Bitcoin mining’s downturn accelerates industry reinvention
Bitmain, along with the rest of the bitcoin mining hardware producers, has heavily slashed the prices of its ASIC units, not only the Antminer S19 of its previous generation but also the newly launched S21 models.
The mining industry is experiencing the most challenging and unprofitable years in its history. According to various industry sources, the prices of mining machines have dropped to levels more typical of a serious sell-off than of a normal stock flow.
For instance, some mining rigs are said to be priced at around $3-4 per tera-hash per second (TH/s), and while the latest S21 immersion units are close to being sold at $7 per TH/s, some even come bundled with auction options that allow buyers to “name their own price”.
Such enormous reductions, however, are caused by the miners’ economic problems rather than a mere marketing scheme. Hashprice, a benchmark that calculates daily income based on computing power, plunged to around $35 per PH/s (petahash) per day. This is significantly less than the approximately $40 per PH/s per day that most miners require to meet their expenses.
The Bitcoin halving event in April 2024, which reduced block rewards from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, was a major structural factor contributing to this decline. The Bitcoin price, which typically tracks the market’s upward pressure and partly offsets falling block rewards, did not view 2025 as a time for a price increase of that magnitude.
After reaching around $126,000 by October 2025, Bitcoin’s price began a steep decline toward $84,000, further reducing miners’ income.
The outcome has been a mining profitability disaster, hitting record lows worldwide, forcing the operators of mines, particularly smaller and mid-tier ones, to either shut down, sell off their inventories, or raise funds just to cover operational costs.
The drastic cuts to mining hardware indicate that Bitmain is indeed trying to get rid of its stock and reduce cash flow in a market that has greatly cooled, particularly for new rig demand.
Not to mention, Bitmain’s tactic is more than just cutting the prices. The company is likely to draw the most attention, as it is said to offer not only hardware sales but also hosting services at specific sites, thereby bundling the machines with power supply contracts to lure customers and get the stock off the shelves.
Bitmain appears to be leaning toward service integration amid declining hardware sales. Some analysts see those changes as a sign of a wider reevaluation. The mining sector is quite capital-intensive, competitive, and price-sensitive. Then, it depends mainly on the price of the crypto heatmap leader and on energy costs.
Due to tight margins and low profits, some companies may consider accelerating their transition to renewable energy sources or diversifying into other computing markets, such as high-performance computing or AI workloads.