Bitcoin's Hashtagrate Stuck at Record Low as Miners Flock to AI
Bitcoin's hashrate has been stuck below its record for 316 days, exceeding the previous 252-day maximum in a decade. The decline began months ago due to weak mining economics and power curtailments during summer, but what's new this time is that some miners have redirected their power toward artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing.
In August, Bitcoin rallied by 34.9% from late June, reaching as high as above $81,000, while network hashrate fell 10.1%. Historically, a price recovery would encourage miners to restart machines that became uneconomic during the downturn, but this time, the response has been much weaker.
The reason is that some of the power and data-center capacity leaving Bitcoin now has somewhere else to go. Miners are increasingly committing their resources to AI projects, which can absorb operating capacity while mining continues. For example, IREN cut its installed self-mining capacity from 50 EH/s in June 2025 to 23.2 EH/s by June 2026 as it redirected power and data-center infrastructure toward AI Cloud Services.