Bitcoin Hash Rate Plummets as Miners Flock to Lucrative AI Contracts

Bitcoin's hash rate has seen its longest sustained decline in history, dropping 19% over nine months to 898 EH/s. The mechanism driving this decline is structural rather than cyclical, as miners are pivoting towards AI contracts.

The current decline breaks the pattern of previous downturns, with an absolute drop of 210 EH/s and no sign of bottoming out. In comparison, the May-to-July 2021 collapse saw a 42% decrease in hash rate over about 10 weeks, but reversed within six months as Chinese hardware came back online.

Public mining companies have signed AI hosting leases worth over $70 billion, with Hut 8 reporting $26.6 billion in contracted AI portfolio value and TeraWulf signing a 20-year lease with Anthropic worth approximately $19 billion.