Bitcoin network sees sub-1,000 EH/s hashrate as miners chase AI compute

The Bitcoin network’s computing power, measured on a seven-day average, has dipped below the 1,000 exahash threshold after peaking in mid-October, registering a notable retrenchment in distributed mining effort. Market observers point to a practical pivot: facilities that once focused on SHA-256 jobs are routing energy and equipment toward AI workloads that can offer superior margins for operators sitting on abundant power and cooling. Industry insiders also suggest that some hardware may be operating off-book through manufacturer arrangements, creating ambiguity between reported hashrate and actual active capacity. At the protocol level the network has become marginally easier to mine as difficulty eased from roughly 156 trillion to 146.5 trillion, a sequence of downward adjustments that reduces the computational work required to find blocks. Meanwhile the market-derived hashprice has ticked upward over the last month, moving from about $37.15 to $40 per petahash per day, a signal that miner revenue per unit of work is improving even as some rigs move elsewhere. That divergence — rising per-unit returns with falling aggregate hashrate — widens the strategic choice set for operators weighing SHA-256 mining against AI hosting or other compute services. The short-term effect is a contraction of active Bitcoin hashing, which can lower the cost of finding blocks but also trims redundancy and margin for error in network security. Longer term, sustained migration of energy and silicon into AI workloads could reshape capital allocation in the mining sector, accelerating consolidation among large players that keep core mining operations. For investors and infrastructure planners the current picture demands closer attention to on-grid power contracts, asset redeployment options, and opaque manufacturer-to-operator channels that may hide actual capacity. Regulators and exchanges should note that shifting compute demand creates fresh systemic vectors, from localized grid stress to altered mining revenue dynamics that affect token economics. Technically, the network remains functional and the observed changes are reversible; yet the episode highlights how competing demand for cheap, dense compute can turn a once-stable input into a volatile strategic lever. Watching hashrate, difficulty, and hashprice in tandem will be essential to anticipate whether this is a temporary reallocation or the start of structural change in how proof-of-work resources are monetized.