<b>Bitcoin's Hashrate Decline: A New Era for Mining</b>

Bitcoin's hashrate has been in a state of decline for 187 days, marking the longest and deepest sustained drawdown since its industrial scale. The proximate cause is the AI pivot among US public miners, which shed roughly 7 EH/s of bitcoin hashrate in Q1 2026 as they redirected power capacity to high-performance computing tenants under 10-to-15-year leases.

The US public miner cohort is undergoing a structural reorientation that is reshaping the composition of global Bitcoin hashrate. The logic driving the pivot is financially compelling, with AI and high-performance computing (HPC) data center infrastructure commanding valuations per megawatt that are multiples of what Bitcoin mining has historically attracted.

Russia operates an estimated 13-17% of global hashrate, anchored by Siberian hydro and natural gas. Bhutan, through its sovereign wealth fund Druk Holding, accumulated over 13,000 BTC against Himalayan hydro surplus, though holdings have since drawn down to roughly 3,954 BTC.