How much does it cost to mine a bitcoin?

How much it costs to mine a bitcoin depends on three things: what you pay for electricity, how many joules your machine uses per terahash, and how hard the network is to mine at that moment. There is no single price tag. Large listed miners report the closest thing to an industry figure, and CoinShares, an asset manager that tracks them, puts their average cash cost in the tens of thousands of dollars per coin.

How much does it cost to mine one bitcoin for big miners?

CoinShares calculates a weighted average cash cost per bitcoin across publicly listed miners. Cash cost covers electricity, labor and maintenance, but not machine depreciation. According to its report summarized on the CoinShares Content Hub, that average was about $79,995 in Q4 2025, with individual firms ranging from about $58,462 at IREN to $71,188 at CleanSpark. ForkLog reported on September 16, 2026 that CoinShares put the Q2 2026 figure at about $75,500.

All-in cost is higher. In its Q2 2024 report, CoinShares estimated a cash cost of $49,500 but an all-in cost of $96,100 once depreciation and stock-based pay were included. The April 2024 halving roughly doubled the cost per coin, all else equal, because each block paid half as much. See what is the bitcoin halving.

How much does it cost to mine 1 BTC with one machine?

A rough electricity estimate comes from difficulty and efficiency. Hashrate Index lists the air-cooled Antminer S21 at 200 TH/s and 3,500 watts, or 17.5 joules per terahash. At the difficulty of 148.36 trillion set on October 29, 2026, our calculation from those figures is that earning 3.125 BTC of subsidy takes about 2 x 10^23 hashes per bitcoin. At 17.5 J/TH, that is roughly 990,000 kWh.

That means every 1 cent per kWh adds about $9,900 to the electricity bill for one bitcoin. At 5 cents it would be near $49,500, before pool fees, hardware, cooling and downtime. CoinShares has said mid-generation fleets need power below 5 cents per kWh to stay cash-profitable. The full revenue side is in how bitcoin mining profitability is calculated, and the time a single machine needs is in how long does it take to mine one bitcoin.

Why does the cost to mine bitcoin keep changing?

Difficulty resets about every two weeks to match total hashrate. Hashrate Index reported two rises in October 2026, of 5.92% and 5.54%, and each increase raises the energy needed per coin. Newer machines lower it. Electricity prices move with markets and contracts. Transaction fees, which add to the reward, made up only about 1% of miner revenue in mid-2026, ForkLog reported.

How much does it cost to mine other crypto?

Each proof-of-work coin has its own difficulty, hardware and reward, so costs differ widely. Many large networks, including Ethereum, no longer use mining at all, as explained in can you still mine Ethereum.