Bitcoin Mining Profitability Turns on Power Costs After Hashprice Record Low

Bitcoin mining profitability is increasingly determined by electricity costs as hashprice remains under pressure, with a model of Bitmain’s Antminer S21 XP showing shutdown prices ranging from $34,500 to $82,900 across common power rates.

The S21 XP produces 270 terahashes per second while drawing 3,645 watts, or 13.5 joules per terahash. Operating continuously, it consumes about 87.48 kilowatt-hours per day.

A calculation using hashprice of $39.05 per petahash per second per day and a 2% mining-pool fee puts the machine’s electricity-only break-even rate at approximately $0.118 per kilowatt-hour. The hashprice figure is used as a model assumption rather than a confirmed current market snapshot.

At $0.05 per kilowatt-hour, daily electricity costs would be about $4.37 and the estimated shutdown Bitcoin price would be $34,500. At $0.06, $0.09 and $0.12 per kilowatt-hour, the corresponding power costs would be $5.25, $7.87 and $10.50, while estimated shutdown prices would rise to $41,400, $62,100 and $82,900.

Gross daily revenue is approximately 0.270 PH/s multiplied by $39.05, or $10.54 before the pool fee. Electricity expense depends on the machine’s power draw, operating hours and local rate, so a positive gross revenue figure does not necessarily mean the machine is profitable after power costs.

Hashprice measures the dollar revenue generated by a unit of Bitcoin mining power, typically 1 PH/s, over one day. It reflects Bitcoin’s price, network difficulty and transaction-fee revenue. Hashprice can fall even when Bitcoin’s market price rises if competing mining power expands faster.

Hashprice reached a record low of $27.70 per PH/s per day in June 2026. The weighted average ex-tax cash cost for listed miners reached about $75,500 per Bitcoin in the second quarter.

Corporate cost figures are materially higher than the S21 XP’s electricity-only threshold because they include broader expenses. Second-quarter all-in mining costs were $113,499 per Bitcoin for Riot Platforms, $135,691 for CleanSpark and $163,866 for MARA Holdings.

Those figures are not directly comparable with the machine-level calculation. Corporate miners also face costs such as depreciation, hosting, labor, maintenance and infrastructure.

U.S. power costs and mining economics

Average U.S. industrial electricity prices reached 9.77 cents per kilowatt-hour in July 2026, up 4.7% from a year earlier. At that rate, running an S21 XP around the clock would cost roughly $8.55 per day in electricity based on its listed power draw.

The comparison illustrates why the same mining machine can produce different results depending on where it operates. A rate near the U.S. industrial average is below the model’s $0.118 break-even threshold, but the calculation still excludes expenses beyond electricity.

Bitcoin’s protocol also limits the amount of newly issued Bitcoin available to miners. The block subsidy is currently 3.125 BTC per block following the April 2024 halving, and the next halving is expected in 2028.

Miners therefore depend on the interaction of Bitcoin’s price, network competition, hardware efficiency, electricity costs and transaction fees. A higher Bitcoin price alone does not determine whether a machine remains online.

Pressure on mining companies

The strain is also visible in corporate financial results. IREN recorded $578.2 million in fiscal-2026 Bitcoin-mining revenue and $707.0 million in total revenue for the year ended June 30, 2026.

The company posted a net loss of $702.6 million and $638.8 million in impairment charges, primarily related to Bitcoin-mining hardware and infrastructure.

For individual operators, the central calculation remains straightforward: machine hashrate determines potential revenue, while power draw and the local electricity rate determine a major part of the cost. As hashprice and the block subsidy remain constrained, hardware efficiency and access to lower-cost electricity will continue to shape which machines stay in operation through the next halving expected in 2028.