Here’s another rewritten version with a slightly more concise, financial-news style:
An expanding share of bitcoin miners are now operating near breakeven, which is making network metrics such as hashrate and mining difficulty increasingly reactive to price movements, JPMorgan said.
The bank noted that as profitability tightens, the mining ecosystem has become more sensitive to changes in bitcoin’s value. This year, both hashrate and mining difficulty have tracked BTC price moves more closely. Over the past six months, the beta between mining difficulty and bitcoin’s price has risen to 0.62, suggesting that network computing power is adjusting faster to shifting market conditions.
Analysts led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou said mining economics have deteriorated, with bitcoin remaining below estimated production costs for five consecutive months.
Hashrate refers to the total computational power securing the Bitcoin network and is measured in exahashes per second.
JPMorgan added that a larger portion of miners are now operating close to their cost base, increasing the sensitivity of aggregate hashrate to price volatility.
The bank also estimated that mining conditions have worsened in 2026, with around 20% of miners currently unprofitable, based on CoinShares data.
Financial strain has driven increased bitcoin liquidations by miners. Publicly listed mining firms sold more than 32,000 BTC in the first quarter, exceeding total sales for all of 2025.
This dynamic means even relatively small price swings are now having outsized effects on network behavior. When bitcoin trades below production costs, higher-cost miners tend to shut down, reducing hashrate and triggering downward adjustments in mining difficulty. JPMorgan pointed to June’s second week, when difficulty fell 10%, marking the second such decline this year.
Looking ahead, the bank expects this heightened sensitivity to persist as long as bitcoin remains below its estimated production cost of about $78,000. Bitcoin was trading near $64,700 at the time of the report.
At the same time, miners are increasingly diversifying into artificial intelligence and high-performance computing to offset pressure on margins. AI hosting contracts are seen as a more stable and potentially higher-margin revenue source compared with bitcoin mining, which has been squeezed by rising competition and the 2024 halving.
However, analysts cautioned that while miners have announced tens of billions of dollars in AI-related projects, execution risks and heavy capital requirements remain significant hurdles.
