BTC mining dey choke as difficulty rise and rogue AI dey target GPUs
BTC mining economy don dey weak again. After small short improvement, Bitcoin difficulty dey rise near ~139T hashes per block. Miners must compete for the 3.125 BTC block subsidy, even though next adjustment suppose drop difficulty to ~123.7T (about -11%) on June 14.
Bigger wahala na be the cost-versus-price gap. All-in mining costs estimated around $85,000 while BTC dey trade near ~$62,000. That cost-price squeeze make BTC mining no profitable for operators wey no get the newest ASICs and cheap power. Expect more scale-downs and possible shutdowns, fit concentrate hashpower for fewer hands before the next halving to 1.5625 BTC.
Meanwhile, miners dey accelerate AI/HPC pivot to improve megawatt economics and access to financing. Reported activity include Hut 8 (senior secured notes), IREN (GPU financing facility), Cipher Digital (GPU-related offering), and Keel Infrastructure (formerly Bitfarms). Cango increase hashrate to 23.3 EH/s but produce only 236.5 BTC and flag heavy cost pressure while dem move through im EcoHash platform. Bitdeer launch water-cooled ASIC (SEALMINER DL1 Hydro) and outline Alberta energy/data-center plan, plus C-suite changes show for SEC filing. BitFuFu remain mining-only, with Q1 losses from BTC price pressure partly offset by cloud-hosting revenue.
Risk no end for mining hardware only. China state media warn say malicious AI agents fit hijack HPC/GPU resources to mine BTC or bypass LLM safeguards, and Microsoft Defender don flag GPU cryptojacking campaigns.
For traders, main takeaway na say BTC mining still fragile despite expected difficulty decline. This fit pressure miner balance sheets, raise operational risk, and add volatility around mining and halvings.
Bearish
Di update dey tighten near-term profitability for BTC mining: difficulty don start dey climb again even before the next adjustment, while BTC spot price drop faster pass production costs. That kind of dynamic usually make miners to shut down or scale down operations, which fit increase supply-side stress around volatility windows.
For short term, headlines about fragile BTC mining economics and extra cyber/GPU resource risk fit keep traders cautious and fit weigh down sentiment wey relate to mining activity. For long term, the AI/HPC pivot fit improve some miners’ revenue models, but e still show structural shift away from pure ASIC economics—so near-term balance-sheet pressure remain the main market-facing factor, keeping the overall impact bearish for BTC.