Twenty One CEO Warns Bitcoin Hashrate Is in Its First Bear Market
Bitcoin mining could also be coming into territory the business has by no means seen earlier than.
Rapha Zagury, CEO of Tether-backed bitcoin treasury firm Twenty One Capital, instructed the Bitcoin Asia 2026 convention in Hong Kong that the community goes by way of its first “bear market in hash price.”
“We’re dwelling, I feel, by way of the primary bear market in hash price that we’ve ever seen in Bitcoin historical past,” Zagury stated throughout his Aug. 28 keynote.
Bitcoin’s hashrate approached 1.3 zettahashes per second late final 12 months earlier than starting a gradual decline. In keeping with Zagury, the present stretch marks the longest interval Bitcoin has spent under a hashrate report with out recovering.
That issues as a result of rising community hashrate will increase competitors between miners. When it falls, surviving operators can seize a bigger share of bitcoin manufacturing.
This Is Not One other China Mining Ban
Zagury argued that the present downturn seems to be essentially completely different from 2021, when China’s crypto mining crackdown precipitated hashrate to break down. Again then, mining machines largely moved to different jurisdictions and finally got here again on-line.
“What we’re seeing now, it’s very completely different,” he stated. “We hit near 1.3 zettahashes late final 12 months, and it’s been step by step coming down.”
The change comes as mining infrastructure has gained one other potential purchaser: synthetic intelligence.
Information facilities constructed for bitcoin can supply entry to energy, land and grid connections that AI and high-performance computing corporations more and more worth. That provides miners an alternative choice to dedicating their total infrastructure to bitcoin. Zagury stated that optionality is usually ignored when buyers worth mining companies.
AI Is Rewriting the Bitcoin Mining Commerce
The shift Zagury described is now not theoretical. Throughout the bitcoin mining business, corporations are redirecting energy, land and>$819 million in liquidity, giving it capital to fund the transition.
Bitdeer has additionally moved aggressively. In August, the bitcoin miner signed a 16-year AI infrastructure settlement price about $4.7 billion for 121 megawatts of computing capability at its Tydal campus in Norway. The contract may attain roughly $8 billion if an extension is exercised.
Hut 8, in the meantime, secured a $9.8 billion, 15-year AI infrastructure lease protecting 352 megawatts at its Beacon Level campus in Texas. Its broader contracted AI portfolio now spans 949 megawatts.
These offers give weight to Zagury’s warning that giant public miners are more and more reconsidering pure-play Bitcoin mining. “In the event you have a look at the general public mining corporations on the market, there actually isn’t anyone staying the course to mine bitcoin at scale,” Zagury stated.
For miners that stay dedicated, nevertheless, shrinking competitors may very well be a bonus. Zagury argued that operators that stay true to bitcoin mining naturally acquire a bigger share of the community as competing hashrate disappears.
The result’s an uncommon rigidity for the crypto business: AI could also be pulling infrastructure away from bitcoin, whereas concurrently bettering the economics for miners keen to remain.
