JPMorgan: The production cost of Bitcoin has decreased from $90,000 at the beginning of the year to $77,000

According to The Block, JPMorgan analysts have stated that their estimated production cost of Bitcoin—historically viewed as a "soft price support"—has decreased from $90,000 at the beginning of the year to $77,000, primarily due to a recent decline in network hash rate and mining difficulty.

Analysts pointed out that the recent drop in Bitcoin's network hash rate has triggered the largest adjustment in mining difficulty since the Chinese mining ban in 2021, with a cumulative decline of about 15% so far this year. The decrease in difficulty provides breathing room for miners still in operation, as efficient miners are capturing market share lost by high-cost miners who have been forced to shut down. Analysts have observed a rebound in hash rate and expect that production costs may rebound during the next difficulty adjustment.

The report attributes the decline in difficulty to two factors: first, the drop in Bitcoin prices has rendered high-cost miners unprofitable; second, winter storms in the U.S. have temporarily halted operations at large mining facilities in places like Texas. Some high-cost miners have maintained operations or transitioned to AI by selling off Bitcoin, exacerbating the price pressure since the beginning of the year. Analysts believe that the exit of high-cost miners has stabilized, and they maintain a "positive" outlook for the overall cryptocurrency market in 2026.