As Bitcoin prices fell to levels not seen since February, the network’s hashrate shrank sharply, with 145 exahashes per second (EH/s) leaving the system since the end of May.
Important points:
- Bitcoin’s network hashrate has fallen by 145EH/s since May 28, dropping to 885EH/s as the price fell to its February lows.
- Hashprice fell 26.96% in 30 days to $28.26/PH/s, leading Electron Energy CEO Rafa Zaghri to call it Bitcoin’s first “hashrate bear market.”
- Difficulty is projected to drop by 10.76% on June 13, 2026, as fees below 1% of miner rewards remain a long-term structural concern.
Hashprice drops 27% in 30 days as miners’ incomes tighten
According to data from hashrateindex.com, Bitcoin’s computational power has significantly regressed since May 28, 2026, when the network was running at 1,030 EH/s. This figure has now dropped to 885 EH/s. This decline is occurring in parallel with a contraction in miner income, which remains closely tied to Bitcoin’s market value.
At the time of writing, HashPrice, the estimated daily profit generated by one petahash per second (PH/s) of computing power, was $28.26 as of June 7th. Thirty days ago, on May 7th, this number was $38.69. This means that mining revenue has decreased by 26.96% compared to a month ago.
On-chain fees account for less than 1% of miner rewards due to block times exceeding 10 minutes
On-chain fees remain negligible, accounting for less than 1% of miner rewards and, by median, only 0.73% of the past day’s total. One positive development is that recent adjustments have continued to reduce the difficulty of the network, recalibrating the effort required to discover new blocks. However, this also means that there is less computational power to protect the network, and the block interval often varies beyond the 10-minute average expected by the protocol.
After increasing difficulty by 1.72% in the last adjustment, a significant difficulty reduction is expected on June 13, 2026. The prediction is still subject to change, but the next epoch could see a 10.76% decrease as the block generation delay continues. Currently, the average block time over the past day is hovering around 11 minutes and 12 seconds.
Elektron Energy CEO declares first hashrate bear market in Bitcoin history
Many network observers have argued that the situation is becoming increasingly difficult for mining participants, with Electron Energy CEO Rafa Zaghri claiming that Bitcoin is experiencing the first “hashrate bear market” in history.
The phenomenon is defined by a market-driven gradual winding down of the network’s hashrate to about 25% below its September 2025 peak as unprofitable mining rigs continue to shut down, Zagri wrote in an article for X last month. While this development challenges the industry’s long-held assumption that hashrate will only increase over time, Zagri argues that Bitcoin’s security remains firmly intact, as the capital required to carry out a 51% attack remains prohibitive.
Rather, Zagri argues that the more significant long-term challenge is the stagnation of the transaction fee market, which will eventually need to compensate for steadily declining block subsidies. Meanwhile, many publicly traded miners are directing resources to artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, with more efficient and disciplined operators taking advantage of Bitcoin’s self-adjusting difficulty mechanism, which reduces competition and allows surviving participants to earn a larger share of the network’s rewards.
Stagnant fee market poses a longer-term threat than a temporary decline in hashrate
For many analysts, the problems in the fee market are seen as gradual but deeply structural in nature. Although block subsidies are cut in half every four years, transaction fees currently account for less than 1% of miners’ compensation. Before the 2024 halving, transaction fees were a much larger proportion of miners’ revenue than they are now. Over time, that imbalance can have far greater consequences than a temporary reduction in hashrate.
