Analysis: Bitcoin Mining Cost Reaches $88,000, Miners' Per-BTC Loss Around $19,000

BlockBeats News, March 22, according to CoinDesk, Bitcoin miners are currently facing severe cost pressure. Checkonchain's difficulty ribbon model shows that as of March 13, the average production cost of Bitcoin was around $88,000, while Bitcoin is currently trading at around $69,200, a difference of nearly $19,000, meaning the average miner is operating at about a 21% loss for every Bitcoin mined.

The cost pressure has been accumulating since Bitcoin dropped from $126,000 to below $70,000 in October last year, with the Iran conflict further exacerbating the situation. The surge in oil prices above $100 per barrel has directly increased miners' electricity costs, especially impacting the hash rate of markets that rely about 8% to 10% on Middle Eastern energy supply. Trump issued a 48-hour ultimatum on Saturday, threatening to attack Iranian power plants, adding a new layer of risk for miners.

Bitcoin's mining difficulty dropped by 7.76% to 133.79 T on Saturday, marking the second-largest drop in 2026, currently about 10% lower than the beginning of the year, far below the historical high of around 155 T in November 2025. The overall network hash rate has fallen to around 920 EH/s, with the average block time in the previous period extending to 12 minutes and 36 seconds. The hash rate price is currently around $33.30 per PH/s/day, close to the breakeven point for most miners, not far from the historical low of $28 set on February 23.

When miners cannot cover their costs, they will be forced to sell Bitcoin to maintain operations, further increasing market selling pressure, especially with the backdrop of 43% of the current Bitcoin supply being at a loss. Publicly listed mining companies such as Marathon Digital, Cipher Mining, are diversifying their strategies through AI and high-performance computing. The next difficulty adjustment is expected in early April, with CoinWarz data suggesting a continued decrease.