July 2026 became a landmark month for Bitcoin mining: two consecutive negative network difficulty adjustments and a nearly 16% rise in hashprice fundamentally changed the economics of mining the first cryptocurrency. After a prolonged price decline, this gave the industry a long-awaited respite.
Network difficulty recorded declines twice in July: on July 11 by 5%, and on July 25 by another 0.74%. By the end of the month, the metric had dropped to 126.23 trillion. This volatility continued the June trend, when difficulty fell by 10.09% on the 14th but then partially recovered by 7.15%.
Of particular note is the fact that network difficulty declined on a year-over-year basis. Such a situation has been observed only once in Bitcoin's entire history—in 2021, when China imposed a mining ban, leading to a massive shutdown of capacity. The current drivers are different: a reallocation of investments toward AI/HPC projects, changing mining economics at current prices, and temporary regional electricity restrictions.
Rising hashprice and price stabilization
In parallel with the decline in difficulty, hashprice—a metric of miners' potential revenue per unit of hashing power—rose. From June 30 to July 31, it climbed from $27.60 to $31.93 per 1 PH/s per day, gaining approximately 15.69%. The average BTC price for the month was $63,931.98, which is $752.45 higher than the June figure. The trading range was $60,150.01–$66,433.19.
The profitability leader in July was the Bitmain Antminer S21 XP 270 TH/s, which also retained the top spot for the first half of the year. Its monthly profitability was 1.12% (13.42% annually), with 0.0038313 BTC mined. Second place went to the Bitmain Antminer S21 PRO 234 TH/s MIX with a monthly profitability of 0.38% (4.56% annually), and third to the MicroBT Whatsminer M70 222 TH/s with 0.24% (2.92% annually).
Notably, a number of models, including the Bitmain Antminer S21+ 235 TH/s MIX and the MicroBT Whatsminer M61S+ 240 TH/s, showed negative profitability. This confirms that even under improved conditions, the efficiency of specific equipment remains a decisive factor.
The June-July dynamics clearly demonstrate how quickly network operating conditions change. Mining efficiency should be assessed not by individual difficulty adjustments or short-term price fluctuations, but over a longer time horizon. The market is entering a phase where only the most energy-efficient devices survive, and investments in outdated equipment are becoming increasingly risky.