Bitcoin’s network computing power is closing in on one zettahash per second again, underscoring both the scale of the network’s security and the intensifying economic pressure on miners. On Sept. 1, estimated hashrate was around 974 EH/s, after surpassing 1.03 ZH/s on Aug. 31 and crossing the one-zettahash threshold several times during August. Hashrate estimates fluctuate because network computing power is inferred from block production rather than directly measured in real time.
The milestone is not purely bullish for mining businesses. As more computing power joins the network, Bitcoin’s difficulty mechanism adjusts upward to keep block production near one block every 10 minutes. Hashrate Index recently placed Bitcoin hashprice near $39 per PH/s per day, leaving less room for miners with older machines or higher electricity costs. Public company results show the strain: MARA’s energized mining hashrate rose 22% year over year to 70.3 EH/s in Q2 2026, but quarterly revenue fell 27% to $174.9 million. MARA mined 2,422 Bitcoin during the quarter while reporting purchased energy costs of roughly $38,690 per BTC at owned sites.
Artificial intelligence infrastructure is now competing for the same power, grid connections and data-center capacity that miners rely on. MARA has said it can allocate power between Bitcoin mining, AI, high-performance computing and other workloads depending on economics, controlling roughly 1.9 GW across 19 data centers at the end of June. Riot Platforms signed a 20-year lease covering 191 MW of critical IT capacity at its Rockdale campus, with an initial agreement expected to generate approximately $9.1 billion in contracted revenue. IREN illustrates how far the transition can go: the company generated $70.5 million from AI Cloud Services in its latest reported quarter, up from $33.6 million, while Bitcoin mining revenue fell to $66.7 million from $111.2 million. IREN is decommissioning Bitcoin mining hardware and reallocating power toward AI Cloud Services, with much of the transition expected before the end of 2026.
CoinShares has reported that the weighted average cash cost to produce one bitcoin among publicly listed miners rose to approximately $79,995 in Q4 2025. With spot Bitcoin trading around $78,138 at press time, many public miners are producing coins at or slightly above their cash cost. Hashprice fell from roughly $36–$38 per PH/s per day in Q4 2025 to about $29 in Q1 2026, leaving many operators near breakeven. CoinShares also said more than $70 billion in cumulative AI and HPC contracts have been announced across the public mining sector, and it estimated some listed miners could derive as much as 70% of revenue from AI by the end of 2026. James Butterfill, head of research at CoinShares, said AI is continuing to compete for rack space in many data centres.
For investors, the next phase of Bitcoin mining may depend less on which company operates the most mining machines and more on which miners can earn the highest return from their scarce power capacity. The near-1 ZH/s reading confirms Bitcoin’s security budget and difficulty remain near all-time highs even as the first hashrate dip in six years signals strategic reallocation rather than distress.
