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The second-largest difficulty cut of 2026 reflects what miner earnings have been telegraphing all year: Marathon, Riot and their peers are pulling power and capital out of bitcoin mining and into AI data centres as fast as the contracts can be signed.
The May 1 difficulty adjustment dropped to 132.47 trillion after sustained hashrate fell below the symbolic one-zettahash threshold for the first time since February. The dip says more about how public miners are reallocating capex than about network security.
CoinShares' Q1 report shows 15 to 20 per cent of the global mining fleet now operating below breakeven, with three consecutive difficulty reductions marking the first sustained capitulation since July 2022.
Listed bitcoin mining companies could derive as much as 70 per cent of their revenue from artificial intelligence infrastructure by December, according to Bloomberg, as production costs now exceed the price of the asset they were built to mine.
Marathon Digital achieved approximately 30 exahashes per second of energized hashrate in mid-2024, representing over 30,000 operational mining devices and confirming the company's status as a leading North American mining operator.
Foundry USA, a Digital Currency Group subsidiary, captured dominant share of Bitcoin mining pool market following Chinese mining restrictions, commanding over 30 percent of network hashrate by early 2023.
Bitcoin mining difficulty surged to an all-time high of 26.64 trillion on January 21, 2022, as Chinese miners who relocated following China's ban resumed operations across North America and other regions.
Kazakhstan emerged as the world's second-largest bitcoin mining hub by summer 2021 after Chinese miners relocated operations following China's comprehensive ban, taking advantage of the country's cheap electricity and permissive regulatory environment.
Heavy rainfall in Sichuan province during late June 2019 destroyed tens of thousands of mining rigs and disrupted up to 20 percent of the global Bitcoin hashrate, prompting miners to relocate operations to Xinjiang.
