Since October, the tide has turned for Bitcoin miners. Profitability is eroding, some equipment is being shut down, and the market seems to be shifting into a new phase. Yet, despite the pressure, miners aren’t selling their bitcoins. Why are they still holding on? And more importantly, how long can this last? Let’s dive into the on-chain signals together to understand what’s really going on behind the drop in the BTC price.
Bitcoin Under Heavy Pressure
As the BTC price struggles to reclaim the $94,000–$95,000 range, the likelihood of a dead cat bounce is growing.
The market’s transition into a bear market is significantly impacting investor sentiment, preventing a short-term bullish bias from taking hold.
Amid this weak price performance, BTC miners are struggling to make ends meet. Are they managing to hold on? We take a closer look here!
Figure 1: Daily BTC Price
Miners Under Pressure
Since the April 2024 halving, the Bitcoin network’s hashrate has seen a sustained increase of approximately +82% as the bull market unfolded.
However, since October 2025, a drop in the hashrate has become apparent, suggesting that some BTC miners are scaling back their operations.
This typically occurs when their economic conditions become too strained, often during a drop in the price of Bitcoin.
We can therefore assume that the correction underway since October’s ATH is putting miners under enough pressure to force some to shut down their ASICs.
Figure 2: Bitcoin Network Hash Rate
In response to this drop in hashrate, the Bitcoin protocol’s mining difficulty has adjusted downward, meaning that the conditions for producing new BTC are easing to provide relief to miners.
This is a sign that competition has become too intense (high hashrate) and that some miners have been unable to keep up under current economic conditions (sharp correction in BTC).
In the event of an unexpected bullish market recovery, miners’ economic and operational conditions could also improve rapidly.
Figure 3: Change in mining difficulty
To estimate miners’ overall profitability, we can compare their total daily revenue in dollars (in orange) with their annualized average (in blue), which serves as a long-term benchmark.
- When daily revenue exceeds the annualized average, miners’ profitability is considered sustainable;
- When daily revenues are below the annualized average, miners’ profitability is considered unsustainable.
During the month of November, daily revenues fell below the $48 million per day mark, indicating a deterioration in mining profitability.
It is typically during these periods that miners scale back their operations, unplug ASICs, and may even sell off BTC in the most extreme cases.
Figure 4: Miners’ daily revenue vs. annualized average
No signs of major capitulation
While we now know that some BTC miners have had to scale back their operations and unplug some ASICs to cope with declining profitability and high hashrate values, the damage appears to stop there.
Indeed, to identify a major capitulation by miners, their spending/transfer volumes must reach significant levels, indicating that a phase of loss-taking is underway.
Although miners’ spending has exceeded daily mining output several times recently, their reserves have remained fairly stable throughout 2025, unlike the significant selling periods of 2023 and 2024.
Figure 5: Percentage of miners’ supply spent
The flow of BTC transferred from miners to exchanges also allows us to track miners’ spending behavior, which remained fairly moderate in 2025.
With the exception of a few spending spikes resembling profit-taking behavior in 2025, miners do not appear to have liquidated a significant portion of their holdings.
This suggests that current economic and operational conditions are not sufficiently dire to trigger a large-scale capitulation among miners.
Figure 6: Miners’ deposits on exchanges
Summary of this on-chain analysis of Bitcoin (BTC)
Ultimately, this week’s data indicates that some BTC miners have had to scale back their operations and unplug some ASICs to cope with the decline in their profitability since October.
During November, miners’ daily revenues fell below $48 million per day, making mining activity increasingly unviable.
However, with the exception of a few spending spikes resembling profit-taking behavior in 2025, miners do not appear to have liquidated a significant portion of their Bitcoin holdings.
Their reserves remained fairly stable throughout 2025, suggesting that current economic and operational conditions are not severe enough to trigger a large-scale capitulation by miners.
