NEW YORK — The computing power securing the Bitcoin network climbed back above one zettahash per second (ZH/s) early Monday, according to multiple blockchain data dashboards, underscoring continued investment in industrial-scale mining even as per-unit revenues keep falling.
Figures compiled by Hashrate Index and confirmed by Glassnode show the seven-day average network hashrate touching 1.02 ZH/s overnight — roughly 10 sextillion calculations every second. The milestone, first crossed in December, comes amid a steady build-out of next-generation ASIC fleets in North America and the Middle East, analysts said.
“Public miners have pushed capacity online at a record pace ahead of the April halving,” said Ethan Vera, chief operating officer at Luxor Technologies, referring to the scheduled four-yearly block-reward cut. “They are betting scale will offset the squeeze on margins.”
That squeeze is already evident. Hashprice — the industry’s shorthand for revenue a miner earns per terahash of computing power each day — fell to about $0.074 on Monday, its lowest level since early January, Hashrate Index data show. The drop reflects a combination of Tuesday’s 6.3% difficulty increase and last week’s 4% slide in bitcoin’s spot price.
Lower profitability is forcing some operators to retrench. Two mid-sized U.S. miners told SourceRated they idled fleets of Bitmain S9 and WhatsMiner M21 rigs over the weekend, judging them “cash-flow negative” at current energy rates. “Unless bitcoin quickly reclaims $75,000, our legacy machines stay dark,” one executive said on condition of anonymity.
Despite the short-term pain, network metrics point to further difficulty hikes. Both Luxor and CoinMetrics project a 1.5%-to-2% uptick at the next adjustment cycle on April 1, driven by the sustained surge in hashrate.
Looking ahead, analysts say the approaching reward halving — which will cut the subsidy per block from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC — could push hashprice to new lows, forcing consolidation among smaller firms and accelerating the migration of rigs to regions with subsidized power. “The arms race is far from over,” said Clara Medrano, a mining strategist at Galaxy Digital. “Cheap electricity and high-efficiency hardware remain the only durable moats.”
For investors, the bifurcation may translate into opportunity. “Historically, miner capitulation marks late-cycle bottoms in bitcoin,” noted Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research. “But it can be a bumpy ride getting there.”