BTC mining loses its momentum, mining stocks drop

BTC mining continues, but no longer looks like a highly contested competition. In the past year, hashrate and difficulty have fallen to lower levels, while miners have also shed their reserves. 

BTC miners are working below previous record levels. At the price range above $80,000, mining proceeds are above the current mining expenses, as reflected in the hash ribbon indicator. For the past two months, miners have been out of the distress zone, producing 450 BTC per day above cost for most pools and mining operations. 

As Cryptopolitan reported, miners are not strategic traders and have captured only a small part of the BTC upside during rallies. 

In the past year, mining saw a gradual shift from attempting new hashrate records to a more subdued balance of competition. Miners also decreased their holdings, though each pool or operation has a different strategy of holding or selling BTC. 

In October, BTC mining hashrate fell to around 987 EH/s, close to the average levels for the past year. Current difficulty is favorable for miners, as it has been on a downward trend for most of 2026. 

The leading pools are still distributed in the usual way, with Foundry USA producing 25% of blocks. In comparison, the smaller Binance pool produces a block roughly every three hours, while leading pools produce a block in under 20 minutes. 

BTC mining reserves remain near all-time lows

Miners are not retaining the coins produced, and have divested a large part of their reserves in the past year. Reserves gradually fell from 1.9M coins at the end of 2025 to around 1.19M coins. 

Binance Pool has only sold a part of its holdings, currently carrying 41,897 BTC, down from 42,000 BTC in March. AntPool has also increased its holdings. 

However, the leading Foundry USA pool holds close to zero coins. The pool is used by third-party miners and regularly pays out the block rewards. In September, the pool sold its last 236 BTC, currently remaining with near-zero reserves. The pool also announced its CEO Mike Colyer will step down and remain in a consultancy role for the next six months. 

Others, like F2Pool, have gradually decreased their holdings in the past two years, from around 6,000 BTC down to around 4,000 coins. 

Miners have worked as holders of last resort, usually carrying more idle BTC compared to treasury companies or ETFs. The gradual selling in the past year, despite the BTC bear market, showed miners were not ready to hold at any cost. 

Some of the selling has been linked to the need to pivot to AI and build new data centers. BTC mining is now seen as a short-term opportunity to produce coins above cost. Concerns about quantum risk or other forms of loss are also a factor in moving or liquidating BTC reserves. 

In the past year, some miners also switched to ZCash production, which offered a riskier asset but much higher returns compared to BTC mining. 

BTC mining stocks take a step back

In the past month, most of the leading mining stocks were in the red after months of outsized gains. For the past day, even the leader IREN was down by 6.27% to $38.69. The stock peaked in June at $67.84. 

BTC mining stocks have achieved much higher gains compared to BTC, but are now coming down from their summer peak. TerraWulf (Nasdaq: WULF) is down by around 50% from its 2026 peak, down to $14.40. 

Without the AI narrative, mining companies no longer rely on their BTC reserves as a value proposition. Mining still continues in various forms, but is highly dependent on older operations and legacy data centers. In the coming months, another drop may be expected, as winter comes with a lowered usage of hydroelectric power to mine BTC.