Bitcoin miners just had their best month since January. Revenue across the network climbed to roughly $1.12 billion in October 2026, according to mining-industry tracker MillionMiner, as hashprice, the standard measure of mining revenue per unit of computing power, pushed back above $40. The rebound comes four years after the 2024 halving cut the block subsidy to 3.125 BTC, a period that squeezed margins across the industry and pushed weaker operators out of business.
The timing matters. Global hashrate, the combined computing power securing the Bitcoin network, is now sitting at roughly 941 exahashes per second, within striking distance of the 1 zettahash-per-second milestone. Mining difficulty, meanwhile, has eased to about 15% below its all-time record, giving less efficient rigs room to stay profitable a little longer. Behind the numbers sits a reshuffling of who actually runs the machines: the United States lost ground to Russia in the latest country-level estimates, even as the two nations plus a third unnamed contender kept roughly two-thirds of global mining activity in their hands.
Bitcoin Miners Post Their Best Month Since January
Industry data compiled by MillionMiner puts October’s miner revenue at approximately $1.12 billion, the strongest monthly total recorded since January 2026. That figure covers the combined take from block subsidies and transaction fees paid out to miners across the SHA-256 network. The jump followed a stretch where hashprice sat well under $40, squeezing margins for operators running older or less efficient hardware.
The rebound did not come from a single factor. Hashprice recovery, falling equipment costs, and difficulty sitting below its record all moved in the same direction at once. For an industry that spent much of the past two years absorbing thinner margins after the 2024 halving, a month like this one changes the calculus for expansion plans that had been shelved.
What Hashprice Above $40 Actually Means
Hashprice measures how much revenue a fixed amount of computing power generates over a given period, usually expressed as dollars per petahash or exahash per second per day. It rises when Bitcoin’s price climbs, when transaction fees spike, or when difficulty drops, and it falls when the opposite happens. Miners watch it the way airlines watch fuel costs: it is the single number that determines whether a given machine is worth running.
Hashprice crossing back above the $40 line signals that the newest generation of ASICs, and even some older units that had been running at a loss, can now turn a profit again. That threshold does not guarantee profitability for every operator. Electricity costs vary enormously by region, and a miner paying premium industrial power rates in parts of Europe faces a very different equation than one running hydro-powered rigs in Washington State or Siberia. Still, a rising hashprice tends to pull idle capacity back online and slow the pace of machine retirements.
Global Hashrate Approaches the 1 Zettahash Mark
Bitcoin’s combined computing power averaged approximately 941 exahashes per second in mid-October, or roughly 0.941 zettahashes per second, based on Hashrate Index estimates cited by Ground News. Crossing the 1 ZH/s line would mark a new milestone for the network, one that has climbed steadily for most of the past decade despite periodic pullbacks tied to price crashes, regulatory crackdowns, and mining bans.
Hashrate growth is not purely a vanity metric. It directly feeds into mining difficulty, which adjusts roughly every two weeks to keep block production near a 10-minute average. More hashrate chasing the same block reward means difficulty climbs, which in turn pressures margins for anyone not running the newest hardware. The current setup, with hashrate near a record high but difficulty still 15% under its own peak, reflects a network that briefly outgrew its difficulty adjustment before conditions eased.
Mining Difficulty Eases 15% Below Its Record
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty, the metric that determines how hard it is to find a valid block, sat about 15% below its all-time high as of mid-October, according to MillionMiner’s tracking data. Difficulty tends to lag hashrate changes by one adjustment period, so a gap like this usually shows up after a period of hashrate volatility, whether from machines coming offline, regional power disruptions, or operators pausing expansion during a margin squeeze.
For miners, a difficulty level below the record is good news in isolation. It means each unit of hashrate captures a slightly larger share of block rewards than it would at peak difficulty. Combined with hashprice above $40, the gap helps explain why October’s revenue figure jumped as sharply as it did rather than climbing gradually.
Bitcoin Mining Economics: October 2026 Snapshot
The table below pulls together the core metrics shaping miner decisions this month, drawn from MillionMiner’s October tracking and Hashrate Index’s country-level estimates.
| Metric | October 2026 Value | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly miner revenue | ~$1.12 billion | Strongest month since January 2026 |
| Hashprice | Above $40 | Recovered from a weaker multi-month stretch |
| Mining difficulty vs. all-time high | ~15% below record | Eases margin pressure on older rigs |
| Global hashrate | ~941 EH/s (0.941 ZH/s) | Approaching the 1 ZH/s milestone |
| Block subsidy | 3.125 BTC per block | Unchanged since the 2024 halving |
| New ASIC pricing | Two-year lows | Lowers capex for capacity expansion |
ASIC Prices Hit Two-Year Lows and Rewrite the Capex Math
New ASIC mining rigs are now selling at their cheapest prices in two years, per MillionMiner’s October market tracking. Lower hardware costs matter just as much as hashprice when operators decide whether to expand. A machine that costs less upfront pays back faster, which lowers the bar for a mining operation to greenlight new capacity even if hashprice were to soften again in coming months.
