Bitcoin Hashrate Enters First Bear Market as AI Pulls Miners Away

Bitcoin’s hashrate has entered its first documented bear market as mining capacity is being redeployed to AI and other high-margin compute tasks. This shift has reduced cumulative hashpower and put downward pressure on miner revenue, prompting some operators to repurpose or idle rigs. For Bitcoin, a sustained lower hashrate raises near-term security and block-time variance risks, though automated difficulty reductions should eventually restore mining profitability and incentivize rebalancing.