Bitcoin Mining Hashrate Nears Record High as AI Data Centers Squeeze Miner Profits

Bitcoin's network computing power is nearing a record high of one zettahash per second, but this milestone has put pressure on miners who are already struggling with thinning economics and attractive alternatives in artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The estimated network hashrate was around 974 exahashes per second (EH/s) on September 1, after exceeding 1.03 zettahashes per second (ZH/s) on August 31 and crossing the one-zettahash threshold several times during August.

This surge in computing power strengthens Bitcoin's security but also intensifies competition among miners for block rewards. Rising hashrate is putting pressure on miner revenue, with hashprice, an industry metric estimating daily mining revenue generated by a unit of computing power, near $39 per petahash (PH/s) per day.

As more computing power joins the network, Bitcoin's difficulty mechanism adjusts upward to keep block production near one block every 10 minutes. A miner therefore has to expand their hashrate simply to maintain the same share of network rewards.