Cheaper ASICs typically follow a stretch of weak demand, when manufacturers discount inventory to keep factories running. That dynamic now overlaps with recovering hashprice, creating a window where both the cost side and revenue side of the mining equation are moving in a miner’s favor at the same time. Operators who delayed fleet upgrades during the leaner months now face a more favorable entry point, assuming power costs in their region stay stable.
Buy or Rent: The NerdQaxe++ and HashStrike Math
Not every miner is buying hardware outright. Dutch outlet Cryptonieuws reported that a NerdQaxe++ unit costs €327 at Power Mining, plus ongoing electricity, while renting the equivalent 4.8 TH/s of hashrate for a full year runs about €222 through a cloud-mining arrangement. That gap illustrates why rental and hosting models have found an audience among smaller or less technical participants who want SHA-256 exposure without managing physical equipment.
The same report flagged MineShop’s launch of HashStrike, a service that rents out SHA-256 hashrate by the day rather than by the year, giving retail participants a way to take short-term positions on hashprice swings without locking into long-term contracts or hardware ownership. Day-rate rental products like this tend to gain traction specifically during periods like the current one, when hashprice is moving enough to make short-term bets worth placing.
Who Controls the Network: The US-Russia Hashrate Shift
Hashrate Index’s October 5 country estimates, reported by Ground News, show the United States’ share of global Bitcoin mining slipping from roughly 345 exahashes per second to about 335 EH/s. Russia moved the opposite direction, rising from approximately 162 EH/s to 170 EH/s over the same comparison window. Those are estimates rather than verified figures, since mining location data is notoriously difficult to pin down with precision, but the direction of the shift was consistent across the report.
The three leading mining countries together still account for roughly 66% of global Bitcoin mining activity, meaning concentration at the top of the industry remains high even as the ranking within that group shifts. The report did not name the third country in that top-three group, underscoring how much of the picture still relies on estimation rather than disclosed operational data.
| Region or Measure | Latest Estimate | Prior Estimate |
|---|---|---|
| United States | ~335 EH/s | ~345 EH/s |
| Russia | ~170 EH/s | ~162 EH/s |
| Top 3 countries combined | ~66% of global network | Roughly stable |
| Global network total | ~941 EH/s | Trending toward 1 ZH/s |
| Rest of world combined | ~34% of global network | Roughly stable |
The Blake2B Fork: A Different Coin, Not a Bitcoin Threat
A separate development got conflated with Bitcoin mining news this fall: a Bitcoin Knots-based fork changed its proof-of-work algorithm from SHA-256d to Blake2B at block 961,640 on August 30, 2026, going live on September 1. The fork, tracked by MillionMiner under the ticker BTCB2, pays 3.125 coins per block and is built specifically for Sia-family ASICs rather than the SHA-256 hardware that mines Bitcoin itself.
The distinction matters because it means the fork had zero effect on Bitcoin’s own SHA-256 difficulty or hashrate. SHA-256 miners cannot mine the Blake2B chain, and machines built for Blake2B cannot mine Bitcoin. Confusion between a Bitcoin-derived fork and Bitcoin’s own network is a recurring pattern whenever any project forks off the Bitcoin codebase, and this case is no exception. Nothing about the Blake2B transition changes the economics described above for actual Bitcoin SHA-256 mining.
SHA-256 Under the Microscope: The Yukon Cryptanalysis Challenge
Eigen Labs and Shielded Labs opened a public cryptanalysis competition called Yukon on October 5, inviting both human researchers and AI agents to probe SHA-256 alongside SHA-3, BLAKE3, and Poseidon for weaknesses, according to ASIC Tools. The project sits squarely in applied cryptography research rather than live-network security testing, and its organizers were explicit that the competition’s existence says nothing about whether SHA-256 itself has been weakened.
Still, the timing drew attention precisely because it landed in the same month as the mining profitability story. SHA-256 remains the hashing function underpinning Bitcoin’s entire security model, and any serious cryptanalytic progress against it would be one of the most consequential events in the currency’s history. Competitions like Yukon exist to surface that kind of progress early, in a controlled academic setting, rather than have it discovered first by an attacker. For now, the challenge is a research exercise, not a signal that miners or holders need to change behavior.
Mining on a 3.125 BTC Subsidy, Four Years After the Halving
Every Bitcoin block still pays out 3.125 BTC to the miner who finds it, the reward level set by the 2024 halving and unchanged since. That subsidy will not change again until the next halving roughly cuts it in half, an event still years away. In the meantime, miner revenue depends almost entirely on three variables moving in the right direction at once: Bitcoin’s price, transaction fee volume, and difficulty relative to total network hashrate.
October’s numbers show those variables aligning favorably for the first time in months. That is a meaningfully different environment than the stretch immediately after the halving, when many smaller operators shut down machines that could no longer cover electricity costs on half the previous block reward. The operators who survived that period, generally those with the lowest power costs or the newest hardware, are the ones positioned to benefit most from the current rebound.
