- Bitcoin miners’ profitability has dropped to levels not seen since September 2024.
- “It’s literally chaos every day,” Nick Hansen, CEO of mining company Luxor, told DL News.
- There’s a silver lining.
Donald Trump’s trade war is now putting Bitcoin miners in dire straits.
Hashprice — a key measure of profitability for Bitcoin miners — has dropped to $40, its lowest level since September 2024, and a number considered by many miners to be a worst-case scenario in terms of cost to mine.
“Oh my God, it’s literally chaos every day,” Nick Hansen, CEO of Bitcoin mining company Luxor, told DL News.
“Most miners were looking at $40 as their bear case,” said Hansen. He told DL News that he has spoken to many mining firms and their response is: “We’re not sure what we’re going to do.”
The $40 figure means many miners are at or below break even for their operations, according to the latest edition of TheMinerMag.
American miners
At stake is the American Bitcoin mining industry — one that Donald Trump previously said he wanted to turbo-charge. His sons, Donald Jr and Eric, have already inked a rather complex Bitcoin mining deal.
But their father’s tariff turmoil is now spilling into Bitcoin mining — a sector already facing an existential threat.
In fact, scant network activity in the past month has spurred a fierce debate leaving Bitcoin champions Jack Dorsey and Michael Saylor at opposing ends, with the former saying Bitcoin will fail unless it turns into a payments system.
Since Trump’s tariff war began, it has thrown capital markets in disarray.
Bitcoin dropped to a low of $75,000, but has since ricocheted back above $79,000 after Trump lowered tariffs against every country — with the exception of China — to 10% for a 90-day period. Traditional financial assets enjoyed a boon in asset prices.
131% tariffs
While Trump decided to delay tariffs on most countries, he continued to slap China with extra taxes on imported goods on Wednesday.
By Hansen’s own math, that pushed the total tariff cost for new machines coming in from China to 131% — and those triple-digit tariffs are particularly painful for American miners.
Alongside Trump’s tariffs, Bitcoin’s volatile price tag, dwindling fees, and ever-increasing network difficulty — i.e. how hard it is to add a block — are making miners sweat.
“All of this results in a profitability crunch, slower growth, potential consolidation, shutdown costs or shifts of hashrate away from the US,” Eli Nagar, CEO of mining firm Braiins, told DL News.
Consolidation is a particularly nasty outcome. Ultimately, it means Bitcoin miners could coalesce into megaliths of the industry, concentrating hashpower and ultimately threatening the network’s underlying decentralisation.
And it’s been happening, according to TheMinerMag. Five companies now account for 21% of Bitcoin production.
Others are “diversifying revenue streams to stay competitive,” Nishant Sharma of TheMinerMag told DL News. These likely include directing some energy capabilities to AI.
Silver lining
Yet, there’s a silver lining in the midst of Trump-induced turmoil, Hansen said.
“American miners already deployed are becoming much more resilient.”
Pedro Solimano is a markets correspondent based in Buenos Aires. Got a tip? Email him at psolimano@dlnews.com.
