency. Large deployments of similar machines add hashrate quickly and increase difficulty further over subsequent adjustments. Meanwhile, many operators face power interconnection limits, so they replace older rigs rather than add megawatts. This pattern can maintain a stable total load while still increasing competition, thereby narrowing margins for everyone.
Electricity Volatility and Curtailment Deals
Power prices can swing faster than mining revenue, especially under real-time pricing. Early 2025 cold weather in parts of the U.S. lifted electricity costs and triggered more curtailment before a later negative difficulty adjustment. Miners now plan fast shutdowns and restarts to manage sudden price spikes.
Grid programs also reshape operating decisions. Riot Platforms, a major public miner, disclosed $33.7 million in power curtailment credits for 2024, tied to selling unused contracted power and participating in ERCOT and MISO demand response services.
Curtailment credits can offset mining revenue declines during peak power prices, so operators may choose load reduction over continuous mining. In addition, planned curtailment lowers heat load and supports maintenance planning, which helps protect uptime during high-stress periods.
Debt, Hosting Contracts, and Delayed Shipments
Mining procurement runs on long lead times, while revenue can change in days. Companies often place equipment orders months ahead, then receive shipments after hashprice and difficulty shift. Operators still face fixed obligations, including hosting charges and interest costs, so cash burn can rise during revenue dips.
A 2025 mining report estimated average cash production costs among publicly listed miners at nearly $74,600 per bitcoin in Q2 2025, with total average costs near $137,800 after non-cash items. These cost levels shrink margin room and increase shutdown risk, even for sites with new machines.
Source: CoinShares
Managers also face a sunk-cost issue. Hardware spending locks in at purchase, while electricity expenses accrue daily during operation. Consequently, storing new machines can protect cash compared with running through negative margins.
Some miners use hashrate forwards and related contracts to support financing and revenue planning. However, these tools cannot remove power volatility or difficulty risk, so operators still delay energization or curtail output when spot economics fail to cover variable costs and fixed commitments.
Underclocking and Fleet Tuning
Mining operations increasingly use firmware to adjust performance instead of running only at stock settings. Industry analysis describes underclocking as a method to reduce energy consumption per terahash and improve margins when revenue weakens.
Underclocking lowers hashrate output, yet it can raise efficiency and keep machines operating inside profitable power bands. As a result, mines treat output as a flexible range rather than a binary choice, which reduces abrupt shutdown cycles during weak hashprice periods.
Fleet control tools also help miners respond to power markets. Firmware providers market features designed to reduce power consumption and improve fleet management across changing conditions.
Operators can reduce load during expensive hours and then ramp output when power prices ease. Meanwhile, partial tuning across a fleet spreads risk, since each unit contributes revenue without pushing aggregate power costs above expected income. Many operators also schedule maintenance during high-price grid windows, which reduces lost production during more profitable hours.
Illegal Crypto Mining
Tighter margins also push some activity into unauthorized mining. Illegal operators often use unmetered connections, tampered meters, or direct line taps. Utilities treat meter bypass and electricity theft as crimes, even where mining lacks a dedicated statute. Illegal sites can also trigger transformer overloads and increase fire risk in dense neighborhoods.
Malaysia’s national utility reported losses of about 4.6 billion ringgit linked to electricity theft tied to illegal crypto mining from 2020 to August 2025. The same disclosure estimated the loss at about $1.11 billion and cited 13,827 premises tied to power theft. In response, the utility described smart-meter deployment and substation monitoring to detect abnormal load patterns.
Unregistered Mining Farms
Authorities have increased raids on underground or unregistered mining farms, especially in subsidized power markets. In Kuwait, agencies launched operations against home-based mining and linked the activity to grid strain. Officials reported some homes used electricity far above normal residential use, and local consumption fell 55% after the raids. Enforcement can reduce load quickly, which helps grids during peak seasons.
Utilities and police also target covert farms operating in rented buildings or hidden basements. In Malaysia, enforcement agencies seized equipment during investigations tied to power theft. Authorities have also used drones and handheld sensors to locate suspect activity and wiring patterns. In Russia’s Dagestan, a regional grid company reported uncovering multiple illegal farms and linked the sites to electricity losses.
AI and HPC Demand
AI and high-performance computing demand now competes with mining for power capacity and rack space. A 2025 mining research report described AI workloads competing for data center resources and accelerating diversification plans. Mining firms with strong interconnection rights can pursue fixed-revenue hosting contracts, which can reduce exposure to hashprice swings and improve planning.
Deal activity reflects the shift. A proposed acquisition involving an AI compute provider and a mining data center operator ended after a shareholder vote in late October 2025, while both sides indicated continued commercial cooperation. Investors now value power delivery and facility readiness alongside hashrate. Consequently, miners invest in cooling, power distribution, and rack design, not only more machines.
Related: Google Secures 5.4% Stake in Cipher Mining, Expands into AI
Outlook For Miners in 2026
Mining economics now reward low-cost electricity and fast operational control. Miners with stable power pricing and modern fleet tools can keep machines profitable across wider conditions. Meanwhile, high-cost operators face more shutdowns as hashprice swings narrow margins. Consolidation can accelerate as efficient firms acquire distressed assets and repurpose sites.
Trade policy can also shape upgrade cycles. Major mining rig makers have started U.S. production to reduce exposure to a 30% tariff on certain imports.
Higher hardware costs raise break-even points, so operators may extend fleet life and rely on firmware tuning. In 2026, miners will likely run fewer hours per day on average while maintaining more efficient fleets and leaning on curtailment and diversified compute revenue.
