The first difficulty adjustment of 2026 has arrived, with Bitcoin mining difficulty dropping to 1.464 quadrillion, offering long-suffering miners a brief respite. However, this relief may be short-lived — the current average block time has returned to 9.88 minutes, and based on this trajectory, the next difficulty adjustment could very well push back up to 1.482 quadrillion.

What's even more painful is that despite the easing difficulty, miners' situation remains dire. Post-halving mining rewards remain under heavy pressure, and hash price has broken below the key support of $35/PH/s/day, which means the mining revenue per unit of hashrate continues to decline. For mining operations with higher marginal costs, the economics of continuing to mine are becoming increasingly difficult to justify.