MINER PAY RIPS 22% IN A MONTH — THE HASHRATE DOESN’T BUDGE — THE MACHINES THAT LEFT FOR AI AREN’T COMING BACK FOR $39 A DAY
A 22% raise, and no new machines showed up.
Watch the machines, not the price.
Over the past 30 days the pay for running one petahash of mining gear for one day rose from $32.42 to $39.63. That is a 22% raise. In every other year of Bitcoin’s life, a raise like that pulled machines out of warehouses and onto the network within weeks. This time the network’s total computing power did not move: 934 exahash per second, flat, still below the zettahash line where it started the year. Difficulty has slid 13% since January.
The machines are not idle. They found a better job. Miners spent this year moving their buildings and their power contracts over to AI computing, where the same megawatt-hour can earn several times what mining pays. A $39 day rate does not win that bidding war. Saturday’s difficulty adjustment tells the same story in one number: up 1.31%, only the eighth increase of 2026 against ten cuts.
And the part nobody puts in a headline: fees paid 0.43% of what miners earned over the last day. Not 43%. Less than half of one percent. The network’s security budget is riding the coin’s price alone right now.
The protocol’s thermostat still works. It is the furnace that took the other job.
Over the past 30 days the pay for running one petahash of mining gear for one day rose from $32.42 to $39.63. That is a 22% raise. In every other year of Bitcoin’s life, a raise like that pulled machines out of warehouses and onto the network within weeks. This time the network’s total computing power did not move: 934 exahash per second, flat, still below the zettahash line where it started the year. Difficulty has slid 13% since January.
The machines are not idle. They found a better job. Miners spent this year moving their buildings and their power contracts over to AI computing, where the same megawatt-hour can earn several times what mining pays. A $39 day rate does not win that bidding war. Saturday’s difficulty adjustment tells the same story in one number: up 1.31%, only the eighth increase of 2026 against ten cuts.
And the part nobody puts in a headline: fees paid 0.43% of what miners earned over the last day. Not 43%. Less than half of one percent. The network’s security budget is riding the coin’s price alone right now.
The protocol’s thermostat still works. It is the furnace that took the other job.
KEY RECEIPTS
Difficulty: up 1.31% at block 965664 on Saturday Sep 5, to 127.45 trillion. Eighth increase of 2026 against ten cuts; down 13% from 146.47 trillion since January (mempool.space; coinwarz history).
Hashprice: $32.42 to $39.63 per PH/s per day over roughly 30 days, up 22.2% — 39.63 ÷ 32.42 reproduces (Hashrate Index).
Hashrate: about 934 EH/s, under 1 zettahash. The New-Year line is our arithmetic: 146.47T difficulty implies about 1,048 EH/s (difficulty × 2³² ÷ 600 seconds).
Fees: 0.43% of total miner rewards over the last 24 hours (Bitcoin.com News).
Where the machines went: Bitcoin.com’s Miner Weekly, Sep 6 — miner AI revenue up 52% as rigs unplug; AI cloud compute pays about $941 per MWh against roughly $179 for S23-class mining (Miner Weekly).
Zone note: coverage stamped 18:15 UTC (2:15 PM ET) Sep 6; adjustment landed Saturday Sep 5.
Hashprice: $32.42 to $39.63 per PH/s per day over roughly 30 days, up 22.2% — 39.63 ÷ 32.42 reproduces (Hashrate Index).
Hashrate: about 934 EH/s, under 1 zettahash. The New-Year line is our arithmetic: 146.47T difficulty implies about 1,048 EH/s (difficulty × 2³² ÷ 600 seconds).
Fees: 0.43% of total miner rewards over the last 24 hours (Bitcoin.com News).
Where the machines went: Bitcoin.com’s Miner Weekly, Sep 6 — miner AI revenue up 52% as rigs unplug; AI cloud compute pays about $941 per MWh against roughly $179 for S23-class mining (Miner Weekly).
Zone note: coverage stamped 18:15 UTC (2:15 PM ET) Sep 6; adjustment landed Saturday Sep 5.
THE PAY WENT UP. THE MACHINES STAY WHERE THE MONEY IS.
Bitcoin.com News · Sun Sep 6, 2:15 PM ET · data: mempool.space + Hashrate Index