Bitcoin miners are capitulating

According to new On-chain datathe Bitcoin network has been experiencing a period of “miner capitulation” with mining difficulty consistently decreasing since November 2025.

Meanwhile, profitability has stagnated and operators are unplugging machines en masse.

great unplug

The Bitcoin difficulty chart clearly depicts the situation of outflows. The difficulty level reached an all-time high of approximately 155 T in early November 2025. Since its peak, the indicator has consistently declined, crashing to its current level of 141.67 T in late January 2026.

Mining difficulty determines how difficult it is to find blocks. As more miners join, the task becomes even more difficult. Once they leave, it gets easier. The gradual decline in the graph confirms that a large amount of hashrate is being used offline. Miners are “coming off” because they cannot justify the cost of electricity to operate their vehicles.

In late October, miner profitability (hash price) fell off a cliff. It went from about $49/PH/sec to about $35/PH/sec in a few days.

Despite the decrease in difficulty, which should theoretically increase profitability for the remaining miners, profitability has remained largely unchanged. It remains in the $38 to $40 range.

This creates a “profitability trap.” The remaining miners will get a bigger piece of the pie, but the value of that pie may be too low to make a difference.

where will they go?

Miners are “switching to other types of business.” With high performance computing (HPC) contract payments significantly higher than Bitcoin mining, many facilities are repurposing their power infrastructure to host AI data centers.

For many people, the choice is easy. Either mine Bitcoin at a loss or lease your power capacity to an AI company for a guaranteed profit.