Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Drops 7.8% as Miners Pivot to AI
📋 En bref (TL;DR)
- Difficulty drops 7.8%: On March 20, 2026, at block 941,472, Bitcoin mining difficulty fell to 133.79 T, its steepest decline since December 2022.
- Hashrate below the zetahash: The network’s computing power hovers between 903 and 948 EH/s, well below the 1 zetahash record reached in late 2025.
- Core Scientific sells its BTC treasury: The publicly traded miner liquidates most of its Bitcoin reserves to fund its expansion into AI and high-performance computing (HPC).
- Bitdeer at zero BTC: The largest miner by hashrate liquidated all of its Bitcoin reserves in February 2026, a strong signal of strategic reorientation.
- Bitfarms rebrands: Complete rebranding and pivot to AI and HPC data centers, confirming the industry-wide trend.
- AI generates 3x more revenue: AI hosting contracts generate 3 times more revenue per megawatt than mining, with operating margins of 80 to 90%.
- BTC at $70,600: The post-halving price squeezes miner margins, amplified by rising energy costs linked to geopolitical tensions.
Bitcoin mining difficulty dropped 7.8% on March 20, 2026, its sharpest downward adjustment since December 2022. At the same time, the largest industrial miners are liquidating their BTC reserves and massively redirecting their infrastructure toward artificial intelligence. A historic shift is underway.
This dual movement — a technical retreat in the network and a strategic pivot by major players — illustrates a profound transformation of the mining industry. Facing margins squeezed by the April 2024 halving, rising energy costs, and a Bitcoin price stagnating around $70,600, miners are seeking new growth drivers. AI and high-performance computing (HPC) are emerging as the lifeline for an industry under pressure.
A historic difficulty adjustment
Block 941,472 marks a turning point
On March 20, 2026, at block 941,472, the Bitcoin protocol carried out its biweekly difficulty adjustment by lowering it 7.8%, bringing it down to 133.79 terahashes (T). This is the largest drop since December 2022, when the bear market and energy crisis had pushed many miners to shut down their machines.
The mechanism is automatic: every 2,016 blocks (approximately two weeks), the protocol recalibrates the difficulty based on the computing power actually deployed on the network. When miners disconnect their machines, blocks are mined more slowly, and the difficulty decreases to return to the target pace of 10 minutes per block.
Hashrate falls below the zetahash
The global Bitcoin network hashrate now oscillates between 903 and 948 EH/s (exahashes per second), according to estimates from Hashrate Index and Mempool.space. This is a significant decline from the all-time high of 1 zetahash (1,000 EH/s) reached in late 2025, which had been hailed as a symbolic milestone for network security.
This drop in computing power is explained by the convergence of several factors: the shutdown of machines that became unprofitable after the halving, the conversion of facilities to AI workloads, and rising energy costs in several key mining regions (Texas, Kazakhstan, Scandinavia).
Mining giants liquidate their Bitcoin
Core Scientific bets everything on AI
Core Scientific, one of the largest publicly traded miners in the United States, announced the sale of most of its Bitcoin treasury to fund its expansion into AI hosting and high-performance computing. The company, which had emerged from bankruptcy in January 2024, has made a radical strategic shift.
The company signed colocation contracts with CoreWeave, a GPU cloud provider specializing in AI, for a total amount of several billion dollars over 12 years. These contracts guarantee recurring revenue that Bitcoin mining, volatile by nature, cannot offer.
Bitdeer: zero Bitcoin in reserve
The strongest signal comes from Bitdeer, the largest miner by hashrate in the world. In February 2026, the company founded by Jihan Wu (co-founder of Bitmain) revealed it had liquidated all of its Bitcoin reserves. Zero BTC on the balance sheet of a miner of this scale — it’s unprecedented.
Bitdeer is using these funds to develop its own next-generation ASIC chips and build versatile data centers capable of switching between crypto mining and AI workloads depending on profitability.
Bitfarms reinvents itself
Bitfarms announced a complete rebranding, accompanied by a strategic reorientation toward AI and HPC data centers. The Canadian company, historically focused on hydroelectric mining in Quebec, is diversifying its operations to reduce its dependence on the Bitcoin price.
This trend is not isolated. Marathon Digital, Hut 8, and Iris Energy have also announced significant investments in AI infrastructure in recent months, confirming a deep industry-wide movement.
Why AI is more profitable than mining
A 1-to-3 revenue differential
The economic math is unequivocal: AI hosting contracts generate on average 3 times more revenue per megawatt (MW) than Bitcoin mining. One megawatt used for mining generates between $150,000 and $200,000 in annual revenue at the current price, compared to $450,000 to $600,000 for hosting AI workloads.
Operating margins are also higher. AI hosting achieves margins of 80 to 90%, compared to 30 to 50% for Bitcoin mining under the best conditions. Above all, these revenues are contracted over long durations (3 to 12 years), providing visibility that mining cannot guarantee.
Converging infrastructure
Miners have a natural strategic advantage for pivoting to AI. Their data centers share essential characteristics with AI computing centers: access to low-cost electricity, high-performance cooling systems, and the capacity to manage heavy electrical loads.
Global demand for computing power for training and running artificial intelligence models is surging. According to Goldman Sachs estimates, global investment in AI data centers is expected to reach $300 billion in 2026, creating an infrastructure shortage that former miners are well positioned to fill.
An unfavorable economic environment for mining
The halving and energy cost squeeze
The April 2024 halving, which reduced the block reward from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC, continues to squeeze miner margins. With Bitcoin hovering around $70,600, the block reward amounts to approximately $220,000 — barely enough to cover the operating costs of the least efficient facilities.
