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Bitcoin’s network computing power has returned above 1 zettahash per second for the first time since March 3, reaching 1,080.23 exahashes per second as of October 25, 2026, according to Cointribune. The seven-day average also crossed the same threshold, a level equal to more than one sextillion calculations per second.
The milestone arrives as several large mining companies redirect equipment and capital toward artificial intelligence and high-performance computing. Even so, hashprice — the daily revenue generated by a given amount of computing power — has fallen, and difficulty has risen, leaving operators to absorb more work for less income.
Also read: Bitcoin Mining Difficulty Rises 5.92% to 140.58T
Key facts
- Bitcoin’s hashrate hit 1,080.23 EH/s, or 1.08023 ZH/s, per hashrateindex.com data as of October 25, 2026, Cointribune reported.
- Hashprice stood at about $36 per petahash per second per day, down from $40.42 on September 25, 2026.
- Mining difficulty rose 5.92% at the last adjustment, at block 971,712, roughly nine days before the report.
- Blocks arrived every nine minutes and thirty-one seconds on average over the prior 24 hours, pointing to a further upward difficulty adjustment expected on October 29.
- Separately, Cryptobriefing reported that OpenAI and Anthropic are under pressure to curtail computing power available to researchers, with Anthropic reportedly committing approximately $517 billion to compute resources and OpenAI seeking $30 billion in a valuation ahead of Anthropic’s anticipated IPO.
A recovery that does not restore prior peaks
The current level sits well below the roughly 1.3 to 1.44 ZH/s the network reached before its decline. The hashrate fell close to 726 EH/s in July, so the recent climb marks a partial rebound rather than a return to earlier highs. Cointribune noted that Bitcoin traded around $80,000 at the time of the report.
Hardware has supported the rebound. Manufacturers have spent the past two years shipping machines that deliver more calculations per unit of electricity, and several recent models from Bitmain and MicroBT consume below 10 joules per terahash. Some units exceed 1 petahash per second. Those gains help smaller operators remain active against larger firms with deeper budgets, and they help explain why the shift of some corporate capital toward AI has not produced a lasting drop in total network power.
Also read: IMF Outlook Warns of Rate Pressure on Bitcoin
The AI pull is visible in funding sizes. Cryptobriefing reported that OpenAI and Anthropic face calls to slow AI development by limiting researcher compute, a proposal aimed at buying time for safeguards. No formal agreement on computing caps had been established as of that report, and Cryptobriefing described the situation as an interpretive reading of public information rather than a settled policy shift.
Smaller operators absorb the squeeze
Higher hashrate raises competition as well as network security. Each participant must run efficient equipment to keep its share of block rewards, and older machines suffer most when revenue falls and difficulty climbs. Small private operations have fewer means to refresh hardware or cut power costs, so their results depend directly on hashprice and expenses.
Cointribune framed the outcome as uneven: the aggregate figure hides widely different economics across operators, and a continued decline in revenue could force some to trim spending or capacity. The article is a report on network conditions rather than a forecast; readers should treat any implication about miner earnings or the price of bitcoin as uncertain, not financial advice, since crypto markets are volatile.
Why it matters
The hashrate is the network’s security budget measured in work, and its recovery shows that public mining capacity has offset the corporate capital moving toward AI. For miners, though, the same growth is a cost: difficulty adjusts upward to match added power, so rising hashrate without rising hashprice compresses margins, especially at smaller operations.
What to watch
The next difficulty adjustment, expected on October 29, will show whether the recent block pace holds. Hashprice levels and any formal agreement on AI computing caps at OpenAI or Anthropic are the other data points Cointribune and Cryptobriefing respectively flagged.
Reported by cointribune.com.
Sources: Cointribune, Cryptobriefing