Bitcoin mining difficulty just had its 11th-biggest drop ever

Bitcoin mining difficulty fell 10.09% after lower prices pushed weaker miners offline and slowed block production.

Bitcoin difficulty records sharp June drop

Bitcoin completed one of its largest downward mining difficulty changes at block 953,568. Galaxy Research data cited by WuBlockchain showed the difficulty fell from 138.96T to 124.93T. The move ranked as Bitcoin’s 11th-largest downward adjustment and the second-largest drop recorded so far this year.

Mining difficulty controls how hard miners must work to add new Bitcoin blocks. It changes every 2,016 blocks to keep the network close to a 10-minute block time. When miners leave the network and blocks arrive too slowly, the system lowers difficulty so active miners can find blocks more easily.

Miner margins tightened after Bitcoin price weakness

The adjustment followed a weak start to June for Bitcoin. Galaxy Research said Bitcoin’s price fell about 15% during the month, which cut miner revenue and forced some operators to switch off less efficient machines. 

The longer mining cycle showed the scale of the slowdown. The previous epoch lasted 15.6 days instead of the usual target of about 14 days. That delay showed that less hashrate was competing for rewards before the network reset difficulty lower.

During that stretch, the network produced blocks slower than planned, which is the condition that triggers a downward retarget under Bitcoin’s rules for miners.

Active miners may see better output

TheEnergyMag had earlier expected difficulty to fall by about 9.55%. The final adjustment came in deeper, at 10.09%. That drop may allow miners still running machines to produce more Bitcoin with the same active hashrate. It may also lift hashprice, or miner revenue per unit of computing power, back above $30 per PH/s.

The relief may not help every operator equally. Miners with newer machines and lower power costs are better placed to gain from lower difficulty. Older rigs remain exposed if Bitcoin prices fall again or energy costs stay high. The adjustment gives miners breathing room, but it does not remove pressure from tight margins.

AI data centers compete for mining power

The hashrate decline also comes as more mining firms move power capacity toward high-performance computing and AI data centers. Crypto.news has reported several examples of this shift. Core Scientific plans to turn its Pecos, Texas Bitcoin mining site into a large AI data center campus, including the repurposing of 300 megawatts of mining power.

TeraWulf also showed how the business mix is changing. The company reported $21 million in HPC hosting revenue in the first quarter of 2026, above its Bitcoin mining revenue for the same period. HIVE Digital has also announced a 320 MW AI infrastructure project near Toronto that is designed to host more than 100,000 GPUs.