The share of fees in Bitcoin miners' revenue has plummeted to an all-time low: the network is on the verge of a structural shift
The Bitcoin industry is experiencing a worrying moment: on August 11, the share of transaction fees in the revenue structure of miners of the first cryptocurrency amounted to only 0.69%. This value is near the minimum levels of the past ten years, confirming fundamental changes in the economics of digital gold mining.
The indicator has only dropped lower once — in April, when it reached 0.52%. Over the past year, fees have consistently provided less than 1% of miners' revenue. For context: the last time comparable levels were recorded was when Bitcoin cost less than $400 per coin.
Subsidy as the only source
Miners' primary income is currently formed exclusively from the block subsidy of 3.125 BTC, which was halved after the April 2024 halving. This structure makes network participants critically dependent on Bitcoin's price dynamics, creating systemic risks for the entire ecosystem.
According to my calculations based on the Checkonchain model, the average cost of mining one coin on August 11 was $78,254. Meanwhile, Bitcoin is trading around $64,100 — meaning miners are operating in a loss-making mining zone, which inevitably pushes them to reduce capacity.
Hashrate has collapsed by a third
The network's computing power shows a dramatic decline: hashrate has dropped by 33% from the peak values of October 2025 — from 1.3 ZH/s to 898 EH/s. This trend is directly linked to the decline in mining profitability and the active transfer of public companies' capacity to the fields of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
Notably, automatic difficulty adjustments have not yet been able to reverse the downward trend. Capriole Investments founder Charles Edwards calls what is happening "the most under-discussed alarming event for Bitcoin in 2026," emphasizing that the hashrate decline has accelerated precisely since April.
Hashprice — a key profitability indicator — remains at minimum levels: $31.6 per PH/s per day versus $32.07 a week earlier. In early August, analysts recorded one of the longest periods of computing power decline in the network's history — 287 days.
My comment: The current situation is not just a cyclical phenomenon, but a structural shift in Bitcoin's economy. The hashrate decline amid loss-making mining could lead to consolidation of the mining industry and increased centralization, which contradicts the basic principles of network decentralization. However, it is precisely such crisis periods that have historically become entry points for long-term investors capable of assessing the fundamental value of the protocol regardless of short-term market conditions.