Bitcoin hashrate decline nears 287 days as miner stocks surge

Bitcoin’s network hashrate has been sliding for nearly 287 days. In any other era of crypto, that would be a five-alarm fire. Instead, the stocks of publicly traded mining companies are posting gains that would make a tech investor jealous. The great power pivot Bitcoin’s hashrate peaked around 1,157 to 1,160 EH/s in October 2025. Since then, it has dropped roughly 15%, marking a sustained decline that the network hasn’t experienced in years. Q1 2026 was particularly notable. It registered the first quarterly hashrate decline in six years, with an approximate 4% decrease. Mining difficulty responded accordingly. June 2026 saw a 10.09% difficulty drop. July followed with another decrease of around 5%. The reason miners walked away from the table is where the story gets interesting. The 2024 halving cut block rewards in half, compressing already-thin margins to the point where some operators were reportedly losing up to $19,000 per Bitcoin mined. When your core business becomes a money pit, you start looking at what else your massive power infrastructure can do. From proof of work to proof of profit Mining companies own something that every AI company on the planet desperately needs:...