Almost one-fifth of the computing power available to the Bitcoin mining network is currently inactive, according to estimates from mining services company Luxor.
About 235 exahashes per second (EH/s) of specialised Bitcoin mining equipment is offline. Luxor says the figure includes machines that are uneconomic to operate, deliberately switched off, being transported or undergoing maintenance.
The variety of reasons behind the shutdowns makes the potential return of that capacity difficult to interpret. More machines coming online could indicate improving financial conditions for miners, but it could also increase competition and reduce margins for those already operating.
Bitcoin’s rally in August improved the income available to miners. Luxor’s data shows the cryptocurrency rose 24.5% during the month, from $62,889 to $78,312.
That increase helped push the dollar-denominated “hashprice” up by 24.4%, from $31.63 to $39.33 per petahash per second per day. Hashprice is an estimate of the mining revenue generated by a specific amount of computing power before electricity and other operating costs are deducted.
The improvement was significant for less efficient machines, although mining remained challenging across the industry. Equipment using between 25 and 38 joules per terahash generated an average of about $45 per megawatt-hour in August, according to Luxor. That was below the company’s estimated network-average electricity cost of $48 per megawatt-hour. The machines were above that benchmark on 11 days during the month.
Whether an individual miner can operate profitably depends on factors including its electricity contract, financing arrangements, staffing costs and other expenses. The stronger revenue recorded towards the end of August may have made it worthwhile for some machines that had been unprofitable earlier in the month to restart.
Luxor estimates that the Bitcoin network had about 1,150 EH/s of total net application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) capacity, compared with activity equivalent to roughly 915 EH/s based on August’s average mining difficulty. The difference of 235 EH/s represents an estimate of sidelined capacity, although it compares an equipment-based figure with a measure of activity derived from network difficulty.
The inactive machines do not all face the same prospects. An uneconomic unit needs higher revenue, lower costs or both before it can return. Equipment being transported or repaired may simply need to reach its destination or complete maintenance. Machines deliberately curtailed may already be ready to run, but their owners could currently make greater value by leaving them switched off.
Luxor has not broken down the 235 EH/s estimate by category, meaning it is not possible to say how much capacity would return at a particular Bitcoin price or hashprice.
Hashrate estimates can also be affected by conditions unrelated to financial distress. Blockchain.com says Bitcoin’s exact hashing power cannot be known and must instead be inferred from mining difficulty and the speed at which blocks are found. Because block discovery is random, daily readings can move sharply even when the underlying amount of computing power has not changed. A seven-day average offers a more representative picture, but smoothing the figures still cannot distinguish a struggling miner from one deliberately avoiding costly electricity.
Texas provides one example of why equipment may be switched off for economic reasons. The state grid operator ERCOT uses four coincident peaks, commonly known as 4CP, covering June, July, August and September. Each peak is defined as the highest-load 15-minute settlement interval in the relevant month.
Luxor says some Bitcoin miners in Texas cut their activity during the summer to avoid transmission charges linked to those peaks. For operators subject to the incentive, running a machine during the relevant period can cost more than the electricity used by the machine itself.
The end of the September peak-avoidance window could therefore allow some curtailed equipment to return, although September’s final peak remains provisional until the month is complete. A later 15-minute interval could still record a higher system load.
Electricity prices and the revenue required to cover operating costs will remain central to any restart decision. The end of the seasonal window creates a clear opportunity, but it does not guarantee that marginal machines will be profitable.
Another potential limitation is competition from the artificial intelligence and high-performance computing industries. CryptoSlate’s 2 September analysis examined how commitments to AI and high-performance computing could reduce the mining sector’s ability to respond to improved Bitcoin economics. Luxor has not specified how much of its idle-capacity estimate is connected to AI-related activity.
The Bitcoin protocol also creates a delayed risk for miners that do return. Mining difficulty is recalculated every 2,016 blocks, a period intended to last about two weeks. If extra computing power causes blocks to be produced more quickly during that period, the protocol raises difficulty.
At a higher difficulty, each machine is expected to earn less Bitcoin for the same amount of computing power, assuming block rewards and transaction fees remain unchanged. The impact takes time to appear because of the adjustment cycle, while its value in dollars also depends on Bitcoin’s market price and transaction fees.
Luxor said October difficulty increased in every year from 2022 to 2025, with the average rise across each month standing at about 10%. Its separate estimate of a 4.38% increase refers to the average individual difficulty adjustment.
The next indications of how much capacity is waiting to return will come from sustained changes in smoothed hashrate, later difficulty adjustments and disclosures from mining operators about curtailments and restarts. Those measures may show how much equipment was temporarily inactive.
However, separating lasting financial pressure from the reassignment of infrastructure to other uses will require information from the operators themselves.
For miners, the key issue is how much of August’s improved revenue remains after competitors resume operations. Returning machines may demonstrate that conditions have improved, while simultaneously making those conditions less profitable.
At the time of the source report, Bitcoin was up 1.66% over the previous 24 hours and ranked first by market capitalisation.
