Bitcoin briefly pushed above JPMorgan’s estimated average production cost of about $85,000 this week, snapping a 280-day stretch spent below that mark, according to a Sept. 23 report from the bank. That was longer than the roughly 224-day stretch seen in 2018, the report said.
The report came from a team led by JPMorgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou. The Block covered the document on Sept. 24. JPMorgan said production cost means the average electricity and hardware expense needed to mine one Bitcoin. Stay under that line for too long, and miners with steeper power and machine bills can slide into the red. Then the pressure hits: sell more BTC, power down rigs, or quit the market.
JPMorgan wrote, "As long as this new setup can be sustained, it should give Bitcoin miners some breathing room and reduce the risk of forced selling."
Bitcoin stayed above the cost line for only two days
Using Binance daily closing prices, Bitcoin finished at $86,620 on Sept. 21 and $86,208 on Sept. 22, both above the $85,000 mark. But on Sept. 23, it closed at $84,397, slipping back under it.
As of 6 p.m. Taiwan time on Sept. 26, Bitcoin traded at $84,069 on Binance, about 1.1% below JPMorgan’s estimated production cost.
JPMorgan had put production cost at about $78,000 in a June report. This time it lifted the figure to about $85,000. The Block’s report did not say why the estimate changed. Back in June, Bitcoin traded around $62,500, about 20% below the bank’s cost estimate at that point. That earlier report also cited CoinShares data saying about 20% of miners were operating at a loss.
Miners cut costs by relocating rigs and selling older machines
JPMorgan said miners got through the low-margin stretch with a few clear moves: shifting mining machines to places with cheaper electricity, selling older rigs, idling some equipment, and scrapping or recycling less efficient hardware.
As higher-cost miners shut down, network hash rate and mining difficulty both moved lower. The report said hash rate sat about 19% below its peak from last October, while mining difficulty was about 15% lower.
According to on-chain data from mempool.space, mining difficulty hit 155.97 trillion on Oct. 29, 2025, then dropped to 132.76 trillion after the Sept. 19 adjustment, a decline of 14.9%, matching the report. Lower difficulty means the same machines can produce more Bitcoin. Simple as that. And it takes some cost pressure off the miners still online.
On a seven-day average basis, hash rate was about 1,153 EH/s in mid-October 2025 and had fallen to about 916 EH/s by Sept. 26, a drop of about 20.6%. The report did not say which averaging method it used. EH/s is a hash rate unit; the higher the number, the more computing power the network is throwing at mining.
JPMorgan says miners are shifting power toward AI
The bank also said Bitcoin mining is tilting toward AI computing. Some miners have moved part, or even all, of their operations into AI. That has slowed overall hash rate growth. And some publicly listed mining companies have cut their hash rate growth forecasts too.
JPMorgan analysts said AI companies are willing to pay a meaningful premium for power capacity and data centers already built for high-intensity computing. With Bitcoin prices weak through much of this year, AI revenue has been more predictable and steadier than mining income, and it brings in more profit per megawatt, or MW.
The report said publicly listed miners are losing share of total network mining to private miners and sovereign miners, meaning state-backed mining operations. JPMorgan said that, from Bitcoin’s point of view, this could hold back excessive hash rate growth, keep the network from getting too crowded, and reduce concentration risk. Slower, flatter hash rate growth also means Bitcoin production costs may climb more slowly in the future, outside the halving effect.
mempool.space currently estimates the next difficulty adjustment will happen around Oct. 4, with difficulty expected to fall by about 3.4%. That estimate can change depending on how fast blocks are produced.