Luxor estimates about 235 exahashes per second of Bitcoin mining capacity is sitting idle. That number comes from comparing roughly 1,150 EH/s of total net ASIC capacity with about 915 EH/s of activity implied by August average mining difficulty. The gap covers machines that are uneconomic, deliberately curtailed, in transit, or under maintenance. Because those reasons differ, a hashrate rebound is not a clean sign that financial stress is easing.
The estimate is not exact. Bitcoin’s true hashing power is unknown and must be inferred from difficulty and block discovery. Daily readings can jump because block discovery is random. A seven-day average is more useful, though smoothing cannot separate a miner in trouble from one avoiding high power prices.
August Revenue and Texas Curtailment
August brought some relief. Luxor data shows dollar hashprice rose 24.4% during the month, from $31.63 to $39.33 per petahash per second per day. Bitcoin’s price rose 24.5%, from $62,889 to $78,312. That helped less efficient equipment. Luxor’s fleet tier using 25 to 38 joules per terahash earned about $45 per megawatt-hour on average, below its estimated network-average electricity cost of $48. It beat that benchmark on 11 days.
Profitability still depends on each operator’s power contract, financing, staffing, and other costs. The late-month revenue improvement helps explain why some machines that struggled earlier in August could have become more attractive to run. But that decision is local, not network-wide.
Texas adds another layer. The ERCOT 4CP window runs through September. Miners reduce activity during summer to avoid transmission charges linked to peak demand. For operators exposed to that incentive, running a machine can cost more than the electricity it consumes at that moment. The end of the seasonal window removes one reason for curtailment, though power-price risk and operating costs still decide whether a marginal machine can restart.
Difficulty Response and What to Watch
A restart can reduce the reward for restarting. Bitcoin retargets difficulty every 2,016 blocks. If returning machines make blocks arrive faster, difficulty can rise. At higher difficulty, the same machine earns less expected Bitcoin revenue per unit of computing power, assuming block rewards and fees stay constant. The effect takes time to work through the adjustment process, and dollar revenue also depends on Bitcoin’s price and transaction fees.
Luxor noted October difficulty rose in each year from 2022 through 2025, averaging roughly 10% across the month. Its separate 4.38% figure is the average per adjustment. The next useful evidence will be a sustained change in smoothed hashrate, later difficulty adjustments, and operator disclosures about curtailment and restarts. Those could show how much capacity was temporarily waiting. They may not fully separate lasting financial stress from infrastructure reassignment.
For miners, the immediate question is how much of August’s revenue improvement survives the return of competitors. Machines coming back online can signal better operating conditions while also making those conditions less profitable again.
