Why Bitcoin Miners Are Shutting Down Rigs in 2025

Why rigs are going dark

Miners are working through one of the toughest margin environments the industry has faced in years.

According to a recent breakdown, hash revenue for large public miners has fallen from about $55 per petahashes (PH) per day in Q3 to roughly $35 per PH/day today. Their median all-in cost sits near $44 per PH/day. In other words, a significant part of the sector is now mining at a loss.

At the same time, the network hashrate is hovering around 1.0-1.1 zettahash (ZH) per second, which means competition for each block is near record highs.

The punchline is return on investment (ROI): Even brand-new machines now show payback periods above 1,000 days, while the next halving is roughly 850 days away. If nothing changes, many miners buying hardware today may struggle to earn it back before the next halving unless market conditions improve.

This guide walks through how miner economics work in 2025, how to check whether your own machines are underwater and what options you realistically have if they are.

How miner economics work in 2025

Post-halving, every miner is fighting over a smaller pie.

• The block subsidy dropped from 6.25 Bitcoin (BTC) to 3.125 BTC in the 2024 halving, cutting the main component of miner revenue in half overnight.

• With around 144 blocks per day, that is about 450 BTC in new issuance daily plus fees.

• Meanwhile, the network’s hashrate has climbed into the zettahash zone at around 1.0+ ZH/s on recent seven-day averages.

The result is an all-time low hash price, which is the USD revenue per PH/day of hashpower. Some crypto publications and other trackers put recent levels around $35-$38 per PH/day or roughly $0.03-$0.04 per terahash (TH) per day.

Against that, miners juggle:

• Capital expenditure (capex): Application-specific integrated circuit machines (ASICs), transformers, racks, networking and land.

• Operating expenditure (opex): Power price per kWh, hosting margin, cooling, maintenance, debt service and staff.

To stay alive, you need to clear two hurdles:

1. Cash flow test: Is daily revenue above daily operating costs at today’s hash price and power rate?

2. Payback test: Can the rig reasonably earn back its purchase price before the next halving or major hardware obsolescence?

These two metrics tend to be the most useful benchmarks for most setups.

Did you know? In mining, a kilowatt hour (kWh) is the unit you pay for on your electricity bill. A miner drawing four kW consumes four kWh every hour, which makes kWh the metric that ultimately determines your real daily and monthly operating cost.

Why even new-gen rigs struggle to break even

If you are running modern hardware, this is where the story turns uncomfortable.

The current top tier, including machines like Bitmain’s Antminer S21 and the Whatsminer M60 series, delivers around 17-22 joules per terahash (J/TH). It is a major jump from older generations and is now generally treated as the minimum standard for serious-scale deployments.

On paper, that level of efficiency should translate into comfortable margins. In practice:

• At a hash price of $35-$38 per PH/day, even the most efficient rigs barely cover electricity costs for miners paying mid-range industrial tariffs.

• Analysts estimate about $40 per PH/day as a common break-even level for many operations. Below that mark, every extra hour online eats into reserves.

• TheMinerMag and other trackers now show ASIC payback periods stretching beyond 1,000 days at current hardware prices and revenue, which is longer than the time left until the next halving.

Some profitability guides suggest that, at these power rates, buying spot BTC can be more straightforward than mining, though the choice depends on individual conditions.

That is why rigs are going dark. In many setups, every extra block of uptime deepens the losses.

Did you know? A miner’s joules per terahash (J/TH) rating shows exactly how much energy it uses to produce hashing work. A lower J/TH means the machine performs the same terahash for less electricity, which makes it the single best indicator of ASIC efficiency.

How to check if your machines are underwater

Here is a simple framework you can run in 15 minutes.

Collect your numbers:

• ASIC model and hashrate

• Efficiency (J/TH) from the manufacturer’s spec sheet

• All-in power price per kWh (energy, demand charges and hosting markup)

• Pool fee and any site-level fees.

  Estimate daily revenue:

• Take your total hashrate in PH or TH and multiply it by a current hash price feed, such as $35-$38 per PH/day.

• If you prefer TH units, remember that $35 per PH/day is the same as $0.035 per TH/day.

  Calculate daily power cost:

• Convert efficiency to power draw: (J/TH x hashrate in TH) ÷ 1,000 = kW

• Multiply kW x 24 x kWh price

• Add a 5%-10% buffer for cooling, networking and transformer losses.

  Run the cash-flow test:

• If revenue is lower than power cost, you are burning cash every day you stay online.

• Stress test your setup by checking whether your numbers still hold if the hash price drops…