Bitcoin mining difficulty posts biggest drop since China ban

Bitcoin mining in China saw its largest-ever decline, dropping 11.16% to a record low of 125.86 trillion, according to the Bitcoin network explorer Mempool’s report dated Saturday, February 7. 

To demonstrate the intense nature of the situation, Bitcoin developer Mononaut noted that this recent decline is the largest one-time reduction recorded since the country enacted a substantial ban five years ago. 

Moreover, reports from reliable sources noted that the drop ranked tenth among the largest percentage declines on record.

Analysts raise concerns about the mining difficulty status in China 

Following the decline in China’s Bitcoin mining difficulty, analysts conducted research and discovered that the drop was attributed to about a 20% decrease in total hashrate over the last 30 days.

Regarding this finding, Luxor Technology Corporation, a premier full-stack Bitcoin mining services provider, released data showing that its Hashrate Index dropped by 11% last week, hitting a record low of 863 EH/s, compared to October’s all-time high above 1.1 ZH/s.

In attempts to explain the decline in hashrate, sources pointed to Bitcoin’s price decline as the main reason. Regarding this argument, they acknowledged that the price of the cryptocurrency has fallen by more than 45% from its all-time high of more than $126,000 in October.

To support this claim, data released on February 5 highlighted that Bitcoin’s price plummeted to a record low of around $60,000 before bouncing back to about $68,800 yesterday.

Higher Treasury yields, persistent ETF outflows, and a broad retreat from risk-on assets, such as stocks and commodities, fueled this sell-off. At this particular moment, SoSoValue, an AI-powered, Singapore-founded cryptocurrency research and investment platform, shared reports indicating that US spot bitcoin ETFs have emerged as net sellers this year.

Another reason for the drop in China’s Bitcoin mining difficulty is Winter Storm Fern, a major, wide-reaching severe weather event triggered by an Arctic air mass clashing with Gulf moisture. This weather event in late January forced miners across diverse regions of the United States to scale back their operations to help stabilize overloaded residential power grids.

At this point, the storm caused the shutdown of approximately 200 EH/s of power supply, prompting Foundry USA’s hash rate to decline to approximately 60%. 

As the situation worsened, Ben Harper, the Director of Derivatives at Luxor Technology, decided to weigh in on the topic of discussion. Harper stressed that hashprice, a metric that quantifies the expected daily revenue (in USD or BTC) a miner earns for a specific unit of hashrate, plummeted to unprecedented lows of $33.31 per petahash per second per day on February 2, and to an average daily low of $34.91/PH/s/day on February 1.

Meanwhile, it is worth noting that miners typically use a $40/PH/s/day benchmark to determine whether to maintain operational status.

The Bitcoin mining sector in China encounters several changes 

Regarding the recent situation surrounding Bitcoin mining in China, reports dated February 2 indicated that only miners with the latest Antminer S23 series machines are currently generating substantial returns. With this discovery in mind, data from Antpool noted that older models such as the Whatsminer M6 series and Antminer S21 units are nearing, or have already reached, unprofitability.

In response to the recent decline in Bitcoin mining difficulty in China, reports revealed that the drop exceeded the approximately 7.5% seen in June last year. This decrease resulted from heatwave-related reductions in hashrate. Meanwhile, aside from the drop in June last year, analysts noted a similar case in early February 2025.

Generally, sources reported that the profitability outlook for Bitcoin mining in China is deteriorating rapidly. This came after reports from Checkonchain revealed that the average cost of mining one Bitcoin is approximately $87,000. On the other hand, spot prices are hovering near $69,000, roughly 20% below production costs.

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