AI and HPC are reshaping mining economics as operators repurpose power and data centers, while a smaller group of miners continues to expand Bitcoin capacity. Publicly traded Bitcoin miners are cutting mining capacity faster than the Bitcoin network overall, suggesting that more operators are redirecting electricity and infrastructure toward data centers and high-performance computing (HPC), in another sign of the sector’s evolution beyond creating more crypto. In the latest Miner Weekly newsletter, BlocksBridge Consulting reported that realized hashrate among a cohort of public Bitcoin miners fell from 368.3 exahashes per second (EH/s) in the fourth quarter of 2025 to 319 EH/s in the second quarter of 2026, a 13.4% decline. The contraction was even sharper when excluding Bitdeer, which continued to expand its mining operations. Without Bitdeer, the cohort’s realized hashrate fell 21.2% over the six-month period, from 324.6 EH/s to 255.9 EH/s. Bitdeer’s realized hashrate, meanwhile, increased 44% to 63 EH/s. ...