Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Hits 148 Trillion as Hashprice Falls to 33 USD: Why Older Rigs Are Now Mining at a Loss

Bitcoin’s mining difficulty has jumped 5.54% to a reading of 148.36 trillion, its second major increase in two weeks, even as daily mining revenue per unit of computing power falls to its lowest level since August. The paradox at the heart of the network right now: miners are pouring computing power back into Bitcoin even as the economics of doing so get brutally tighter.

The numbers behind the adjustment

According to data from Nodewitness, the October 29 adjustment raised difficulty from 140.58 trillion to 148.36 trillion, following a 5.92% increase on October 16. Bitcoin automatically recalibrates difficulty every 2,016 blocks, roughly every two weeks, to keep average block production near ten minutes. When miners add computing power and blocks start arriving faster than the target, the network raises the difficulty, making each block harder to mine.

That is exactly what has happened. Real Vision chief crypto analyst Jamie Coutts notes that Bitcoin’s hashrate has climbed 21% over the 102 days since July 17, adding roughly 185 exahashes per second and bringing the network back to within 6% of its all-time high. Data from Look Into Bitcoin confirms the network’s computing power is at its highest level in seven months.

A remarkable recovery from a historic contraction

The rebound matters because of how deep the preceding slump was. Coutts tracked a 23% decline in the 14-day average hashrate between its October 2025 peak and February 2026, the steepest contraction since China’s mining ban in 2021. The decline was driven by severe winter weather that knocked operations offline and by a wave of mining companies redirecting their infrastructure toward artificial intelligence data centers, where long-term contracts offer more predictable revenue than block rewards.

After an initial recovery, hashrate weakened again through July, feeding real concern that the industry was permanently drifting away from Bitcoin. Instead, the trend reversed sharply. Coutts describes the 185 EH/s added since mid-July as the largest absolute amount of computing power added during a comparable recovery since 2018, even if the percentage gain is less exceptional by historical standards.

The recovery suggests mining capacity is expanding faster than AI pivots are removing it, and from a security standpoint it is unambiguously good news: more hashrate means a costlier attack on the network. But the same competition that strengthens Bitcoin is crushing miner margins.

Hashprice falls to 33 USD per PH/s per day

Mining revenue, measured as hashprice, has dropped to roughly 33 USD per petahash per second per day, according to Startmining data, the weakest level since August and down from a September average near 40 USD when difficulty was considerably lower. The October 29 adjustment alone cuts expected earnings per unit of computing power by about 5.24%, and across the two October adjustments the squeeze reaches roughly 10.5%, before a single cent of electricity, maintenance, hosting, or financing is paid.

The math gets grim for older hardware. At a gross hashprice of 33.35 USD, a rig running at 25 joules per terahash generates about 32.68 USD per day per PH/s after a typical 2% pool fee. At an electricity tariff of 6 cents per kilowatt-hour, that same PH/s burns about 36 USD daily in power, a 3.32 USD per-day loss before any other costs. Operators of 25 J/TH equipment now need electricity at 5.45 cents per kWh or cheaper just to break even on power.

Newer, more efficient machines tell a different story. At 20 J/TH, the daily power bill under identical conditions falls to 28.80 USD, leaving a modest surplus before additional expenses. That spread is widening the divide between efficient operators with cheap power and everyone else, and it is forcing a straightforward decision across the industry: upgrade, secure below-market power contracts, or shut down.

What this means for Bitcoin holders and miners

For Bitcoin holders, rising difficulty and hashrate are a signal of network resilience. The security budget is effectively growing, and miners are demonstrably willing to deploy capital on thin margins, which reflects long-term confidence in the asset even at prices below 80,000 USD per BTC.

For mining investors, the picture is more nuanced. Publicly traded miners face a margin squeeze precisely as they commit capital to expansion, and each difficulty increase dilutes the revenue of every machine already plugged in. The coming quarters will likely accelerate consolidation, with efficient operators absorbing market share from those running aging fleets at retail electricity rates.

The next difficulty adjustment, roughly two weeks out, will show whether the hashrate recovery has more room to run. If it does, the record network of 2025 may fall, and the margin squeeze will deepen, continuing the Darwinian pressure that defines every Bitcoin mining cycle.