JPMorgan: Bitcoin mining strains as BTC trades below cost

JPMorgan analysts report that bitcoin mining economics have deteriorated as the cryptocurrency has traded below their estimated production cost for five consecutive months. The bank's model puts the cost to produce one bitcoin at about $78,000 while bitcoin has been trading near $62,500.

Using industry data, the analysts estimate roughly 20% of miners are now unprofitable. Publicly traded mining firms sold more than 32,000 bitcoin in the first quarter to cover operating expenses, a volume the firm says exceeded those firms' combined sales for all of 2025.

The report finds mining hashrate and protocol difficulty have become more sensitive to price moves. Over the past six months the beta of mining difficulty to bitcoin prices rose to 0.62, indicating a larger share of miners operate close to breakeven and may switch machines on or off as prices change.

JPMorgan highlighted a 10% drop in mining difficulty in the second week of June, the second decline of that size this year after a similar fall in January. The bank links these drawdowns to higher-cost operations powering down when operating at a loss.

JPMorgan shifted its view on digital assets to cautious for 2026 after previously recommending an overweight stance. The analysts wrote that a stronger second half for crypto would likely require large digital-asset treasury firms to clarify how they will meet rising dividend obligations and for U.S. crypto market-structure legislation to pass; the bank assigns less than a 50% probability to those outcomes.

Hashrate measures the total computing power devoted to securing the bitcoin network. Difficulty is a protocol adjustment that raises or lowers how hard it is to find new blocks. When many miners stop machines because of losses, hashrate falls and difficulty adjusts lower.