Bitcoin Miners Cut Capacity Amid Shift Towards AI Infrastructure
Publicly traded Bitcoin miners are reducing their mining capacity at a faster rate than the overall Bitcoin network, according to BlocksBridge Consulting's latest Miner Weekly newsletter. The firm reported that the realized hashrate among a cohort of public Bitcoin miners fell from 368.3 exahashes per second (EH/s) in Q4 2025 to 319 EH/s in Q2 2026, representing a 13.4% decline.
Excluding Bitdeer, which continued to expand its mining operations, the cohort's realized hashrate dropped even further by 21.2% over the six-month period, from 324.6 EH/s to 255.9 EH/s. Meanwhile, Bitdeer's realized hashrate increased by 44% to 63 EH/s.
For comparison, the Bitcoin network's average hashrate declined 10.6% over the same period.
The shift in focus away from mining is due in part to miners generating a growing share of revenue from non-mining activities. Core Scientific reported $136.7 million in colocation revenue during Q2, compared with just $27.5 million from Bitcoin mining. TeraWulf also generated $31.9 million in HPC lease revenue, compared with $12.8 million from mining.