Bitcoin hash rate drops to 993 EH/s, hitting a four-month low, as the AI wave intensifies, further squeezing miners' difficulties

Bitcoin network hash rate has recently been in a continuous decline. According to Hashrate Index data, the 7-day moving average of Bitcoin’s hash rate is currently at 993 EH/s (exahashes per second), the first time since mid-September it has fallen below 1000 EH/s. Since reaching a peak of 1157 EH/s in mid-October, the total network hash rate has decreased by nearly 15%, reflecting a significant adjustment in market supply.

Behind this fluctuation lies profound industry changes. Leon Lyu, CEO and founder of StandardHash, recently pointed out that the decline in hash rate is closely related to resource allocation strategies of Bitcoin miners—many mining farms are shifting electricity resources from Bitcoin mining to artificial intelligence computing services in pursuit of higher economic returns.

Power Struggle Behind the Continued Decline in Hash Rate

The reason miners are making this shift is due to the severe economic challenges facing Bitcoin mining. Industry warnings last year predicted that 2025 would be the “most challenging profit environment in history” for Bitcoin miners. Slumping coin prices have led to decreased mining revenue, while debt burdens have surged, squeezing miners’ profit margins.

In contrast, AI and high-performance computing (HPC) businesses offer more attractive profit models. The key advantage is that Bitcoin mining farms typically have large-scale power access and advanced cooling infrastructure, originally designed for SHA-256 hash calculations, but can be fully reconfigured for GPU-intensive AI computing tasks. This infrastructure reuse allows miners to quickly switch to more profitable ventures without additional investment.

Miner Diversification and Turning to AI as a Survival Strategy

Faced with profit pressures, smaller independent miners are transferring part of their hash rate to the AI computing market in an attempt to diversify their business and survive. This shift has temporarily alleviated operational pressures for individual miners but has also intensified the decentralization trend of Bitcoin network hash rate.

Notably, Leon Lyu also made a deeper observation: as the world’s largest Bitcoin miner manufacturer, Bitmain may be expanding its hash rate “silently” through secondary channels and undisclosed partnerships. This suggests that the publicly reported total network hash rate data may be underestimated, and the actual industry concentration could be higher than shown. This introduces new uncertainties for the future evolution of the industry landscape.