Bitcoin Miners Still Under Pressure In 2025 — How Long Can They Hold?
Bitcoin's backbone faces its toughest stress test yet as mining operations bleed cash through 2025.
The Great Squeeze
Energy costs skyrocket while hash rates push profitability into negative territory. Mining rigs gather dust as operations shutter from Texas to Siberia. The halving's aftermath leaves no room for weak hands.
Survival Tactics
Top players pivot to AI compute and renewable arbitrage. Smaller outfits consolidate or face extinction. Equipment manufacturers slash prices 40% just to clear inventory.
Market Realities
Institutional money watches from the sidelines—because nothing says 'safe investment' like betting on companies burning cash to secure a network Wall Street still doesn't understand. The clock ticks louder each quarter.
Who blinks first when the math simply doesn't math anymore?
Miners Could Be Forced To Shed BTC Holdings: Crypto CEO
In a September 5 post on the X platform, Alphractal founder and CEO Joao Wedson discussed the Bitcoin mining landscape with insights from recent on-chain data. According to the on-chain analyst, the BTC mining sector has looked a bit unstable so far in the year 2025.
Wedson attributed the Bitcoin mining industry’s struggles partly to the high price of BTC, which surged by almost 100% since the last halving event. The premier cryptocurrency is believed to be highly valued compared to what the blockchain validators earned during the peak years of 2017 and 2021.
According to the Alphractal founder, the combination of rising hash rate and low on-chain volume has added to the competition for winning blocks on the BTC networks. These less-than-optimal conditions create extra pressure, forcing miners to invest in expensive modern equipment to compete.
To put things into an on-chain perspective, Wedson highlighted the Mining Equilibrium Index (MEI), which measures current mining profitability against historical averages (a ratio of short-term to long-term mining revenue efficiency). This metric works by comparing the 30-day average revenue per hash to the 365-day average.
The Alphractal founder shared that the MEI metric staying above 1 signals above-average mining conditions. Meanwhile, when this index falls beneath 0.5, it suggests a struggling mining industry, which could be linked to capitulation or hashrate adjustments.
Wedson revealed that the Mining Equilibrium Index currently stands around 1.06, which is well above the stressed mining levels where miners can no longer sustain operations. However, the on-chain data expert noted that the current level is also beneath the highs of 2.5 seen between 2017 and 2021.
With the growing competition and operational cost of securing the Bitcoin network, Wedson revealed that miners might be forced to offload some of their BTC holdings. Ultimately, this could put some downward pressure on the price of the flagship cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin Price At A Glance
As of this writing, the price of BTC stands at around $110,700, reflecting no significant movement in the past day. However, the market leader seems to be making a recovery of some sort, jumping by nearly 3% in the past seven days.
