by Coinstrooper Crypto Articles
Quick Take
  • Bitcoin mining crossed a historic threshold in late 2025.
  • According to a recent report from GoMining, the network entered the zetahash era, surpassing 1 zetahash per second of computing power.
  • But while hashrate surged to record levels, miner profitability moved in the opposite direction.
  • The result is a mining industry that is larger, more industrialized — and more exposed to price risk than at any point this cycle.

What Happened

This growth reflects aggressive hardware upgrades, new data centers, and expanding industrial operations. Mining is no longer dominated by marginal players. It now resembles energy infrastructure.

Market Context

But while hashrate surged to record levels, miner profitability moved in the opposite direction. The result is a mining industry that is larger, more industrialized — and more exposed to price risk than at any point this cycle.

The report highlights that miner earnings increasingly depend on Bitcoin’s price and difficulty alone. Other buffers have faded, including transaction fee spikes and the higher block subsidies that once softened margin pressure

This compression means miners now operate with thinner margins, even as they deploy more capital and power.

As a result, miners earned almost nothing from fees and had to rely almost entirely on Bitcoin’s price and block subsidy for revenue.

As a result, miner economics became directly exposed to Bitcoin price swings, with fewer internal stabilizers.

Hashprice Hits Lows as Margins Stay Under Pressure

The squeeze showed up clearly in hashprice — the daily revenue earned per unit of hashrate.

According to the report, hashprice fell to an all-time low near $35 per PH per day in November and remained weak into year-end. It finished the quarter near $38, well below historical averages.

Shutdown Prices Turn Price Levels Into Economic Triggers

These findings align closely with recent data on miner shutdown prices.

Why It Matters

According to GoMining, the impact was visible in the mempool. For the first time since April 2023, the Bitcoin mempool fully cleared multiple times in 2025.

Details

Bitcoin mining crossed a historic threshold in late 2025. According to a recent report from GoMining, the network entered the zetahash era, surpassing 1 zetahash per second of computing power.

Hashrate Reaches Record Highs as Mining Scales Up

The report shows Bitcoin’s network sustained over 1 ZH/s on a seven-day average, marking a structural shift rather than a temporary spike.

As a result, competition for block rewards has intensified sharply.

Revenue Per Miner Falls Despite Network Growth

While hashrate expanded, revenue per unit of compute fell into one of its tightest ranges on record.

It means the Bitcoin network was so quiet that transactions cleared immediately, even at the lowest possible fees.

Transaction Fees Offer Little Relief After the Halving

Post-halving dynamics worsened the pressure.

With the block subsidy reduced to 3.125 BTC, transaction fees failed to offset lost revenue. The report notes that fees made up less than 1% of total block rewards for most of 2025.

This left little room for operational error.

At current difficulty and electricity costs near $0.08 per kWh, widely used S21-series miners approach breakeven between $69,000 and $74,000 per BTC. Below that range, many operations stop generating operational profit.