Bitcoin: mining is going through a historic crisis, is AI to blame?
For the first time in its history, Bitcoin has gone more than a year without a new mining difficulty record. An unprecedented situation, even after the ban on mining in China in 2021. Decline in profitability,…
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https://cryptoast.fr/bitcoin-difficulte-minage-record-crise-mineurs-ia/
For 375 days, the difficulty of Bitcoin mining has remained below its historical record. An unprecedented situation since the creation of the network in 2009, which reflects the difficulties encountered by miners, between the drop in profitability and competition from artificial intelligence.
This indicator measures the effort required to validate a block. It is recalculated every 2,016 blocks, approximately every two weeks, to maintain an average interval of 10 minutes between two blocks.
The difficulty peaked at 155.97 T on October 29, 2025. It has never returned to this level since, surpassing the previous record of 364 days established between August 2011 and July 2012.
For comparison, after China's mining ban in 2021, it took 253 days to return to a peak, compared to about eight months after the 2018 drop.
Even the 95% price drop in 2011 and the Chinese ban had not been this bad. It's a new world for Bitcoin mining.
After hitting a low of 124.93 T in mid-June 2026, the difficulty rebounded by 5.92% on October 16, then by 5.54% on October 29, reaching 148.36 T.
The hashrate, which measures the total computing power of the network, also passed 1,000 EH/s in October. But a further drop in difficulty of around 4% is expected around November 13.
Also read in the news – Bitcoin: a developer proposes to trap future quantum pirates
Could the decline in mining herald a bottom for Bitcoin? The Hash Ribbons indicator, which detects periods of miners' capitulation, notably accompanied the market reversals of 2018 and 2022. However, it does not constitute an infallible buying signal.
The drop in the price of Bitcoin is pushing several mining companies to sell their reserves to finance their transformation.
Riot Platforms thus sold 20,264 BTC for around $1.5 billion over the first nine months of 2026, mainly to develop its data centers. Hut 8 also sold around 3,100 BTC to fund share buybacks, while TeraWulf and IREN are expanding their AI businesses.
Machine-translated from French
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