Bitcoin's Hashrate Just Crashed 19% in a Week — the Biggest Miner Switch-Off of 2026: 5 Numbers That Decide If the Bottom Is In

Bitcoin's hashrate — the computing power securing the network — just fell 19.3% in a single week, the steepest miner switch-off of 2026. At the same time, Bitcoin's next difficulty adjustment is now estimated at a 6.22% cut, the deepest in months, and one of the network's biggest mining pools shuts down tomorrow. Bitcoin trades at around $74,760, down 15.9% from its September high, and miners are voting with their machines: at current prices and costs, a large chunk of the network no longer pays to run.

That sounds alarming. It is also, historically, exactly the kind of signal that shows up near the end of a sell-off rather than the start of one. Five numbers, all due within the next four days, will decide which one this is.

This is a data-led look at what miners are actually doing, why they are doing it, and the levels that separate a capitulation bottom from a deeper slide toward $70,000.

The 5 Numbers That Decide If the Bottom Is In

Number	What it is	Why it matters
−19.3%	Bitcoin hashrate fall in the 7 days to November 8	The steepest weekly drop of 2026; miners are switching machines off, not adding them
−6.22%	Estimated difficulty retarget, due around November 13	The biggest downward adjustment in months — difficulty only falls when hashrate falls
$73,170	Bitcoin's 200-day moving average	BTC sits only ~$1,600 above the line that has ended bull markets before
$75,456	Strategy's average Bitcoin cost basis	Spot is trading below the largest corporate holder's break-even
+0.2%	Consensus October CPI, due Tuesday November 10 at 8:30 a.m. ET	The macro trigger that decides whether risk appetite returns or the sell-off extends

What Just Happened: Miners Switched Off a Fifth of the Network's Growth

Bitcoin's hashrate — the total computing power competing to mine new blocks — dropped 19.3% in the seven days to November 8, according to network data tracked by ByKaranteli. That is a far steeper cut than the 8.8% decline recorded over the previous 30 days, which means the switch-off accelerated sharply into the weekend sell-off. Hashrate now sits at roughly 966 EH/s, down from above 1 ZH/s (1,000 EH/s) only weeks ago.

The timing is not a coincidence. Bitcoin touched $73,510 late on Sunday, its lowest level since August 21, after closing a fifth consecutive losing week at $74,834 — down 4.5% on the week and 15.9% below the September 21 high of $87,392, according to Bitfinex Alpha. More than $1.1 billion in leveraged positions were liquidated, and US spot Bitcoin ETFs lost $1.28 billion last week, their largest outflow in four months. When the price falls 16% from the highs while electricity bills stay the same, the least efficient miners are the first to pull the plug.

There is a second, mechanical reason the numbers look so dramatic this week. Binance Pool, one of the network's largest mining pools, is reported by CoinDesk to be shutting down on November 10 at 07:00 UTC. Pool shutdowns force miners to point their machines elsewhere or switch off while they migrate, and that churn shows up as a sharp, temporary drop. Not all of the 19.3% is miners quitting forever — some of it is miners moving house. The difficulty retarget due on November 13 will help separate the two: a temporary migration washes out within days, while a genuine capitulation leaves hashrate lower for weeks.

For readers who want the full mechanics of how hashrate, difficulty and miner revenue fit together, our complete guide to how Bitcoin mining works in 2026 explains the difficulty adjustment, the block reward and why miners' costs set a soft floor under the price.

Why Miners Are Switching Off Now

Mining is a brutally simple business: revenue per unit of computing power minus electricity and operating costs. Three forces have squeezed that equation at the same time.

First, the price. Bitcoin at around $74,760 pays miners roughly 16% less per block, in dollar terms, than it did at the September high — while the network's difficulty, until this week's adjustment, was still sitting near its all-time record of 148.36 trillion. High difficulty plus a falling price is the worst combination a miner can face: the same machines earn less for the same work.

