The hashprice for Bitcoin (BTC) mining — the daily earnings a miner generates for each unit of hashing power used to mine blocks — has remained steady at approximately $48 per petahash per second (PH/s). This stability comes despite a minor increase of 1.4% in Bitcoin’s mining difficulty.
Data indicates that the mining difficulty rose to 113.76 trillion at block 889,081 on March 23, up from 112.1 trillion in the previous period.
Reports suggest that when the hashprice dips below $50, miners operating older models like the Antminer S19 XP and S19 Pro face financial strain. The combination of outdated hardware and declining transaction fees poses a risk of pushing some miners into unprofitability, forcing them to shut down their equipment until they can upgrade or until market conditions shift.
Mining operations have faced challenges since the April 2024 Bitcoin halving, which reduced the block reward to 3.125 BTC for each block mined, generally elevating network difficulty. This pressure has intensified due to the recent decline in cryptocurrency markets amid ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty.
A research analysis from a financial firm shows that publicly traded Bitcoin mining companies saw their stock values decrease by 22% in February 2025. Those miners who expanded into sectors like artificial intelligence and high-performance computing to compensate for losses in mining are also feeling financial strain.
The report pointed to the launch of DeepSeek R1, an open-source AI model developed at a fraction of the cost of leading models while performing comparably to proprietary AI solutions, which has put additional pressure on large AI data centers.
While the Bitcoin network’s hashrate experiences short-term fluctuations, the long-term trend is one of growth. This increasing hashrate, representing the total computational power within the Bitcoin ecosystem, heightens competition among miners who must allocate more resources to maintain profitability.
Concerns about a protracted trade conflict between the U.S. and Canada, alongside persistent news of tariffs, have created unease among miners. Potential tariffs from Canadian authorities on energy exports to the U.S. further exacerbate the challenges faced by this struggling industry.