Bitcoin has spent five straight months trading below its all-in production cost, and the pain is showing up in the numbers. JPMorgan analysts estimated this week that the average production cost sits around $78,000 — a full $15,000 above where spot BTC is hovering. Roughly 20% of global miners are now unprofitable, according to CoinShares data cited by JPMorgan. And publicly traded mining firms just sold more bitcoin in a single quarter than ever before.
Below the breakeven line
The math is brutal. With bitcoin near $63,000, every block mined by a high-cost operator is a money-losing venture. JPMorgan's $78,000 estimate includes hardware, electricity, and overhead. For miners running older rigs or paying elevated power rates, the real breakeven is likely higher. The bank's analysts noted that weak market sentiment has historically been a contrarian signal for future price gains, but that doesn't help the folks paying bills today.
Record Q1 sell-off
Publicly traded miners — MARA, CleanSpark, Riot Platforms, Cango, Core Scientific, Bitdeer — unloaded 32,000 bitcoin in the first quarter of 2026. That's more than they sold in all of 2025, and it smashed the previous quarterly record of 20,000 BTC set back in Q2 2022. The selling suggests many operators are tapping reserves to stay afloat. Collectively, miners held about 1.8 million bitcoin as of late, down from 1.86 million at the end of 2023. The drawdown is accelerating.
The difficulty reset
The network is responding. Mining difficulty dropped 10.09% in early June — the second-largest single decline this year. Bitcoin's hashrate has fallen 12% in June, according to Galaxy Research. When unprofitable miners unplug, the remaining participants get a slightly larger slice of a shrinking pie. Hashprice, the daily revenue per petahash, is about $33 per PH/s — not enough to encourage new capacity.
The sensitivity of difficulty to price is also rising. The beta of mining difficulty to bitcoin prices hit 0.62 over the past six months, meaning difficulty moves more sharply with price than it used to. That's a sign the system is tightening.
Waiting for a rebound
JPMorgan's analysts warn that further capitulation among higher-cost miners is possible in the first half of 2026 without a material price recovery. No one expects a quick fix. The question is whether bitcoin can climb back above the $78,000 threshold before more miners are forced to shut down — or sell their last coins.
