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The Bitcoin mining industry has always been about getting the most hashrate, but things are changing a lot now that the post-2024 halving reality are starting to hit home. Analysts say that 2025 has been the “harshest margin environment of all time” since block rewards were slashed in half to 3.125 BTC and there was no rapid price explosion to make up for the drop. Revenue per petahash has dropped, debt has risen, and many operators are quickly switching to new sources of income, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC). As we go closer to 2026, which is still part of the fourth halving period that is scheduled to extend until 2028, this dual-track strategy of mining Bitcoin and making money from infrastructure for data-heavy workloads will decide who does well and who just gets by.
The halving has a structural effect: It makes Bitcoin rare, which is a key part of its worth, but it also makes miners have to come up with new ideas or risk going out of business. According to TheMinerMag, hashprice, which is the daily revenue per unit of computing power, averaged lows of about $35 per PH/s in 2025. This is a big drop from the Q3 peaks of about $55. In the second quarter, the average cost of producing a Bitcoin rose to $70,000, which cut into the profits of even the most efficient fleets. Even while public miners have access to capital markets, they have been hit hard, which has led to a wave of diversification that could change the business in 2026.
The New Ways to Make Money: Energy Strategy and Fee Markets
Mining has always depended on energy costs and network complexity to make money, but these things are much more important now that the halving is over. Low-cost power, ideally less than $0.04 per kilowatt-hour, is still the holy grail for operators who want to survive hashprice drops. Texas, with its flexible grid and incentives for renewable energy, and Iceland, with its geothermal resources, continue to draw fleets. However, there is a lot of competition.
Transaction fees are becoming an important cushion. Block subsidies are the main source of rewards right now, although fees made up more than 20% of miner earnings at high congestion periods in 2025, according to Glassnode data. As more people use the blockchain, thanks to Ordinals, Runes, and Layer-2 scalability, fees could help keep income stable, especially if Bitcoin’s price stays steady without a big drop. The lack of a conventional post-halving parabolic run in 2025 (BTC peaked at $126,000 in October before correcting) has kept fees low, but analysts at BitInfoCharts and other places say that contributions will rise as more people use Bitcoin.
Miners that are part of demand-response schemes that cut back on power use during peak times for credits will have an advantage in 2026. Companies like Riot Platforms and Marathon Digital have made arrangements like these, turning flexible power into money. But there is still volatility: If the bad market lasts a long time, it could reduce hashprice below $30, which would force high-cost operators to give up.
AI and HPC Pivots: Going Beyond Hashing
The most interesting trend is that miners are rushing into AI and HPC. Facilities created for ASICs, with megawatts of power, superior cooling, and high-density racks, are perfect for GPU workloads. The excitement around generative AI saw demand for computation skyrocket in 2025. By 2028, data centres are expected to need twice as much electricity.
As early as 2023, HIVE Digital Technologies reported HPC revenue. But in 2025, there was a flood: Core Scientific, MARA, Hut 8, Riot, TeraWulf, and IREN all announced or expanded AI projects. Core Scientific’s $3.5 billion deal with CoreWeave for 200 MW of HPC hosting shows how big the business is, and it could lead to greater, more reliable margins than mining, which is more risky. TeraWulf’s nuclear-powered installations are aimed for AI clients, and IREN’s Canadian facilities combine mining and cloud computing.
According to business filings, AI/HPC made up 10–20% of revenue for diversified miners by the fourth quarter of 2025, helping to protect against declines in hashprice. This “hybrid mining” paradigm, which uses ASICs when they are profitable and GPUs when they aren’t, is strong. Galaxy Digital’s 2024 consolidation report said that there would be waves of mergers and acquisitions, with Hut 8’s merger with US Bitcoin Corp in 2025 producing a $2 billion company that combined mining and high-performance computing.
Expect things to speed up in 2026: According to JPMorgan, miners with more than 500 MW of capacity might make 30–50% of their revenue from AI as hyperscalers like Microsoft and Google look for power sources outside of the U.S. grid, which is under demand from data centres.
Treasuries, Volatility, and Dilution Risks for Mining Stocks
Public miners have become some of the biggest holders of Bitcoin. MARA (20,000+ BTC), Riot, Hut 8, and CleanSpark are all in the top 10 corporate treasuries. This “MicroStrategy model” keeps mined BTC, which increases the potential for profit but also makes the market more volatile: A 20% decline in BTC takes billions off of market valuations.
Dilution is still a problem: ATMs and convertibles are used to fund capital-intensive expansions. In the third quarter of 2025, billions were raised in loan and equity, continuing the trends of 2024. Investors look at breakeven costs as a way to tell TeraWulf apart from its competitors. TeraWulf’s costs are $30,000/BTC, whereas its competitors’ costs are $50,000 or more. Strong balance sheets restrict dilution, while weak ones could hurt shareholders in bad times.
When BTC goes up, stocks like MARA and Riot trade at a premium to NAV, but when it goes down, they drop like a rock, showing that they are more exposed to treasury than operations.
Looking ahead to 2026: The Adaptive’s Survival
Bitcoin mining is going through its hardest time ever as it enters 2026, with subsidies at 3.125 BTC and competition at an all-time high. Energy mastery and fee exposure will determine who wins, but AI/HPC diversity could be the key to stabilising cash flows during times of hashprice instability. Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) or failures will lead to consolidation, which will cut out inefficient players and concentrate hashrate among hybrids.
This makes the network safer: Having different sources of income lowers the danger of having to sell. For investors, it’s complicated: treasury bets like miners give you leveraged BTC exposure but come with operational risks. As TheMinerMag says, “2026 will reward those who can adapt; pure miners will die out.”Bitcoin’s halving makes it more scarce, but miners need to change to get it. In this view, AI isn’t just a way to make money; it’s a way to stay alive.
