Bitcoin Hashrate Skyrockets 40% in 2025 as Miners Double Down on Expansion

Bitcoin''s backbone just got stronger—and hotter. The network''s hashrate surged 40% year-to-date as miners deploy next-gen rigs despite Wall Street''s ''crypto winter'' whining.

Why the mining arms race won''t slow down

Faster chips. Cheaper renewables. Institutional-grade operations. Miners are playing chess while skeptics still think this is a game of checkers.

The cynical take

Meanwhile, traditional finance still can''t decide if Bitcoin is a ''risk asset'' or inflation hedge—maybe because their 19th-century accounting systems can''t track a 21st-century asset.

Since the beginning of the year, network difficulty has increased by 15.7% while hashrate has expanded nearly, up from around 651 EH/s in early January. The divergence reflects the hardware lag embedded in Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment algorithm: miners have continued ramping up capacity even with a halved block subsidy. This has pushed average block intervals below 10 minutes, most recently averaging 9 minutes and 42 seconds since the last retarget.

Hashprice is now hovering at, marginally lower than 30 days ago. Despite growing network difficulty, this near-flat movement implies that elevated transaction fees and sustained BTC prices above $109,000 have helped preserve profitability.

While miner margins are thinner than pre-halving levels, the sharp drop some feared has not materialized, reinforcing the idea that hashprice compression has so far been absorbed by large-scale operators with better cost structures.

Nine of the eleven difficulty adjustments in 2025 have resulted in upward revisions. Unless a large portion of hashrate exits the network before mid-June, another positive difficulty adjustment appears likely, which WOULD push the network beyond the 130 T threshold for the first time.