Second, the revenue per unit of hashpower — known as hashprice — has fallen into the low-$30s per PH/s per day in early November, according to readings tracked in our earlier mining coverage. At that level, older-generation machines running on anything but the cheapest power are mining at a loss. The machines that switch off first are always the oldest and the most expensive to run, which is why a 19% hashrate drop does not mean 19% of miners have gone bankrupt — it means the marginal machines have gone quiet.

Third, the macro backdrop removed the safety net. The Nasdaq suffered its worst session since April 2025 on November 5, falling 5.5%, and Bitcoin fell with it through the $77,000 support band. October payrolls came in at 165,000 against 65,000 expected, lifting the implied probability of a December Federal Reserve rate hike to about 78%, and the market is now waiting on Tuesday's CPI print before taking fresh risk. Bitfinex Alpha's read is blunt: Bitcoin's downside last week was driven by its tight correlation to equities, not by rates.

That correlation is the miners' problem too. Mining companies that borrowed to expand during the good months now face falling revenue and falling share prices, and several are pivoting to AI data centres — Core Scientific and IREN have set December 31 as the date they stop mining. The hashrate exodus is not only about small operators.

The November 13 Difficulty Retarget: What It Actually Means

Bitcoin's difficulty adjusts roughly every two weeks to keep blocks arriving every ten minutes. When hashrate falls, blocks slow down, and the protocol cuts difficulty to compensate. The next retarget, expected at block 975,744 at around November 13, is currently estimated at −6.22% by mempool.space — a deeper cut than the −4.76% estimated just a day earlier, because hashrate kept sliding. It follows a +5.54% upward adjustment on October 29, so the swing from one adjustment to the next is nearly twelve percentage points: the network went from its tightest settings ever to its loosest in months in the space of two weeks.

A difficulty cut is good news for the miners who stay. Lower difficulty means each remaining machine earns more Bitcoin per day, which restores margins and slows the switch-off. That self-correcting mechanism is the reason Bitcoin's network has survived every previous miner exodus: the protocol makes mining profitable again for whoever is left. The cut also tells us something the price chart cannot — it is a lagging confirmation, written into the blockchain itself, that a real share of hashrate has left, not just a one-day data wobble.

What Most People Get Wrong About Falling Hashrate

The most common mistake is treating a hashrate drop as the network dying. It is not. Bitcoin's security does not depend on hashrate being at an all-time high; it depends on the cost of attacking the network exceeding any possible gain, and even after a 19% drop the network still runs at roughly 966 EH/s — an astronomically large amount of computing power that no single actor can cheaply replicate. The network has shed larger percentages of hashrate before, most famously in 2021 when China's mining ban removed roughly half of it in weeks, and it kept producing blocks throughout.

The second mistake is the opposite one: assuming a hashrate drop automatically marks the bottom. The well-known Hash Ribbons indicator, built by Capriole Investments, formalises this idea — it flags "miner capitulation" when the 30-day average hashrate falls below the 60-day average, and a recovery signal when it crosses back. The framework has a good historical record at identifying late-stage sell-offs, but it is a slow signal that confirms after the fact, and it has also flashed during declines that had further to run.

The third mistake is ignoring the calendar. This week's hashrate figures are polluted by the Binance Pool shutdown on November 10: a pool migration mechanically depresses measured hashrate for days even if no miner actually quits. The clean read comes after the November 13 retarget, when the new difficulty level reveals how much hashrate is genuinely gone. Anyone drawing a firm conclusion before then is reading noise.

Has Miner Capitulation Marked Bottoms Before?

The pattern is real enough to take seriously, and weak enough to demand caution. In previous cycles, the deepest miner-pain phases — when inefficient operators switched off en masse, difficulty fell sharply and mining stocks traded at distressed valuations — tended to cluster near the late stages of corrections rather than at their beginnings. The logic is straightforward: miners are the market's forced sellers, and when the weakest ones have already sold or switched off, one source of supply disappears.

