- Bitcoin‘s seven-day average hashrate climbed back above 1 ZH/s, its highest level since March 3
- Mining difficulty rose 5.92% on Oct. 16, with another 5.16% increase projected at the next adjustment
- Publicly traded miners’ realized hashrate fell 23% as AI-related revenue jumped 52% in the latest quarter
- Smaller operators purchasing secondhand hardware may be absorbing displaced capacity
Bitcoin’s network hashrate has surged to a seven-month high, exceeding 1 zettahash per second (ZH/s), even as major publicly traded miners divert computing capacity toward Artificial Intelligence. The recovery signals intensifying competition among operators that remain on the network.
According to BlocksBridge Consulting‘s latest Miner Weekly newsletter, the seven-day average hashrate reached its highest level since March 3. Hashrate measures the computing power securing the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin’s mining difficulty increased 5.92% on Oct. 16, with BlocksBridge projecting another 5.16% rise at the next adjustment. If that estimate holds, difficulty will have climbed roughly 11.4% across two consecutive adjustments.
“That’s hardly the breathing room remaining miners might have expected from the AI migration,” BlocksBridge wrote.
Meanwhile, the industry’s shift toward AI has already removed substantial mining capacity. BlocksBridge previously reported a 23% decline in publicly traded miners’ realized hashrate, alongside a 52% quarterly increase in AI and high-performance computing revenue, with displaced capacity representing roughly $1.5 billion in mining hardware.
Some of that lost capacity may be re-entering the network through smaller and mid-sized miners. Sazmining, for instance, advertises secondhand Antminer S21 XP machines that buyers can deploy through Hosting facilities in Paraguay and Texas, according to BlocksBridge.
For miners with access to cheaper electricity, acquiring used machines can be more economical than purchasing new equipment. However, it remains unclear how much of the sold hardware actually originated from publicly traded miners or has returned to the network.
Consequently, some industry observers view the rising hashrate as an indirect bullish signal. CryptoQuant founder and CEO Ki Young Ju recently wrote on X that “higher hashrate means stronger security and better fundamentals as a store of value.”
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