Mining difficulty on the Bitcoin network decreased by 11.16% to 125.86 trillion with the adjustment made on Saturday. This change, which occurred in block 935,424 on Saturday, was recorded as the sharpest drop recorded since China’s major bans in 2021. The rapid decrease in hashrate, which expresses the computing power of miners in the network, necessitated the protocol to take such a drastic intervention to reduce block times to 10 minutes again.
Impact of Price Crash and Winter Storm on Mining
The price of Bitcoin, which peaked at over $126,000 in October, dropped to $60,000 at the beginning of February, dragging the industry into an economic bottleneck. This 45% loss in price, combined with high yields on US treasuries and heavy outflows from spot ETFs, has put the profitability of mining operations on a knife edge. Many companies have decided to shut down their devices as production costs rise above the current market price.
The harsh face of nature was another factor that triggered the operational pause. Winter Storm Fern, which hit the United States at the end of January, forced miners to reduce capacity due to overload on electrical grids. In particular, the 60% loss in the capacity of giant mining pools such as Foundry USA led to the sudden deletion of a huge data of 200 EH/s from the total network power.
This double-sided pressure pushed hashrate levels down to around 863 EH/s, down from a record of 1.1 ZH/s in October. Industry stakeholders state that the daily revenue (hashprice) per petahash has hit an all-time low of $33.31. Currently, it is observed that only the latest generation Antminer S23 series devices offer healthy profit margins, while older models operate at a loss.
New Balances and Future Expectations in Mining Economy
While the average cost of producing one Bitcoin in the current market table is $ 87,000, the fact that the largest cryptocurrency is traded in the $ 69,000 range leaves miners facing a deficit of approximately 20%. With the decrease in network mobility in 2024, the share of transaction fees in miner revenue decreased to 1%. This contraction in revenue items has made industry players completely dependent on a possible recovery in the market price of Bitcoin.
Although the 11% decrease in difficulty level creates technical breathing space for miners who manage to survive, the profitability equation has not yet been fully solved. Bernstein analysts predict that this decline may be a “late-stage correction” and the price may reverse the course upward after establishing a bottom in the $60,000 region. Historical data shows that Bitcoin generated a 65% positive return in the 90-day period following the hashrate shrinkage.
The current picture proves that there is a kind of survival test in the mining industry. Although the current difficulty reduction provides operational relief by increasing the probability of each compute unit winning the block reward, the real relief will only be possible if the price catches up with production costs again. The cryptocurrency world is closely following how market balances will be shaped after this historical adjustment.
