The state of the network entering May

Bitcoin's network hashrate continues to operate above 1,000 exahash per second, equivalent to 1 zettahash per second, after climbing to a fresh epoch high near 994.8 EH/s following the April 3 difficulty adjustment. April was a whippy month for miners. Difficulty rose 3.87 percent on April 3, then eased 2.43 percent on April 17 to 135.59 trillion. Block intervals have been running shorter than the 10-minute target, with average intervals near 9 minutes 35 seconds, pointing to another upward adjustment on the May 1 epoch boundary.

The two-way movement reflects an ecosystem where new ASIC capacity is still coming online — primarily Antminer S21+ Hydro and WhatsMiner M66S deployments at U.S. and Middle Eastern hosting sites — even as some marginal capacity has unplugged at higher all-in costs. The 30-day average hashrate sat at 1,004 EH/s in Q1 2026, down from 1,066 EH/s in the previous quarter, a 5.8 percent quarter-over-quarter decline that reflects exactly that kind of marginal-fleet rotation.

Hashprice, miner P&L, and the BTC price assumption

Hashprice — the daily revenue per terahash per second of compute, denominated in dollars — rose roughly 13.65 percent through the second half of April as the difficulty drop combined with stable block rewards. With BTC trading near $76,500 and transaction-fee revenue running at typical post-halving levels (about 4-7 percent of total block reward), hashprice is sitting near the level required to keep modern fleets profitable.

A useful reference point: a current-generation S21+ Hydro consumes roughly 19 joules per terahash. At a fully loaded electricity cost of $0.05 per kilowatt-hour — common at U.S. hosting facilities and competitive enclave sites — that machine is comfortably in the green. At $0.07 per kWh, margins compress. At $0.09+ per kWh, the machine is borderline, and any sustained price weakness below $70K starts to matter.

Older fleets — S19j Pro, M50, M30S++ — are operating much closer to break-even. A meaningful share of those rigs would unplug if BTC fell to the high $60Ks for more than a few weeks.

What would change at $70,000

Mining economics work as a pyramid. Newer rigs with cheap power are at the top and stay profitable through deep drawdowns. Older rigs at expensive sites are at the bottom and capitulate first.

If BTC tests $70,000 and holds there, three things would happen in roughly that order.

First, marginal hosted miners — older fleets at $0.08+ per kWh — begin to unplug. This typically takes one to two weeks to show up in the seven-day average hashrate.

Second, the next difficulty adjustment turns negative. A 3-6 percent downward adjustment is a common response to a 7-10 percent fleet pullback. That immediately rebuilds margins for the remaining miners.

Third, any extended weakness pulls forward forced selling from public miners that need to fund operations. Q1 2026 already saw several public miners slow their HODL strategies and increase monthly BTC sales to fund capex.

The system is self-balancing on a multi-week horizon. The risk is the brief window between price weakness and difficulty adjustment, when forced selling can amplify downside.

The geography map is shifting

The most consequential structural development of the last twelve months is the continued rotation of hashrate toward the United States, Paraguay, and the United Arab Emirates, away from regions exposed to grid stress or political pressure. U.S. share of global hashrate continues to track in the high 30s as a percent, with Texas alone hosting more than 200 EH/s of capacity through ERCOT-balanced demand-response programs.

Paraguay's hydro-anchored sites and the UAE's gas-curtailment-fueled capacity have become the two largest growth zones for new fleet installations. In both regions, hosting agreements are being underwritten at electricity costs below $0.04 per kWh, which gives operators meaningful margin even at $60K BTC.

This matters because cheap-power capacity sets the long-run difficulty floor. As more of the global fleet sits at sub-$0.04 power, the threshold price at which mass capitulation occurs falls — which is bullish for network resilience and bearish for any thesis that relies on miner-led downside.

Fees and the post-halving revenue mix

Transaction fees as a share of block reward have stabilized in the 4-7 percent range during typical demand weeks, occasionally spiking to 12-20 percent on Runes or Ordinals activity bursts. Without a sustained fee renaissance, the post-halving subsidy of 3.125 BTC per block remains the dominant revenue line for miners.

The encouraging development is that Ordinals and Runes-related fee spikes have become more frequent, not less, since the halving — suggesting some structural mempool demand that did not exist in prior cycles. Whether that demand expands enough to materially change the fee mix by 2028 is one of the more important open questions for long-term mining economics.

Watchlist for May

Three near-term signals are worth tracking.

A difficulty adjustment on or around May 1: the short block intervals point to a likely upward adjustment of 1-3 percent. A larger move would suggest fleets are ramping faster than expected.

Public-miner Q1 earnings: most U.S.-listed miners report between mid-May and early June. The headline figures will be production levels, sale rates of mined BTC, and capex pipelines for new sites.

Hashprice direction: if hashprice climbs back toward $58 per PH/s/day on a sustained basis, miner P&L improves sharply. A drop below $48 would pressure marginal operators meaningfully.

Frequently asked questions

What is Bitcoin's network hashrate right now? The seven-day average network hashrate is running above 1,000 exahash per second, or 1 zettahash per second, with the most recent epoch high near 994.8 EH/s.

When is the next difficulty adjustment? Difficulty adjusts every 2,016 blocks, or roughly every two weeks. With current block intervals running near 9 minutes 35 seconds, an upward adjustment of 1-3 percent is expected at the May 1 epoch boundary.

Are miners profitable at $76,500 BTC? Modern fleets (S21+, M66S, M70 series) at electricity costs below $0.06 per kWh are comfortably profitable. Older fleets and higher-cost hosting are closer to break-even and would face stress on a sustained move below $70K.

What is hashprice? Hashprice is the daily revenue, denominated in dollars, generated by one petahash per second of mining capacity. It accounts for both block subsidy and transaction fees, and is the standard metric for comparing miner profitability across price and difficulty regimes.

What happens to the network if many miners unplug at once? The protocol responds with a difficulty downward adjustment within 2,016 blocks (about two weeks), which restores profitability for remaining miners. Brief periods of slower block production can occur during the transition, but the protocol has been resilient through multiple historical capitulation events.

External references

  • [Bitcoin Difficulty Slides 2.43% as Hashprice Rises 13.65% — News.Bitcoin.com](https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-network-eases-as-difficulty-slides-2-43-and-hashprice-rises-13-65/)
  • [Hashrate Index Roundup — April 13, 2026](https://hashrateindex.com/blog/hashrate-index-roundup-april-13-2026/)
  • [Bitcoin Mining & Hashrate Report April 3-17, 2026 — BTC.network](https://btc.network/blog/bitcoin-mining-hashrate-report-april-3-17-2026)
  • [Bitcoin Difficulty Climbs 3.87% — News.Bitcoin.com](https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-difficulty-climbs-3-87-as-hashrate-slips-and-next-cut-looms/)
  • [Bitcoin Hashrate Falls in Early 2026 — MEXC News](https://www.mexc.co/news/1010118)

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