Bitcoin It costs more now my According to data from the Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index (CBECI), it will be higher than the current market price in the US.
of cryptocurrency It is currently trading at around $87,900, according to CoinGecko data, while data from CBEIC and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) puts the national average energy cost per kWh in October 2025 at $0.14, suggesting the current cost to mine one Bitcoin is $94,746.
This average price includes more expensive residential and commercial prices, but if we only consider the average industrial price across all states ($0.09 in October), the average cost to mine one Bitcoin is still $86,931.
Given continued geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty, Bitcoin could be at risk of falling below this level, potentially putting more strain on US-based miners.
The situation is equally or even worse in other countries, with China’s average corporate energy price reaching $0.11 per kWh in June 2025, meaning it costs on average $88,869 to mine one Bitcoin.
GlobalPetrolPrices.com gives Russia the same rate of $0.11/kWh, but Canada benefits from a slightly lower rate of $0.10, which equates to the cost of mining one Bitcoin of $88,003.
As an example of a country where large-scale mining is not commercially viable, industry group Cryptocurrency NZ has calculated that the cost to mine a single BTC in New Zealand is currently NZ$173,192.96, or $103,799.
Meanwhile, in Paraguay, which currently accounts for about 4% of Bitcoin’s hash rate, the average electricity price for businesses is $0.05, making the average mining cost about $59,650.
US miners pivot to AI
Mining operators are well aware of how difficult the current situation is, with nine US mining companies (Riot Platforms, Bitfarms, Core Scientific, Riot, IREN, TeraWulf, CleanSpark, Bit Digital, MARA Holdings, and Cipher Mining) converting, in whole or in part, to AI data centers over the past year and a half.
talk to decryptionLeo Wang, Canaan’s vice president of capital markets and corporate development, said miners that took on too much debt to operate, or that installed hardware that was too expensive or “quickly obsolete,” have faced the prospect of unprofitability in recent years and months.
However, he acknowledged that Canaan has made strategic decisions to reduce its risk profile, such as avoiding excessive debt and designing and selling its own mining hardware, to generate cash flow and offset expenses.
He said: “We strive to keep electricity prices below 4 cents/kWh, which has historically been sustainable through bear markets, and we maintain daily operational oversight with our partners, deploying machinery only when power and operations are fully ready.”
Canaan also maintains hosting agreements that give it the right to scale back or close operations in certain locations should the economy become unviable.
“From low-cost markets to off-grid energy operations in Canada, our global footprint and technological capabilities also enable us to explore new energy sources and energy reuse, reducing our dependence on a single grid or power source over time,” he added.
More generally, Digiconomist founder Alex de Vries points out that computational difficulty has recently peaked, but the falling price of Bitcoin is making things increasingly difficult for miners.
“You can do the math yourself considering it currently takes about 1.2 million kWh to mine one Bitcoin,” he said. decryption. “At a price of $85,000 per coin, just over 7 cents per kWh is a loss.”
De Vries concluded that bitcoin mining would be unprofitable and “actually become very common in most places” because it is not easy to secure very low rates. (It’s not easy to get super low rates like this).
Bitcoin miners will need the price of the cryptocurrency to start rising again soon, as rewards will be halved again in two years.
“It’s still a long way off, but if price levels don’t rise significantly by then, miners will be squeezed even more,” De Vries said.
