Bitcoin’s network hashrate reached approximately 983 exahashes per second (EH/s) in early October 2026, bringing the network within striking distance of the 1 exahash-per-second milestone. This level of computational power represents the most secure proof-of-work network in history and carries significant implications for mining operations, profitability, and infrastructure planning.

Here is what the current hashrate environment means for miners, how recent industry shifts are reshaping the competitive landscape, and why the energy mix powering these operations is changing the economics of the business.

The Road to 1 Exahash

One exahash per second equals one quintillion (10¹⁸) hash computations per second. When Bitcoin launched in 2009, the network hashrate was measured in megahashes. The progression from megahashes to gigahashes, terahashes, petahashes, and exahashes has tracked the evolution of mining hardware from CPUs to GPUs to FPGAs to purpose-built ASICs.

At 983 EH/s, the network is processing nearly one quintillion hashes every second across hundreds of thousands of mining machines worldwide. This hashrate level means that the Bitcoin network is functionally impervious to 51 percent attacks from any known or conceivable adversary, including nation-states.

For miners, however, high hashrate is a double-edged sword. Greater network security benefits the Bitcoin ecosystem, but it also means more competition for the same fixed block reward. Every additional exahash deployed by competitors dilutes the share of revenue available to existing operators.

Difficulty: 15 Percent Below the Record

Despite the near-record hashrate, mining difficulty in October 2026 sits approximately 15 percent below its all-time high. This gap between hashrate and difficulty creates a window where mining is somewhat more profitable per unit of hashrate than it would be at peak difficulty.

Difficulty adjusts approximately every two weeks (2,016 blocks) to maintain a target block time of roughly 10 minutes. When hashrate increases, difficulty rises to compensate. When hashrate drops, difficulty falls. The current 15 percent gap suggests that some hashrate has come offline — likely older, less-efficient machines that became unprofitable — while newer deployments have partially but not fully replaced them.

For operators running efficient hardware, this below-peak difficulty translates to slightly more bitcoin earned per terahash per day than would be the case at the difficulty ceiling.

October 2026: Miners’ Best Month Since January

October 2026 has been a strong month for the mining industry by several measures:

• Hashprice above $40/PH/day: The revenue earned per petahash of deployed hashrate climbed above $40, the highest level since January 2026.
• Total network revenue at $1.12 billion: Combined block subsidies and transaction fees for the month reached approximately $1.12 billion, making it the most productive revenue month in nearly a year.
• ASIC prices at two-year lows: New-generation mining hardware became more affordable throughout 2026, lowering the capital expenditure required to deploy competitive hashrate.

These three factors — recovering hashprice, strong total revenue, and affordable hardware — create favorable conditions for operators who are positioned to deploy capital. The challenge is ensuring that operational costs, particularly electricity, remain low enough to sustain profitability through potential future difficulty increases.

Binance Pool Shutdown: 9 EH/s in Motion

One of the most significant developments affecting the hashrate landscape in late 2026 is the closure of Binance Pool, announced for November 10, 2026. Binance launched its mining pool in April 2020, and at its peak the pool commanded approximately 26 EH/s of hashrate. By the time of the shutdown announcement, that figure had declined to roughly 9 EH/s — a 65 percent drop from peak levels.

The 9 EH/s currently directed at Binance Pool will need to migrate to other pools after the shutdown. This redistribution has several implications:

Pool Concentration Risk

When a major pool closes, its hashrate typically flows to the largest remaining pools, which can increase centralization. Miners should evaluate their pool choices carefully, considering factors like payout structure, fee rates, geographic distribution, and the pool’s share of total network hashrate.

Temporary Opportunity

During the transition period, there may be brief windows where some of the migrating hashrate is offline or misconfigured, marginally reducing network difficulty for a retarget period or two. While the effect would be small relative to total network hashrate, it represents a minor tailwind for operators who remain consistently online.

Self-Hosted Operations Are Unaffected

Operators who run their own infrastructure and simply point hashrate at a pool of their choice are minimally affected by pool closures. The ability to switch pools instantly, without any change to physical infrastructure, is one of the advantages of owning your own mining hardware and facility.

The Energy Mix Is Shifting: Natural Gas at 38.2 Percent

One of the most consequential trends in Bitcoin mining in 2026 is the changing composition of the energy powering the network. Natural gas has become the single largest individual energy source for Bitcoin mining, now accounting for 38.2 percent of total mining electricity — up from approximately 25 percent in 2022.

