Bitcoin’s hash rate has been declining for 287 consecutive days, marking one of the longest periods of reduced computational power in the network’s history. This is according to a report by the analytical platform Bitcoin Magazine Pro.
Following the decline in hash rate, mining difficulty has also decreased, currently standing 19.9% below its peak. Since the advent of specialized equipment for mining the first cryptocurrency, the decline has been more severe only twice, with both downturns lasting about as long. The most significant drop occurred during the mining ban in China. Experts described that episode as “perfectly understandable”: authorities shut down equipment, causing the hash rate to plummet. The current decline is less clear, they noted.
Miners’ Stocks Rise Despite Bitcoin’s Price Drop
Over the past 12 months, Bitcoin has lost about 46% of its value. However, shares of public mining companies have mostly increased:
- Hut 8 — up 431%;
- Riot Platforms — up 62%;
- HIVE Digital — up 37%.
An exception is MARA Holdings, whose shares fell by 29%.
This trend is unusual for these assets, specialists highlighted. Historically, miners’ stocks traded with leverage relative to digital gold — they fell more during corrections and rose faster during uptrends.
Bitcoin Magazine Pro explained the divergence as a shift in the industry towards artificial intelligence. Investors view miners not as a bet on Bitcoin but as providers of computational infrastructure. For many years, the first cryptocurrency moved in tandem with AI sector stocks, with correlation sometimes reaching 0.8-0.9. However, the trend has changed: tech company stocks have strengthened, while digital gold has entered a sell-off phase.
Stocks are rising even as Bitcoin miners have sold thousands of bitcoins during this period. In the first quarter alone, they sold more than 32,000 BTC to cover operating expenses — more than in all of 2025.
Fees Cover Ten Minutes of Network Operation
Miners’ income comes from two sources — block rewards and transaction fees. Emission is halved every four years and will eventually reach zero. After that, network operation will rely solely on fees. If they are insufficient, the total income for miners will decrease, along with the costs necessary to attack the blockchain, Bitcoin Magazine Pro noted.
Daily revenue from block rewards has already hit a historic low. This is partly due to the outflow of computational power: until the difficulty is recalculated, the interval between blockchain units exceeds ten minutes. However, the main factor is the protocol’s normal operation, specialists believe.
Since the first halving, the industry has argued that while the number of coins per block decreases, their value increases, keeping dollar revenue stable. So far, this mechanism has worked, analysts acknowledged.
However, now Bitcoin’s price is falling along with emission volume. This is evident from the Puell Multiple indicator, which compares current miners’ revenues with the average value over the previous year. The indicator has dropped to about 0.75, which in monetary terms is around $30 million per day compared to an average closer to $40 million.
The second income source remains insignificant. Of the same $30 million daily revenue, about $200,000 comes from fees. The reward for one block exceeds the entire daily fee collection: over the past 28 days, their average daily volume has not covered even one such payment. With 144 blocks per day, fees support the network for about ten minutes out of 24 hours.
In previous cycles, the share of fees briefly reached tens of percent — notable spikes occurred in 2017, 2021, and 2023-2024. Currently, the indicator is near zero, and such surges have ceased, analysts concluded.
Earlier, on July 11, the mining difficulty of the first cryptocurrency decreased by 5% to 127.17 T. In mid-June, the indicator dropped by 10.09%, but then recovered by 7.15%.
