Is bitcoin dead?

Bitcoin is not dead. As of November 2026, the bitcoin network is still running as it has since 2009, with new blocks added roughly every ten minutes. Whether a coin's price is up or down says little about whether its network is alive, so this guide looks at the network itself.

How can you tell if bitcoin is dead or alive?

A blockchain is alive if people keep running it. Four signs are easy to check.

• Blocks. A working chain keeps adding blocks. Hashrate Index reported a difficulty adjustment at block 971,712 on October 16, 2026, and another on October 29.
• Mining power. Hashrate is the total guessing power miners point at the network. Hashrate Index said its seven-day average reached about 1,088 exahashes per second on October 26, 2026. See what is hashrate for the units.
• Nodes. These are computers that keep a copy of the chain and check the rules. The crawler BTC Nodes counted 20,581 reachable nodes on November 5, 2026, and the true total is higher. Our guide to how many bitcoin nodes there are explains why counts differ.
• Development. Bitcoin Core, the most widely used node software, released version 30.0 on October 10, 2025, crediting 101 contributors, and newer versions have followed.

What are bitcoin obituaries?

Bitcoin obituaries are articles and public statements announcing that bitcoin is finished. The site 99Bitcoins keeps a running list of them. According to Bitcoin.com News, the list held one entry for 2010, peaked at 124 in 2017 and recorded only seven in 2023 up to early October.

The obituaries tend to cluster after sharp price falls and big failures in the industry. They usually describe market losses or company collapses rather than the network halting.

Has the bitcoin network ever stopped working?

Not for long. In August 2010, a bug let one transaction create over 184 billion bitcoin, the Bitcoin Wiki records. A fixed version came out within about five hours, and the corrected chain overtook the bad one the next day, erasing those coins.

In March 2013, nodes running version 0.8 split from older versions over one large block, BIP 50 explains. Large mining pools switched back to the older software, and the network rejoined a single chain. Bitcoin.org's FAQ notes flaws have been found and fixed in software over time, while the protocol itself has kept working.

Is bitcoin mining still a thing?

Yes. Miners still compete for each new block, mostly with specialized machines. The rising and falling difficulty Hashrate Index tracks shows that competition in action. For how it works, read how does bitcoin mining work.

None of this means bitcoin cannot fail. Bitcoin.org says plainly that it could, through technical problems, competition or politics, and that nobody can predict its future.