Market Impact: What the Rebound Means for Public Miners
Publicly traded mining companies tend to see their share prices track hashprice and Bitcoin’s spot price closely, since both feed directly into reported revenue and margin guidance. A sustained move above $40 in hashprice, if it holds through the rest of the fourth quarter, would likely show up in the next round of quarterly disclosures from the sector’s larger operators as improved gross margins on mining operations, even without any change in hashrate deployed.
Cheaper ASIC pricing adds a second layer to that story. Miners that raise capital or redeploy cash flow into new hardware during a low-price window for equipment can expand hashrate at a lower cost basis than competitors who bought at the top of a prior cycle. That dynamic tends to widen the gap between well-capitalized public miners and smaller private operations that lack the balance sheet to take advantage of a discount window, reinforcing the industry’s longstanding trend toward consolidation among the largest players.
Historical Context: Hashprice’s Boom-Bust Pattern
Bitcoin mining profitability has moved in cycles for as long as the network has existed, generally tracking Bitcoin’s price with a lag tied to hashrate’s slower adjustment speed. Each halving event resets the baseline by cutting the block subsidy in half, forcing the least efficient fraction of the network offline until difficulty catches up to the new, lower reward level. The 2024 halving, which dropped the subsidy to its current 3.125 BTC, followed that same script: a wave of shutdowns among older-generation hardware, followed by a slow recovery as efficiency improved and weaker competitors exited.
What makes the current moment distinct is the combination of factors arriving together rather than in sequence. Hashprice recovery alone would be a familiar story. Pairing it with difficulty sitting 15% under its record, plus ASIC prices at a two-year low, plus a shift in geographic concentration toward Russia, creates a more unusual snapshot, one where multiple parts of the mining economy are resetting at once rather than one variable doing the work.
Predictions: Where Bitcoin Mining Economics Head Next
- Expect difficulty to climb back toward its all-time record over the next one to two adjustment periods if hashprice above $40 persists and idle hashrate returns to the network.
- Cheap ASIC pricing will likely trigger a fresh wave of fleet upgrades among larger public miners before year-end, narrowing the cost gap between efficient and inefficient operators.
- Geographic concentration will keep shifting gradually rather than suddenly, with Russia’s share continuing to grow unless regulatory or sanctions pressure interrupts the trend.
- Day-rate hashrate rental products like HashStrike will likely multiply as retail interest in short-term hashprice bets grows, mirroring the rise of similar products in prior volatility windows.
- The Yukon cryptanalysis competition is unlikely to produce a practical SHA-256 break, but expect its findings to feed into the long-running academic debate over post-quantum readiness for Bitcoin’s hashing layer.
None of these are certainties. Mining economics have surprised forecasters before, and a sharp move in Bitcoin’s spot price in either direction would scramble every one of these projections within weeks. The underlying signal worth tracking is simpler: whether hashprice holds above $40 through the end of the fourth quarter, since that single number does more to predict miner behavior than any other metric covered here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Bitcoin hashprice and why does it matter right now?
Hashprice measures how much revenue a fixed unit of mining computing power earns over time. It moved back above $40 in October 2026 after a weaker stretch, which is the main reason miner revenue jumped to roughly $1.12 billion for the month.
How much did Bitcoin miners earn in October 2026?
MillionMiner’s tracking put total October miner revenue at approximately $1.12 billion, the strongest monthly figure since January 2026.
What is Bitcoin’s global hashrate right now?
Global Bitcoin hashrate sat at roughly 941 exahashes per second as of mid-October 2026, or about 0.941 zettahashes per second, approaching but not yet reaching the 1 ZH/s mark.
Is the Blake2B fork a threat to Bitcoin mining?
No. The Blake2B fork, tracked under the ticker BTCB2, runs on a different proof-of-work algorithm built for Sia-family ASICs. It did not change Bitcoin’s own SHA-256 difficulty or hashrate in any way.
What is the Yukon cryptanalysis competition?
Yukon is a public research competition launched October 5, 2026 by Eigen Labs and Shielded Labs, inviting humans and AI agents to study potential weaknesses in SHA-256, SHA-3, BLAKE3, and Poseidon. Its organizers say its launch is not evidence that SHA-256 has been broken.
Which countries lead Bitcoin mining today?
The United States and Russia remain among the top three mining countries, together with a third unnamed country, controlling roughly 66% of global hashrate. The US share recently slipped from about 345 EH/s to 335 EH/s while Russia’s rose from about 162 EH/s to 170 EH/s.
Why did Bitcoin mining difficulty drop below its record?
Difficulty adjusts roughly every two weeks based on how quickly blocks were found in the prior period. It sitting about 15% below its all-time high in October 2026 reflects hashrate fluctuations in recent adjustment periods rather than a permanent network shift.
Are new ASIC miners actually cheaper right now?
Yes. MillionMiner’s October market data shows new ASIC pricing at two-year lows, which lowers the upfront cost for miners looking to expand or replace older hardware.