Bitcoin Miners Cut Output Again — Here's What's Going On

Bitcoin's network has now logged its 14th mining difficulty adjustment of 2026 — and eight of them have been negative. On July 11, difficulty dropped 5%, from 133.87 trillion to 127.17 trillion, a direct result of hashrate falling 7.9% in just ten days.

How steep the hashrate drop was

As of July 11, the network's seven-day average hashrate stood at around 908 EH/s, down from roughly 986 EH/s on July 1. Year-to-date, the figure is down 14.8% from about 1,065 EH/s on January 1, and it now sits 21.3% below the October 2025 peak of 1,154 EH/s. For comparison, hashrate is still only 3.3% above the February 2026 low of 879 EH/s.

Mining profitability slipped too

Hashprice (revenue per PH/s of hashing power) stood at $31.1 on July 11 — up 12.5% from $27.6 on July 1, but down 16.4% from the start of the year and down 37.2% from the October 2025 peak of $49.4.

A continuation of a trend we've already covered

This isn't the first drop of its kind this year: earlier in 2026, we covered how mining difficulty dropped 10% as part of miners operating at a loss. According to CoinShares estimates, 15% to 20% of miners are currently mining bitcoin at a cash loss, and the weighted average cash production cost for publicly listed mining companies is approaching $90,000 per BTC — well above bitcoin's market price.

What this means in practice

When mining costs exceed bitcoin's price, the least efficient hardware — mostly aging ASIC models — gets switched off first, and that reduction in total network compute power is exactly what shows up as a hashrate drop. The automatic downward difficulty adjustment, in turn, eases the load on the remaining miners and partially restores their economics — until the next round of price pressure.

This material is for informational purposes only and is not investment advice.