This shift reflects several converging factors:

Stranded Gas Monetization

Oil and gas producers have increasingly partnered with Bitcoin miners to monetize gas that would otherwise be flared or vented. These partnerships place mining equipment directly at wellheads or processing facilities, converting stranded gas into electricity on-site. Recent examples include:

• Hilcorp’s Alaska pilot: Hilcorp announced a pilot project to power Bitcoin mining using natural gas from Alaska’s North Slope oil and gas fields, partnering with TA Infrastructure to deploy a modular mining operation within a shipping container at its Endicott gas field.
• Canaan’s Calgary facility: Canaan launched a 2.5 MW Bitcoin mining data center powered through natural gas flaring in Calgary, Canada, in partnership with Aurora AZ Energy.
• Mindstream Energy in Michigan: Mindstream Energy is preparing to launch operations through a joint venture with Missaukee Oil and Gas Company, using low-cost natural gas to power both Bitcoin mining and modular data center operations.
• UK East Yorkshire expansion: A newly licensed gas field in East Yorkshire is being evaluated for Bitcoin mining operations, showing that the natural gas mining model is expanding beyond North America.

Cost Advantage

Natural gas-powered operations can achieve electricity costs significantly below grid rates. When gas is sourced directly from a wellhead or pipeline at wholesale prices, the resulting electricity cost can be as low as $0.04 to $0.055 per kilowatt-hour — a substantial advantage over the $0.06 to $0.08/kWh that many grid-connected operations pay.

This cost advantage becomes even more critical after the October 2026 halving, which cut block subsidies in half. NatGas mobile data units (MDUs) allow operators to deploy mining capacity at the energy source, eliminating transmission losses and grid delivery charges that inflate electricity costs for traditional data center operations.

Sustainability Narrative

The broader trend is encouraging: more than half of all Bitcoin mining energy now comes from sustainable sources, including natural gas (which produces roughly half the carbon emissions of coal per unit of energy), hydroelectric, wind, solar, and nuclear. This shift weakens the environmental criticism that has historically been directed at Bitcoin mining and may support broader institutional adoption of bitcoin as an asset class.

Infrastructure Decisions for Late 2026

With hashrate near all-time highs, difficulty below its peak, and the energy mix shifting decisively toward natural gas, operators face a set of infrastructure decisions that will determine their competitiveness over the next two to three years.

Build vs. Colocate

Operators with access to cheap natural gas or stranded gas should seriously evaluate building their own containerized mining facilities. The economics of self-hosted natural gas operations — with electricity at $0.075/kWh or below — are substantially better than most colocation agreements, particularly post-halving.

Rax Mining’s NatGas MDU containers provide a turnkey path to deploying self-hosted mining infrastructure. These purpose-built containers house mining equipment, cooling systems, and power distribution in a modular form factor that can be deployed at gas wellheads, processing facilities, or any location with natural gas access.

Hardware Timing

ASIC prices at two-year lows make this an attractive entry point for hardware purchases. However, operators should factor in the total cost of ownership — including electricity, hosting or facility costs, and maintenance — rather than focusing solely on hardware price. An inexpensive ASIC deployed at a high electricity rate may be less profitable than a more expensive machine running on cheap natural gas.

Pool Strategy

With Binance Pool’s closure redistributing 9 EH/s across the industry, miners should review their pool selections. Diversifying across multiple pools reduces exposure to any single pool’s downtime or policy changes. Full-pay-per-share (FPPS) pools offer more predictable revenue, while pay-per-last-N-shares (PPLNS) pools may offer slightly higher long-term returns at the cost of more variance.

The 1 Exahash Question

Whether Bitcoin’s hashrate crosses the 1 EH/s threshold in the coming weeks or months depends on the balance between new deployments and retirements of older hardware post-halving. If bitcoin’s price remains stable or appreciates, and if ASIC prices continue to decline, new deployments could push the network past this milestone before the end of 2026.

For the mining industry, 1 EH/s is more symbolic than functional — the network does not behave differently at 1,000 EH/s than it does at 983 EH/s. But it represents a measure of the industry’s maturity, the scale of capital deployed, and the depth of commitment that operators worldwide have made to securing the Bitcoin network.

The operators who will benefit most from this growing network are those who have invested in the right infrastructure: efficient hardware, low-cost energy, and reliable facilities designed for the long term.