Bitcoin Hashrate Cools After Record as Difficulty Bites

Four days ago, Bitcoin’s hashrate hit an all-time high of 976 exahash per second (EH/s), but it has since cooled, settling in the 900 EH/s range.

Mining Metrics Flash Mixed Signals as Block Times Stretch to 11:04

On Aug. 8, 2025, the network’s computing power reached a whopping 976 EH/s based on the seven-day simple moving average (SMA). As of today, the hashrate sits near 900 EH/s—down 76 EH/s over four days—coinciding with a 1.42% difficulty increase at block height 909216. Notably, the estimated revenue for 1 petahash per second (PH/s) of SHA256 output is higher.

At that time, the estimated hashprice was $57.30 per PH/s, and today it’s 2.55% higher at $58.76, according to hashrateindex.com stats. Yesterday, as BTC pushed past the $120,000 range, the hashprice climbed to $59.78 per petahash. The current revenue remains 4.72% below its July 14 mark, when the hashprice reached $61.67. The increase in network difficulty appears to be the culprit pushing the hashrate lower.

With a lower hashrate, block intervals are running slower than the 10-minute target. As of 1:20 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday afternoon, the average block time is 11 minutes, 4 seconds. Slower intervals could set up a downward adjustment at the next difficulty retarget on Aug. 24, 2025. With more than 1,500 blocks left and projections subject to change, an estimated 9.64% cut to mining difficulty is on the table, at least for now.

A softer difficulty setting would ease pressure and could entice sidelined rigs back online, stabilizing block cadence. If price momentum holds, rising unit revenue could offset weaker output and steady participation; if it fades, consolidation among operators may quicken. Currently, the five leading mining pools by blocks mined are Foundry, Antpool, Viabtc, F2pool, and Spider Pool. Combined, the collection of entities control 78.39% of the total hashrate.