Bitcoin mining 2025: Post-halving profitability, hashrate and energy trends
After the 2024 halving, Bitcoin mining entered its fifth epoch and block rewards were reduced from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC. This forced miners to rethink their operations, optimize efficiency, cut energy costs and upgrade hardware to remain profitable. Cointelegraph Research, with insights from industry experts at Uminers, examines this transformation in its latest report. The analysis covers ASIC efficiency improvements, corporate performance, geographical expansion and new revenue models. As miners adapt, Bitcoin moves into a new era where institutional momentum and sovereign adoption could redefine its role in the global financial system.
The mining industry’s response to rising hashrate and shrinking margins
Despite the adverse financial impact of the halving, Bitcoin’s network hashrate has continued to climb. As of May 1, 2025, the total computational power of the network reached 831 EH/s. Earlier in the month, hashrate peaked at 921 EH/s, marking a 77% increase from the 2024 low of 519 EH/s. This rapid recovery underscores the industry’s relentless drive for efficiency as larger mining firms reinvest in fleet upgrades and energy optimization to maintain profitability.
The mining arms race has always revolved around power efficiency. With energy costs rising, the latest ASIC models from Bitmain, MicroBT and Canaan are further optimizing the energy required per hash. Bitmain’s Antminer S21+ delivers 216 TH/s at 16.5 J/TH, while MicroBT’s WhatsMiner M66S+ pushes immersion-cooled performance to 17 J/TH. Meanwhile, semiconductor giants TSMC and Samsung are driving the next wave of innovation, with 3-nm chips already in use and 2-nm technology on the horizon.
Post-halving profitability: The global shift toward low-cost energy
Bitcoin mining profitability has tightened significantly post-halving. Hashprice, the daily revenue per terahash per second, dropped from $0.12 in April 2024 to about $0.049 by April 2025. At the same time, network difficulty has surged to an all-time high of 123T, making it harder for miners to generate returns. To stay competitive, operations must extract maximum value from every watt of power consumed. This shift has intensified the search for cheap, reliable power, driving mining expansion into regions where energy costs remain low.
Electricity pricing now dictates mining profitability. In Oman, licensed miners benefit from government-backed subsidies, securing electricity at $0.05–$0.07 per kWh, while in the UAE, semi-governmental projects operate at even lower rates of $0.035–$0.045 per kWh. These incentives have turned the region into a prime destination for institutional-scale mining. Meanwhile, in the US, where industrial power costs often exceed $0.1 per kWh, miners face shrinking margins, forcing a migration toward more cost-efficient locations. Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia have emerged as key battlegrounds in this race, offering the energy arbitrage opportunities miners need to survive.
What’s next for Bitcoin mining?
The 2024 halving has reinforced a hard truth: Efficiency is no longer optional; it’s a necessity. The industry is shifting toward leaner, more optimized operations, where only the most power-efficient miners can thrive. The rise of AI computing, global regulatory shifts and ongoing hardware advancements will continue to shape the sector over the next 12–18 months.
Cointelegraph Research’s Bitcoin mining report: Post-halving insights and trends offers a data-driven breakdown of the key forces shaping mining profitability, infrastructure investments, and strategic decision-making.
This article does not contain investment advice or recommendations. Every investment and trading move involves risk, and readers should conduct their own research when making a decision.
This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal or investment advice. The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed here are the author’s alone and do not necessarily reflect or represent the views and opinions of Cointelegraph.
Cointelegraph does not endorse the content of this article nor any product mentioned herein. Readers should do their own research before taking any action related to any product or company mentioned and carry full responsibility for their decisions.
Current fiscal and monetary policies will cause hard asset prices to rise, but both are signs of late-stage economic decay, Dalio said.
The US Treasury Department accepted comments related to the implementation of the stablecoin bill until Tuesday as part of the law’s planned rollout.
The two-child benefit cap: To scrap or not to scrap?
There is an ongoing row in the Labour Party about welfare spending and how to cut it while maintaining protections for the most vulnerable.
Those on the left are suspicious of anything that may look or smell like balancing the books on the backs of the poorest in society.
Those on the other side point to an unsustainable welfare bill that has been allowed to balloon under the Conservatives and looks set to continue under Labour.
Rachel Reeves will have to weigh up finding between £3bn and £4bn to scrap the cap, or face the wrath of Labour MPs on small majorities who believe they were elected to deliver on ‘Labour values’ like lifting this very cap.
But perhaps there is a compromise the chancellor could opt for, which may placate the left of her party while needing less cash.
For example, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, lifting the cap from two to three children would cost £2.6bn; or a tapered system, where parents got the full amount for the first two kids and then half the amount for any subsequent children, would cost around £1.8bn.
But Labour big beast David Blunkett – the only senior Labour figure against lifting the cap – wants to see a more nuanced approach.
Blunkett believes the cap ought to remain, but he wants there to be exemptions for disabled children and parents who have been widowed, and he would prefer the government to focus on anti-child poverty measures and improving pathways to work for parents, all paid for by a tax on gambling – something former prime minister Gordon Brown has been agitating for.
Read more:
What is the two-child benefit cap?
What tax rises could Rachel Reeves announce?
At a time when the government perpetually reminds us of how little money it has and how much strain public finances are under due to austerity, finding several billion to scrap a policy that is broadly popular with the public may seem like an unwise move.
According to the latest polling from YouGov, 59% of the public are in favour of keeping the cap in place, and only 26% thought it should be abolished.
But politically, the chancellor is aware of the strength of feeling within her party about reducing child poverty as soon as possible, and her colleague, the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, has stressed the party has a “moral mission” to tackle child poverty.
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Why did Labour delay their child poverty strategy?
Irrespective of what Reeves chooses, her political woes do not end there.
Taxes are set to go up in the budget later this month, and Reeves has refused to rule out breaking her manifesto promise of not raising taxes on working people.
This combined with persistently disappointing voter intention polling for Labour, could spell deep dissatisfaction among the public.
A decision to lift the two-child benefit cap may boost morale among Labour MPs, but if it’s not enough to prevent the loss of hundreds of political foot soldiers in May’s local elections, Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer will need to find more red meat to throw to their party before too long.
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