According to ChainCatcher, citing CoinDesk, Bitcoin miners are currently facing severe cost pressures. Checkonchain's difficulty regression model shows that the average production cost of Bitcoin is approximately $88,000, while the current price of Bitcoin is approximately $69,200, a difference of nearly $19,000. This means that on average, miners lose about 21% for every Bitcoin they mine.
Cost pressures have been building since Bitcoin fell from $126,000 to below $70,000 last October, and the conflict with Iran has further exacerbated this situation. Oil prices exceeding $100 per barrel have directly increased electricity costs for miners, particularly impacting the approximately 8% to 10% of global mining activity that relies on markets sensitive to Middle Eastern energy supplies. Trump's 48-hour ultimatum on Saturday, threatening to attack Iranian power plants, adds another layer of risk for miners.
Bitcoin mining difficulty dropped 7.76% to 133.79 T on Saturday, the second largest decline in 2026, currently about 10% lower than at the beginning of the year and well below the all-time high of about 155 T in November 2025. The network hashrate has fallen to approximately 920 EH/s, and the average block time in the previous cycle increased to 12 minutes and 36 seconds. The hashrate price is currently around $33.3 per PH/s/day, close to the break-even point for most mining rigs, and not far from the all-time low of $28 reached on February 23.
When miners cannot cover costs, they will be forced to sell Bitcoin to maintain operations, further exacerbating market selling pressure given that 43% of the current Bitcoin supply is operating at a loss. Publicly listed mining companies such as Marathon Digital and Cipher Mining are addressing the difficulties by diversifying their operations into AI and high-performance computing. The next difficulty adjustment is expected in early April, and according to CoinWarz data, it is projected to continue decreasing.