But there are two important caveats this time. First, this is a 16% correction from the September high, not a 50%-plus bear market — the scale of miner distress is smaller than in the capitulation phases of 2018 or 2022, and the signal is correspondingly weaker. Second, today's miner landscape is different: publicly listed miners now hold substantial Bitcoin treasuries and have access to capital markets, and several are pivoting to AI computing, which means "switching off" can be a business decision rather than a bankruptcy.

The balanced conclusion: the hashrate drop is a genuine stress signal that fits the late-stage-correction pattern, but it is not by itself proof that the bottom is in. It is one vote among several, and the other votes are cast on Tuesday.

Bull, Base and Bear: Three Scenarios for the Week Ahead

Scenario	Trigger	Price levels	Probability read
Bull — relief rally	CPI comes in at +0.2% or below; December hike odds fall under 60%; hashrate stabilises after the Binance Pool migration	Reclaim $75,456 (Strategy's cost basis), then $79,400 (top of the options-implied range)	The contrarian case: 98% of traders are short, Fear & Greed reads 29, and positioning is crowded on one side
Base — grind sideways	CPI lands in line; the difficulty cut restores miner margins; buyers defend $73,510	Range $73,500–$76,000; a daily close back above the 50-week average near $75,488 ends the breakdown	The most likely path: options markets imply a $72,350–$79,400 range into the November 13 expiry, with most of the week spent in its lower half
Bear — breakdown	CPI surprises hot (core +0.4% or more); December hike odds jump above 90%; the 200-day average at $73,170 fails	A daily close under $73,170 opens $70,000, and a break of that level points toward $65,000–$67,000	The risk case: Bitcoin has already lost its 50-week average and the short-term-holder cost basis at $75,893

Two levels deserve special attention. The first is $73,170, the 200-day moving average — Bitcoin sits only about $1,600 above it, and a daily close below it would turn a correction into a trend change. The second is $75,456, Strategy's average cost on its 850,364 Bitcoin: spot is already trading below the largest corporate holder's break-even, and a reclaim would be the first sign buyers are setting the tone again.

Timeline: 4 Dates That Decide What Happens Next

• Tuesday, November 10, 07:00 UTC — Binance Pool shuts down. Watch whether hashrate recovers within 48 hours (a migration) or keeps sliding (a genuine exodus).
• Tuesday, November 10, 8:30 a.m. ET — October CPI. Consensus is +0.2% month-on-month. A soft print pulls December hike odds below 60% and relieves risk assets; a hot print does the opposite.
• Friday, November 13, ~17:46 UTC — difficulty retarget at block 975,744. The estimated −6.22% cut confirms how much hashrate is really gone and restores margins for the miners who stayed.
• Friday, November 13 — options expiry. The options-implied range for the week is $72,350–$79,400. Where Bitcoin closes into expiry sets the tone for the following week.

Checklist: 5 Things to Watch Before You Call the Bottom

• Hashrate stabilisation: has the 7-day hashrate stopped falling, or is the decline accelerating after the Binance Pool shutdown? A flattening is the first sign the switch-off is over.
• The $73,170 line: is Bitcoin holding its 200-day moving average on a daily closing basis? One intraday dip below it means little; a daily close below it means a lot.
• Miner selling: are miners' Bitcoin treasuries shrinking? Distressed miners sell coins to pay power bills — that flow drying up is the real capitulation signal, not the hashrate number itself.
• ETF flows: last week's $1.28 billion outflow was the largest in four months. A return to inflows would say institutional buyers are stepping in at these levels.
• Tuesday's CPI: everything else is secondary until 8:30 a.m. ET on November 10. A soft print changes the whole board; a hot one extends the sell-off regardless of what miners do.

What This Means for Holders

If you already hold Bitcoin, the hashrate drop is not a reason to panic — and it is not a reason to celebrate either. Networks do not die from difficulty cuts; they adjust, and the adjustment due on November 13 makes the surviving miners healthier. But a healthier mining sector does not guarantee a higher price this week, and the two levels that matter most — the 200-day average at $73,170 below and Strategy's cost basis at $75,456 above — are both within a normal day's move of the current price.

