Miner Stress and China Shutdowns

According to VanEck’s December 2025 ChainCheck report, over 400,000 mining machines in China’s Xinjiang province went offline. This removed an estimated 1.3 GW of capacity and reduced China’s computing power by around 100 exahashes within 24 hours. Analysts noted that this could account for about 10% of Bitcoin’s network hash rate.

Mining Economics Under Pressure

Bitcoin’s price dropped around 9% while volatility spiked, squeezing miners’ profitability. VanEck data shows that the electricity breakeven for a 2022 Bitmain S19 XP miner fell from $0.12 in December 2024 to $0.077 in mid-December 2025. Despite poor economics, many miners continue operations.

“While profitability for miners has been poor recently, many entities continue to mine despite periods of poor economics because they believe in Bitcoin’s future. To support the long-term hash rate of the Bitcoin network, we believe up to 13 nations are mining with support from their central governments.” – VanEck Analysts

Declining Hash Rate Historically Signals Gains

VanEck analysts emphasized that drops in hash rate have historically correlated with positive Bitcoin price performance. Since 2014, when hash rate declined, 90-day forward BTC returns were positive about 65% of the time. The 180-day forward returns averaged 20.5% during hash rate declines compared to 20.2% during increases. Technical and on-chain data suggest a potential recovery despite current pressure.

Price Update

According to Binance, Bitcoin was trading at $87,400 at the time of writing, down 1.77% in the past 24 hours.

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