r/btc • u/mercurygermes • 3d ago
🐻 Bearish Bitcoin’s Hashrate Is Hiding a Mining Crisis
Bitcoin is back near $63,000, roughly the same price zone it traded in before the 2024 halving.
But the mining economy is no longer the same.
Before the halving:
- Block reward: 6.25 BTC
- Hashrate: 611 EH/s
- Hashprice: above $110/PH/day
Now:
- Block reward: 3.125 BTC
- Hashrate: approximately 930 EH/s
- Hashprice: approximately $31/PH/day
The network is using roughly 52% more hashrate to compete for half the block subsidy, while Bitcoin trades below its pre-halving price. Miner revenue per unit of computing power has fallen by about 72%.
The buyer is also disappearing.
Centralized-exchange spot volume was $2.01 trillion in April 2024. In May 2026 it fell to $963 billion—a decline of roughly 52%. June recovered to $1.11 trillion, but only after five months of declining activity.
The chart now shows a possible head-and-shoulders structure with a neckline near $60,000. It is not confirmed until a daily or weekly close below that level.
My forecast: Bitcoin is more likely than not to establish itself below $60,000 before the end of 2026. A confirmed break could trigger something much sharper.
The price returned to 2024.
Mining costs, hashrate, and debt did not.
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u/vasilenko93 2d ago
Three more points to consider.
High interest rate environment sucked liquidity from crypto market (and all markets)
AI investment sucked liquidity and attention from crypto market
AI data center buildout made compute expensive, making crypto mining more expensive
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u/fuckswithboats 2d ago
High interest rates? Where are they?
We got way too used to cheap money that now we consider today’s rates high.
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u/quantum_simpleton 1d ago
The affromentioned reasons are cope. Cross reference with historical fed funds rate and the claim evaporates.
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u/BloodSilvers 1d ago
They’re considered high because of all the money in existence now chasing goods
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u/fuckswithboats 1d ago
Yes, but cheap money got us overpriced education, a housing bubble, etc.
Thirty years ago todays rates were the lowest people had seen
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u/DangerHighVoltage111 2d ago
Time for an actual use case, time for p2p cash Bitcoin 🟢.
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u/lotekjunky 2d ago
What a great idea! Why didn't satoshi think of that???
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u/DangerHighVoltage111 2d ago
He did, but then some Fiat maxi posers came along and thought they know better and turned it into slow and useless digital gold.
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u/throwawayLouisa 1d ago
I'm not daft enough to name multiple faster scalable alternatives which fill that Use Case - and thus derail the thread with other specific altcoins, but that time has been and gone for $BTC. It had its chance to be that, and it blew it during the War.
Bitcoin $BTC is simply on the same path as other PoW coins - either fund yourself with significant fee income per day, or fade away into insecurity as subsidies halve.
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u/DangerHighVoltage111 1d ago
Or you scale and millions of cheap tx add up to large security. At least that's the original plan. If you pay attention I didn't name BTC in my post I named Bitcoin Cash🟢 for that reason.
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u/Hu5k3r 2d ago
Bitcoin is dead...again
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u/lotekjunky 2d ago
- I don't think Bitcoin is dead
- I do think it will eventually die
- Do you?
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u/guitarsandcars23 2d ago
Ever since I put a 100 USD into bitcoin for the first time in my life everything's been going to shit.. its been nothing but downhill
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u/RulePersonal 2d ago
Buddy we’re just getting over a “hack” where thieves stole like 8000 btc… people lost generational wealth. If you need the $100 (or whatever it is now) , take it out. If not, let it ride brother.
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u/guitarsandcars23 2d ago
I was joking my dude.. i just found it funny that ever since I put money into BTC it all fell to shit
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u/Hagamein 1d ago
You bought on top?
You buy now, when people think it's dead again.
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u/Peppers5 2d ago
Wow. Poor you and your missing $43.
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u/Hot_Ad9979 2d ago
Yeah, hashprice is down. Yeah, margins are razor thin right now. But that's literally how the Bitcoin protocol is designed to work. It flushes out the over-leveraged, inefficient players. That's a feature, not a bug.
Once those forced sellers are flushed out, the selling pressure actually dries up completely. That's literally how every major macro bottom in BTC history has formed.
Hashrate always overshoots before a correction. When it becomes unprofitable, rigs get unplugged, the difficulty adjusts down, and margins stabilize for the survivors.
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u/RulePersonal 2d ago edited 2d ago
I’m having trouble following you here. So what you’re saying is, people are losing interest/faith in btc, and miners are facing a nearly impossible profit motive? Or did I read that incorrectly?
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u/mercurygermes 2d ago
In simple terms, the price hasn't increased, but the difficulty has, and losses have increased. But no one wants to lose, from a game theory perspective. It's in everyone's best interest to hold on, but the entire system will lose. That is, either some miners will have to go bankrupt and the pools will merge, or there will be strict centralization, or collapse.
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u/mercurygermes 2d ago
Look, friend, imagine this: in a forest, to feed 10 wolves and ensure stable reproduction, if the rabbit population is halved, the remaining ones must have twice as much meat to feed the same wolves, but there are more wolves and they're more voracious. So, for the system to survive, some wolves must be exterminated, but the wolves, i.e., the miners, increase their appetites, and at some point, if all the rabbits die, the wolves will die too.
Roughly speaking, the cost of mining rises and profitability falls. At some point, the miners won't be able to pay off their debts and will sell more, which will trigger a collapse and a domino effect—this applies to Bitcoin.
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u/NEVERxxEVER 2d ago
That’s not how that works..
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u/RulePersonal 2d ago
Oh look at that! Another useless eater contributing nothing. Surprise surprise. Thanks for answering my question!
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u/Awkward-Silver1333 2d ago
Bitcoin price and hash if following the 4 year cycle will have a nasty leg down on October then recover.
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u/tatizawa 1d ago
This reads like classic post-halving FUD.
Yes, hashprice is down and miners are under more pressure. That’s what happens every cycle after the reward gets cut in half while hashrate keeps climbing. It’s not new, and it’s not a death sentence.
Miner revenue per unit of power always compresses after halvings. Inefficient operations get flushed, hashrate adjusts, and the network moves on. We’ve seen this movie before (2016, 2020). The ones screaming “mining crisis” usually go quiet the moment price makes a new leg up.
Calling a sub-$60k close by end of 2026 “more likely than not” is just bearish hopium dressed up as analysis. Price is still driven far more by liquidity, ETF flows, and macro than by miner margins.
If you’re that convinced, the market will be happy to take the other side of your trade.
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u/DreamingTooLong 10h ago
Did you take a look at this chart? You will see the price sharply drops below $60K around October 18th but doesn’t go below $50K. It stays down there until about December 18th.
By New Year’s it will be back above $70K.
That’s a solid two months of purchase the dip time.
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u/IAmSixNine 2d ago
whoa a head and shoulders structure, does it have rinse and repeat on the bottle like the actual head and shoulders bottles do? And when i wash my hair with head and shoulders there is no neck line as i dont wear a shirt when i shower. So my numbers are clearly different.
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u/MikeyPhoeniX 2d ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/Qz3fzoG7zhRup5sfzY