Publicly traded Bitcoin miners cut their realized hashrate by 13.4% between the fourth quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, while several operators drew more revenue from data-center services than from mining, according to BlocksBridge Consulting’s Miner Weekly. Excluding Bitdeer, the group’s realized hashrate fell 21.2% over six months, pointing to a more decisive reduction in Bitcoin-focused capacity among many North American mining companies.
The cohort’s combined realized hashrate declined from 368.3 exahashes per second, or EH/s, in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 319 EH/s in the second quarter of 2026, BlocksBridge said. Bitcoin’s average network hashrate also fell during the period, down 10.6%, though the public-miner group contracted faster than the network overall.
That gap suggests the slowdown is concentrated among listed operators that had previously been among the most aggressive builders of industrial-scale mining facilities. These companies accumulated power contracts, land and mining hardware through the previous expansion cycle, but are now weighing the returns from Bitcoin production against demand for computing capacity from artificial-intelligence and high-performance-computing customers.
Bitdeer offsets a sharper decline among peers
Bitdeer was the major exception in BlocksBridge’s data. Its realized hashrate rose 44% over the six-month period to 63 EH/s, helping soften the decline across the broader publicly traded group.
Without Bitdeer, realized hashrate among the other miners dropped from 324.6 EH/s in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 255.9 EH/s in the second quarter of 2026. That decline is substantially steeper than the network-wide reduction reported over the same period.
Realized hashrate measures the computing power miners actually deploy successfully, rather than simply the capacity represented by machines they own or have ordered. It can fall when companies shut down less-efficient equipment, face operational constraints, curtail power use, or redirect electrical infrastructure and facilities to another purpose.
Bitdeer’s expansion means the sector is not moving in a uniform direction. Some miners are continuing to add Bitcoin capacity, especially where they can secure favorable power and newer-generation machines. Yet the overall data show that expansion by a small number of companies has not prevented a substantial retreat by the rest of the listed cohort.
Data-center revenue overtakes mining at some operators
The revenue figures reported by BlocksBridge show why mining companies are increasingly considering different uses for their sites. Core Scientific reported $136.7 million in colocation revenue during the second quarter, compared with $27.5 million from Bitcoin mining, according to the consultancy.
Colocation revenue comes from hosting customers’ computing equipment in a company’s data centers, supplying space, electricity, cooling and related infrastructure. For a miner with large power connections and operational facilities already in place, these arrangements can turn an asset originally built for Bitcoin mining into contracted computing capacity.
TeraWulf reported a similar revenue mix in the second quarter, with $31.9 million in high-performance-computing lease revenue and $12.8 million from Bitcoin mining, BlocksBridge said. The figures place both Core Scientific and TeraWulf further along in building a data-center business that can generate more revenue than their mining operations.
Riot Platforms and Bitdeer remain earlier in that transition, according to BlocksBridge, with Bitcoin mining still accounting for most of their revenue in their latest reported quarters. Their differing positions illustrate the operational choices facing public miners: preserve mining exposure, develop hosting capacity alongside it, or make data-center leasing the main business line.
Power capacity is becoming the central asset
The change is less about companies abandoning their existing infrastructure than about assigning scarce power and data-center capacity to the activity that offers a stronger return. Bitcoin mining can absorb large amounts of electricity and can be scaled up or down relatively quickly. AI and HPC customers, by contrast, seek access to reliable power, networking, cooling and long-term server deployment space.
Those requirements give established miners a potential advantage in regions where new large-scale power connections are difficult to obtain. A mining company that already controls a developed site can offer infrastructure that may take years for a new entrant to build.
The trade-off is that redirecting a site to hosting can reduce the hashrate available to secure the Bitcoin network and earn block rewards. The 21.2% decline excluding Bitdeer indicates that this trade-off is already affecting the sector’s operating footprint, rather than remaining limited to company presentations or early-stage plans.
A reversal from the post-China expansion
BlocksBridge linked the pullback to the expansion that followed China’s 2021 ban on Bitcoin mining. The ban was followed by a sharp fall in network hashrate, before mining activity recovered as equipment and operators relocated to other regions.
North America became a major destination for that capacity. Public miners raised capital, acquired sites and pursued larger power arrangements as they sought to build industrial-scale operations. For several years, adding megawatts and machines was a central measure of growth.
One Bitcoin halving cycle later, the economics have changed. The halving reduces the number of Bitcoin issued to miners per block, increasing pressure on operators whose electricity, equipment and financing costs are not offset by the market value of their mined coins. BlocksBridge said weaker mining profitability since 2022, combined with stronger demand for AI infrastructure, has pushed several public miners to repurpose sites and power capacity toward data-center uses.
That shift gives the companies a potential source of contracted revenue, but it also creates a clearer divide within the mining sector. Operators with functioning colocation or HPC businesses can point to revenue streams that are less directly tied to Bitcoin’s price, mining difficulty and block-reward economics. Companies that remain focused on mining retain greater exposure to any recovery in mining margins, while also carrying more of the sector’s volatility.
The next quarterly reports will show whether the hashrate decline becomes a lasting reallocation of infrastructure or a temporary response to weaker mining conditions. For now, BlocksBridge’s data show a sector in which power sites and data centers are increasingly being valued for workloads beyond Bitcoin.
As miners pivot into data centers, learn how this impacts BTC’s long-term value in Bitcoin’s future.
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