If you are thinking of buying the dip, the honest version of the trade is this: the miner-capitulation evidence says the market is in the late stages of a correction, the positioning data says almost everyone is already short, and the macro data on Tuesday can still override both. Our beginner's guide to buying Bitcoin and our honest guide to whether Bitcoin is a good investment in 2026 both cover the same point from different angles: size positions for the bear case, not the bull case, and never with money you need this month.

FAQs

What is Bitcoin hashrate?

Hashrate is the total computing power competing to mine Bitcoin blocks, measured in hashes per second. It currently sits at roughly 966 EH/s (quintillion hashes per second). A falling hashrate means miners are switching machines off, usually because mining has stopped being profitable at the current price.

Why did Bitcoin's hashrate fall 19.3% in a week?

Two forces combined: Bitcoin's price fell 16% from its September high while difficulty sat near a record 148.36 trillion, squeezing miner margins until the least efficient machines were switched off — and Binance Pool, a major mining pool, is shutting down on November 10, forcing miners to migrate. Some of the drop is a temporary migration effect; the November 13 difficulty retarget will show how much is permanent.

What is the Bitcoin difficulty retarget?

Every roughly two weeks (every 2,016 blocks), Bitcoin adjusts its mining difficulty to keep blocks arriving every ten minutes. If hashrate falls, blocks slow down and difficulty is cut to compensate. The retarget due around November 13 is estimated at −6.22%, which would make mining easier and more profitable for the miners who stayed — the network's built-in self-correction.

Does falling hashrate mean Bitcoin is dying?

No. A hashrate drop means some miners have switched off unprofitable machines; the network keeps producing blocks throughout, and the difficulty adjustment restores profitability for the miners who remain. Bitcoin has survived far larger hashrate drops, including losing roughly half its hashrate in weeks during China's 2021 mining ban. What a hashrate drop does signal is miner stress — and miner stress has historically clustered near the late stages of corrections, not their beginnings.

What is miner capitulation?

Miner capitulation is the phase when inefficient miners switch off machines and sell Bitcoin from their treasuries to cover costs, usually after a sharp price fall. The Hash Ribbons indicator formalises it by comparing the 30-day and 60-day hashrate averages. Capitulation phases have historically appeared near market bottoms, because they mark the point where the weakest sellers have already sold — but the signal is lagging and has also appeared during declines that had further to run.

What price levels matter most for Bitcoin this week?

On the downside, $73,510 (Sunday's low) and $73,170 (the 200-day moving average) — a daily close below the 200-day average opens $70,000. On the upside, $75,456 (Strategy's average cost) and $75,488 (the 50-week average) — reclaiming those would end the technical breakdown. Tuesday's CPI print at 8:30 a.m. ET is the event most likely to decide which side breaks first.

Conclusion

Bitcoin's miners just sent the loudest distress signal of 2026: hashrate down 19.3% in a week, difficulty heading for a 6.22% cut, and a major pool shutting down tomorrow. Read on its own, that is a warning. Read in context — a 16% correction, not a 50% collapse; a difficulty mechanism that heals miner margins automatically; positioning so one-sided that 98% of traders are short — it looks more like the late stage of a sell-off than the start of one.

The verdict arrives fast. Binance Pool shuts down on Tuesday morning, the CPI lands on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. ET, and the difficulty retarget confirms the real hashrate picture on Friday. If Bitcoin holds $73,170 through that gauntlet and reclaims $75,456, the miner switch-off will be remembered as the capitulation that marked the bottom. If the 200-day average breaks, the same numbers will read as an early warning of $70,000 — and possibly $65,000.

Sources: ByKaranteli market brief, November 9, 2026; Kwizerana Intelligence daily brief, November 9, 2026; Bitfinex Alpha, "After the Equity Rout, CPI Sets Direction," November 9, 2026; CoinDesk, "Nvidia-led tech selloff weighs on crypto majors," November 9, 2026; Cointelegraph, "Bitcoin Drops Under $74K Ahead of CPI," November 9, 2026; Capital Street FX daily crypto report, November 9, 2026. This article is for information only and is not financial advice.