Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Plunges 19.9% as Miners Pivot to AI, Three Pools Control 60% of Network

Bitcoin mining difficulty has plunged 19.9% from its November 2025 peak to 126.23 trillion, marking a historic 287-day contraction. Driven by post-halving revenue compression and a 47% drop in Bitcoin's price, miners are capitulating. Public operators sold a record 32,000 BTC in Q1 2026 alone. To survive, giants like Hut 8 and Core Scientific are pivoting to AI data hosting, securing multi-billion-dollar contracts. Meanwhile, SBI Crypto's pool closure has left just three pools controlling 60% of the network.

Bitcoin mining difficulty decline

• ▪Bitcoin's network hashrate has remained in decline for roughly 287 days, falling approximately 12% from its late 2025 peak to about 868 exahashes per second by late July 2026.
• ▪Bitcoin mining difficulty fell below its year-earlier level for only the second time in the network's history, with the only prior occurrence following China's 2021 mining ban.
• ▪Bitcoin mining difficulty fell to 126.23 trillion, representing a 19.9% drop from its November 2025 peak of approximately 156 trillion.
• ▪The 19.9% drop in Bitcoin mining difficulty represents the third-deepest drawdown since specialized ASIC mining hardware went mainstream.

Post-halving revenue compression

• ▪Following the April 2024 halving, Bitcoin block rewards were reduced to 3.125 BTC per block.
• ▪Expected daily revenue per petahash of computing power fell to $27.66 in late June 2026 before rising to approximately $31.70 to $32.00 by late July 2026.
• ▪Bitcoin traded near $63,100 on July 31, 2026, representing a decline of approximately 47% over 12 months and nearly 50% below its October 2025 record.

Record miner bitcoin sales

• ▪Riot Platforms sold 3,778 BTC in the first quarter of 2026 while producing only 1,473 BTC during the same period.
• ▪Core Scientific liquidated approximately 1,900 BTC in January 2026, while Cango sold 2,000 BTC in March 2026 to retire bitcoin-backed loans.
• ▪Publicly traded Bitcoin miners sold more than 32,000 BTC in the first quarter of 2026, exceeding their combined sales for all of 2025.

Miner AI data center pivot

• ▪TeraWulf reported $21 million in artificial intelligence and high-performance computing hosting revenue in the first quarter of 2026, surpassing its bitcoin mining revenue.
• ▪Core Scientific partnered with AMD for 15-year agreements covering approximately 530 megawatts, bringing its total leased customer capacity to 1.1 gigawatts.
• ▪Hut 8 signed a 15-year lease for 352 megawatts in Texas, raising its total contracted artificial intelligence portfolio value to $26.6 billion.

Mining pool centralization

• ▪SBI Crypto closed its Japanese Bitcoin mining pool service, leaving three dominant mining pools controlling approximately 60% of the network's total hashrate.
• ▪The closure of the SBI Crypto mining pool has raised concerns regarding network centralization and resistance to transaction censorship.