- Public miners’ realized hashrate fell 13.4% to 319 EH/s in Q2 2026 from 368.3 EH/s in Q4 2025, outpacing the network’s 10.6% decline.
- Excluding Bitdeer, the drop reached 21.2%; Core Scientific generated $136.7 million in colocation revenue versus roughly $27.5 million from mining.
- TeraWulf reported $31.9 million in HPC lease revenue, accounting for 71% of total, amid sector-wide AI contracts exceeding $70 billion.
Publicly traded Bitcoin miners are accelerating a pivot toward artificial intelligence infrastructure, resulting in a sharper decline in their collective hashrate than the broader network, according to analysis from BlocksBridge Consulting’s Miner Weekly published August 16.
The cohort’s realized hashrate dropped from 368.3 EH/s in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 319.0 EH/s in the second quarter of 2026, a 13.4% reduction. Stripping out Bitdeer, which expanded 44% to 63.0 EH/s, the remaining miners saw a 21.2% decline from 324.6 EH/s to 255.9 EH/s. The Bitcoin network’s average hashrate fell a more moderate 10.6% over the same period, from 1,071 EH/s to 957 EH/s, per the data.
Leading the shift, Core Scientific reported $136.7 million in colocation revenue in Q2 2026, representing about 83% of sales and exceeding its bitcoin mining revenue. TeraWulf similarly posted $31.9 million in HPC lease revenue, or 71% of its total, compared with $12.8 million from mining.
The trend reflects multiyear AI hosting contracts totaling more than $70 billion across the public mining sector, locking capacity into long-term leases that prioritize GPU and high-performance computing over ASIC mining, as detailed in related coverage. Companies including IREN, Cipher Digital, and Keel Infrastructure have also decommissioned or repurposed fleets, while Bitdeer, MARA, and Riot Platforms partially offset losses through expansion.
While the move diversifies revenue streams and has supported relative stock performance, it raises questions about long-term network hashrate distribution as power is reallocated away from Bitcoin mining. The structural nature of these contracts may limit any rapid return to mining even if bitcoin economics improve.
