Bitcoin mining difficulty was cut by 11.16% on Feb. 7, falling to 125.86T. The move was the largest negative adjustment since China's sweeping mining crackdown in 2021, and it ranks among the 10 biggest downward difficulty revisions in Bitcoin's history.
The adjustment took place at block height 935,424, down from 141.67T previously. Before the reset, the drop in network hash rate had already pushed average block times to roughly 11.4 minutes, well above Bitcoin's 10-minute target. That slowdown pointed to a broad miner shutdown across the network.
Hash rate fell nearly 20% over the past month
The immediate driver behind the difficulty drop was a sharp contraction in computing power. Network hash rate declined by nearly 20% over the past month, according to the source material. Luxor's hash rate index showed that hash rate dropped 11% in the past week alone to 863 EH/s, far below the record 1.1 ZH/s reached in October last year.
Price weakness added to the pressure. Bitcoin has fallen more than 43% since reaching its record high of $126,000 last October. On Feb. 6, it briefly approached $60,000 before rebounding above $71,000. The source tied the selling pressure to elevated U.S. Treasury yields, persistent outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs, and stronger risk-off sentiment in equities and commodities. Data from SoSoValue showed that U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs turned into net sellers in 2026.
Winter storm forced power curbs at mining sites
Non-market factors also hit miners. The “Finn winter storm” that struck the United States in late January tightened power supply conditions in several regions, forcing mining facilities to reduce load or shut down entirely so electricity could be prioritized for households. The storm knocked about 200 EH/s offline, and Foundry USA alone saw its hash rate fall by 60%.
Miner economics weakened at the same time. Hashprice, a key measure of expected mining revenue per unit of computing power, fell to a record low of $33.31 per PH/s per day on Feb. 2. The daily average on Feb. 1 was only $34.91. Ben Harper, head of derivatives at Luxor, said the market generally treats $40 as the threshold that determines whether miners keep machines running. Below that level, most rigs are operating at a loss.
Older machines are being pushed to the edge
Under current conditions, the source said only the latest Antminer S23 series still offers relatively healthy returns. Older models such as the Whatsminer M6 series and Antminer S21 are either near break-even or already running unprofitably.
Checkonchain data highlighted the broader squeeze. The average cost of mining one Bitcoin is now around $87,000, while the spot price is near $70,000, leaving the market price about 20% below production cost. Fee income has also thinned out. After the chain activity surge seen in 2024 faded, transaction fees as a share of miner revenue dropped from about 7% to roughly 1%, leaving miners more exposed to the coin price itself.
VanEck said in December last year that historical data showed Bitcoin had about a 65% chance of rising over the following 90 days during periods of falling hash rate. For miners still online, the latest difficulty reduction offers a narrow benefit right away: each unit of hash power now has a better chance of earning block rewards.