Bitcoin miners are massively scaling back capacity: the hashrate of public companies has plunged by 21%
Public bitcoin miners are demonstrating an unprecedented exodus from mining the first cryptocurrency. The group's combined realized hashrate (excluding Bitdeer) has declined by 21.2% over the past three quarters, a direct consequence of a structural shift in these companies' business models.
According to my calculations, based on industry analytics data, the aggregate figure has fallen from 368.3 EH/s in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 319.0 EH/s in the second quarter of 2026. This is not merely a correction—it is a deliberate dismantling of mining capacity in favor of high-performance computing (HPC) and artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The network is sagging more gently
Interestingly, the overall bitcoin network hashrate has declined much more modestly—by just 10.6%: from 1,071 EH/s in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 957 EH/s in the second quarter of 2026. This gap is explained by the fact that some players are winding down operations faster than others are able to ramp up their capacity.
A key role in offsetting the declines has been played by Bitdeer, whose realized hashrate has grown by 44%—to 63 EH/s. The remaining public miners are clearly betting on diversification rather than scaling up mining.
AI is eating mining
Financial reports vividly demonstrate this trend. Core Scientific earned $136.7 million in the second quarter from colocation and computing infrastructure for AI, while mining brought in only $27.5 million. For TeraWulf, revenue from HPC leasing reached $31.9 million, accounting for 71% of the company's total income, while bitcoin mining generated only $12.8 million.
However, the transition is uneven. Riot Platforms still receives $23.2 million from data centers versus $113.7 million from mining, while Bitdeer gets $14 million from cloud AI services and $197.1 million from its core business. Hut 8 and MARA show minimal HPC contribution, and Cipher and Keel Infrastructure have not even begun recording revenue from this segment yet.
Situation analysis
The current downturn is not a temporary phenomenon but a reflection of the fundamental weakness of mining economics amid intense competition for capital and electricity from AI workloads. After China's mining ban in June 2021, the network recovered quickly, but now we are witnessing a different scenario: companies are not simply waiting it out but are purposefully migrating to more profitable segments.
Given that miners' fee income in August 2026 fell to a decade low, this trend will only intensify. In my understanding, we are witnessing the evolution of an industry where only those capable of adapting to the new reality of HPC infrastructure will survive.