Soaring Hashrate Drives Up Bitcoin Mining Costs, Says TheMinerMag

Miners Scale Up as Rising Bitcoin Hashrate Squeezes Margins

With Bitcoin’s network nearing a historic zetahash milestone, miners are ramping up capacity to stay ahead of rising operational pressures, TheMinerMag’s June report reveals.

As of mid-June, Bitcoin’s mining difficulty reached an all-time high of 126.98 trillion, fueled by a two-week average hashrate of 913.54 EH/s. While Bitcoin’s price remains steady around $107,000, profitability is being eroded. Transaction fees dropped below 1% of block rewards, and hashprice dipped to $52 per PH/s before seeing a modest rebound.

Production costs are now on track to exceed $70,000 per BTC, up from $64,000 in Q1, as competition and energy prices climb. In response, public mining firms are rapidly expanding operations to maintain scale advantages.

MARA Holdings (MARA) increased its hashrate by 30% in May, and HIVE (HIVE) added 32% by activating new infrastructure in Paraguay. Cipher Mining (CIFR) is targeting a 70% hashrate boost through its Texas facility expansion, while CleanSpark (CLSK), Riot Platforms (RIOT), and IREN (IREN) are also pursuing aggressive growth.

ASIC machine prices now range from $10 to $30 per terahash, extending ROI timelines to nearly two years at an ideal electricity rate of $0.06/kWh. But some firms are already exceeding those costs—Terawulf, for example, paid $0.081/kWh in Q1, which pushed up its fleet hashcost by more than 25%.

Meanwhile, investor focus appears to be shifting. Mining stocks are diverging from Bitcoin’s performance, with IREN, Core Scientific (CORZ), and Bit Digital (BTBD) seeing gains last month. In contrast, Canaan (CAN) and Bitfarms (BITF) posted steep declines.

This divergence suggests that markets are increasingly evaluating miners on business fundamentals rather than simply following BTC’s price.