Persistent geopolitical tensions (the conflict in Ukraine, instability in the Middle East, US-China trade tensions) are keeping energy prices at elevated levels. In Texas, the global mining hub, spot electricity prices have increased 15 to 20% compared to 2024, further eroding margins.
A struggling job market
The combination of the bear market and the AI pivot is resulting in significant job cuts in the crypto sector. Several mining companies have announced layoff plans, replacing mining operations roles with profiles specialized in AI and data center management.
This phenomenon extends beyond the mining sector alone: exchanges, crypto funds, and Web3 startups are also trimming their workforces amid a prolonged bear market and tightening regulations. The profiles in demand are changing: engineers specialized in immersion cooling and GPU cluster management are now more sought after than mining farm technicians.
For local communities that depended on employment generated by mining farms, this transition is a double-edged sword. While some facilities are maintaining or increasing their workforce through conversion to AI data centers, others are simply shutting down, leaving behind vacant industrial sites and unmet long-term energy contracts.
What does this decline mean for Bitcoin security?
The network adapts automatically
The drop in difficulty and hashrate does not directly threaten the security of the Bitcoin network. The automatic adjustment mechanism ensures that blocks continue to be produced at the expected rate, regardless of the computing power deployed. That is precisely the purpose of this adjustment.
With a hashrate of 903 to 948 EH/s, the network remains extraordinarily secure. For comparison, the hashrate was 350 EH/s in early 2023 and the network functioned perfectly. Bitcoin’s security does not depend on an absolute hashrate but on its decentralization and the relative difficulty of a 51% attack.
A cycle that could reverse
Historically, difficulty drops often precede rebound periods. When difficulty decreases, the remaining miners become more profitable (they receive a larger share of the rewards), which can attract new participants and stabilize the hashrate.
If the Bitcoin price rises significantly, miners who have kept their crypto infrastructure — or those who have designed hybrid data centers — could quickly reallocate computing power to mining. The pivot to AI is not necessarily irreversible.
The Bitcoin mining industry is undergoing a profound transformation. The difficulty drop on March 20, 2026 is not merely a technical adjustment: it is a symptom of a massive reallocation of capital and infrastructure toward artificial intelligence. The miners who survive will be those who have managed to transform their computing farms into versatile centers capable of serving both the Bitcoin network and AI giants. As for Bitcoin itself, the network will continue to operate as designed — that is the strength of its automatic adjustment mechanism.
Glossary
- Mining: The process by which specialized computers (ASICs) solve cryptographic calculations to validate Bitcoin transactions and secure the network. Miners are rewarded in BTC for each valid block.
- Mining difficulty: A parameter of the Bitcoin protocol that determines the complexity of the calculations required to mine a block. It is automatically adjusted every 2,016 blocks (~2 weeks) to maintain a production rate of one block every 10 minutes.
- Hashrate: The total computing power deployed on the Bitcoin network, measured in hashes per second. One EH/s (exahash) equals one quintillion calculations per second. The higher the hashrate, the more secure the network.
- Halving: A programmed event in Bitcoin’s code that halves the reward given to miners every 210,000 blocks (~4 years). The last halving took place in April 2024, reducing the reward from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC per block.
- HPC (High Performance Computing): The use of supercomputers or server clusters to perform computation-intensive tasks, such as training AI models or running scientific simulations.
- ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit): An electronic chip designed exclusively for a specific task — in this case, Bitcoin mining. ASICs are far more efficient than general-purpose processors (CPU/GPU) for mining but cannot do anything else.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did Bitcoin mining difficulty drop 7.8%?
The difficulty dropped because many miners shut down their machines or redirected their infrastructure toward AI, reducing the network’s overall hashrate. The Bitcoin protocol automatically lowers the difficulty to compensate for this loss of computing power and maintain the pace of one block every 10 minutes.
Is the Bitcoin network less secure with a declining hashrate?
No, the network remains extremely secure. The hashrate of 903 to 948 EH/s is more than double what it was in early 2023. The difficulty adjustment mechanism ensures the network continues to function normally regardless of available computing power.
Why are Bitcoin miners switching to artificial intelligence?
AI workload hosting generates 3 times more revenue per megawatt than Bitcoin mining, with operating margins of 80 to 90%. Contracts are also more stable and predictable. Miners already own the infrastructure (electricity, cooling) needed to make the pivot.
What does the liquidation of BTC reserves by Bitdeer and Core Scientific mean?
These massive sell-offs indicate that the largest miners view AI as a better investment than holding Bitcoin in the short term. Bitdeer reduced its reserves to zero BTC and Core Scientific sold most of its treasury to fund AI colocation contracts.
Does the Bitcoin price have an impact on mining?
Yes, directly. With BTC at around $70,600 and a reward of 3.125 BTC per block after the April 2024 halving, miner margins are very compressed. Add rising energy costs and only the most efficient operations remain profitable.
Sources
This article is based on the following sources:
- Hashrate Index — Bitcoin network hashrate and difficulty data (March 2026)
- CoinDesk — Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Drops 7.8% as Miners Pivot to AI (March 2026)
- The Block — Core Scientific, Bitdeer, Bitfarms earnings reports and AI/HPC strategy (Q4 2025 – Q1 2026)
- Mempool.space — Real-time Bitcoin network statistics, block 941,472
How to cite this article: Fibo Crypto. (2026). Bitcoin Mining: Difficulty Drops 7.8% as Miners Pivot to AI. Retrieved March 22, 2026, from https://fibo-crypto.fr/blog/minage-bitcoin-difficulte-chute-mineurs-pivot-ia
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