Bitcoin miners enter 2026 facing increasing cost pressures and a rapid transition to artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, according to a new report from Coinshares released on Wednesday.
AI Boom Reshapes Bitcoin Mining Sector, Coinshares Report Shows
According to the latest Bitcoin mining analysis, the fourth quarter of 2025 was one of the toughest for miners since the April 2024 halving, as the price of Bitcoin fell from about $124,500 in October to about $86,000 by late December. At the same time, the network’s hashrate remained near record levels, weighing on profitability. The weighted average cash cost to generate one Bitcoin has risen to nearly $80,000, with many operators approaching break-even.
Hashprice, a key revenue metric, fell to about $36 to $38 per petahash per second (PH/s) per day in the fourth quarter, and then fell further to about $29 in early 2026. These conditions have led to signs of minor capitulation, including three consecutive negative difficulty adjustments for the first time since July 2022.
Source: Coinshares mining report. “The weighted average cash cost of producing one Bitcoin among listed miners rose to approximately USD 79,995 in Q4 2025,” Butterfill said in a report on Wednesday.
James Butterfill, head of research at Coinshares, said the environment was driven by a combination of price pressures and increased network competition, and reflected “one of the most difficult periods” for miners since the last halving.
Against this backdrop, the industry is increasingly turning to AI and high-performance computing (HPC) as alternative revenue sources. Publicly traded miners have announced more than $70 billion in AI and HPC-related contracts, with some companies expected to generate up to 70% of their revenue from AI by the end of 2026, according to Coinshares.
This change reflects a fundamental economic trade-off. In other words, AI infrastructure provides more stable returns than Bitcoin mining in the current situation. Still, the transition has been uneven. While some companies are actively repositioning themselves as data center operators, others continue to prioritize mining or adopt hybrid strategies.
Source: Coinshares mining report.
Meanwhile, the Bitcoin network itself remains resilient despite recent volatility. The hashrate peaked in 2025 at over 1 zetahash/second, then retreated and stabilized around 1,020 exahash/second. Coinshares expects long-term growth to continue, predicting that the hashrate could reach 1.8 zettahash by the end of 2026 and 2 zettahash by early 2027.
Geographically, the US, China and Russia still dominate global mining, accounting for around 68% of total hashrate, but countries like Paraguay and Ethiopia are emerging.
Despite the AI shift, the economics of mining are still closely tied to the price of Bitcoin. The report notes that while a recovery towards $100,000 could boost hash prices and improve profit margins, a prolonged slump could force more operators offline. For now, the sector appears to be divided into two camps. One is a traditional miner and the other is a hybrid infrastructure company that balances Bitcoin production with AI-driven workloads.
