Bitcoin Mining Costs Expected to Exceed $70,000 per BTC
Bitcoin miners are facing increased challenges as network hashrate and difficulty rise, impacting profit margins while Bitcoin’s price remains stable, according to TheMinerMag's report.
- Mining difficulty reached a record 126.98 trillion with an average hashrate of 913.54 EH/s.
- Transaction fees in June fell below 1% of block rewards; hashprice declined to $52 per PH/s before slight recovery.
- Production costs are projected to exceed $70,000 per BTC, up from $64,000 in Q1 2025.
- Public miners such as MARA, CleanSpark, Riot Platforms, and IREN are expanding operations to stay competitive.
- MARA increased its hashrate by 30% in May; HIVE raised its hashrate by 32% after starting a new facility in Paraguay.
- Top-tier ASIC costs range from $10 to $30 per terahash, with payback periods extending to two years at a $0.06/kWh electricity rate.
- Terawulf's costs rose over 25% due to paying $0.081/kWh for electricity in Q1.
- Mining stocks are diverging from Bitcoin's price: IREN, Core Scientific, and Bit Digital showed gains, while Canaan and Bitfarms saw declines.
- This trend indicates investors are focusing more on business models than solely on Bitcoin's price movements.