Bitcoin's mining difficulty dropped 10.09% at block 953,568, making it the second-largest downward adjustment so far in 2026 and the 11th-largest in Bitcoin's history. Data from Galaxy Research, cited by WuBlockchain, shows the difficulty decreased from 138.96T to 124.93T.
How the Difficulty Adjustment Works
The network recalibrates difficulty every 2,016 blocks to target a 10-minute average block interval. When miners go offline and block production slows, the protocol lowers difficulty to help active miners find blocks more easily. The previous epoch lasted 15.6 days, well above the usual 14-day target, confirming widespread hashrate withdrawal.
Galaxy Research linked the drop to Bitcoin's 15% price decline in June, which slashed miner revenues and forced less efficient rigs offline. TheEnergyMag had forecast a drop of about 9.55%, but the actual adjustment came in deeper at 10.09%.
Short-Term Relief for Active Miners
The lower difficulty allows miners still online to produce more Bitcoin with the same hashrate. This could lift hashprice — revenue per PH/s — back above $30. Still, not all miners benefit equally. Those with newer machines and low power costs are best positioned, while older hardware remains vulnerable to another price drop or high energy costs.
Miners Shift Power to AI Data Centers
A parallel trend is accelerating the hashrate exodus: mining firms are repurposing power capacity for AI and high-performance computing (HPC). Crypto.news has reported multiple moves. Core Scientific plans to convert its Pecos, Texas Bitcoin mining site into a large AI data center campus, reallocating 300 MW of mining power.
TeraWulf posted $21 million in HPC hosting revenue in Q1 2026, exceeding its Bitcoin mining revenue for the same period. HIVE Digital announced a 320 MW AI infrastructure project near Toronto designed to host over 100,000 GPUs.