Mining Prospects for 2026

Bitcoin mining, which has grown to industrial scales, is entering a new phase by the end of 2025, alongside growing interest in the industry from institutional players and states legalizing this business. Simultaneously, competition is intensifying, costs are rising, and new efficiency requirements are emerging. All of this is forming a sustainable ecosystem and stimulating the development of the industry, defining the trends for 2026.

"The mining landscape is undergoing significant changes. More and more large industrial mining farms are appearing, and institutional investors are actively acquiring digital assets. In a number of countries, such as Russia and Kazakhstan, mining is completely legal and supported by the state," said Haipo Yang, CEO of one of the largest Bitcoin mining pools, ViaBTC.

Yang added that "in these regions [for example, Russia and Kazakhstan], this business is no longer just a hobby, but part of the economy, contributing to the development of energy and digital infrastructure." Among the positive expectations for 2026, the head of ViaBTC included growing trust in the industry, an increase in investment flows, and the continuation of the trend of new miners joining.

Huge Demand for Mining

For large industrial businesses in 2025, a characteristic feature has been the attraction of capital for business development, the volume of which, according to estimates by TheMinerMag, will reach historical levels of billions by the fourth quarter of 2025.

At the same time, the retail sector is also experiencing a significant surge of interest in mining. According to ViaBTC, their pool records a steady influx of new retail miners daily—more than 300 new users per day, each connecting from 1 to 15 devices. This shows that the market is developing not only due to large businesses but also thanks to retail miners.

This data coincides with indicators of high competition in 2025, driven by the growth of the hash rate, i.e., the computing power used for mining, which also leads to an increase in the difficulty of Bitcoin mining.

Other data also speaks to increased competition. For example, by the end of December, the key profitability indicator for miners (the income a Bitcoin miner can expect with a certain equipment power) plummeted to $37 per petahash per second (PH/s), which is almost 45% less than the annual peak of $64 PH/s reached in July.

These factors lead to a decrease in income and require miners to take a more thoughtful approach to optimizing equipment, resources, and finances. It is therefore critically important to minimize all costs and risks to maintain profitability, noted the head of ViaBTC. And any loss of hash rate, time, or funds due to high costs can be fatal to the enterprise's profitability.

Mining Payback in 2025

Despite the growth in difficulty, which has increased by more than 35% since the beginning of the year, according to Bitinfocharts as of the end of December, the average payback period for Bitcoin mining in 2025 remains at 2.5–3 years, according to ViaBTC. And mining Litecoin (LTC) and Dogecoin (DOGE) pays back faster—in about 1–1.5 years.

And this is despite the fact that mining profitability is quite high. As noted at the end of October by one of the largest American miners, Riot Platforms (ticker RIOT on NASDAQ), their average cost to mine one Bitcoin in the third quarter of the year was $46,324, whereas a year earlier this figure was $35,376. The miner noted that the increase in cost to current levels was due to a 52% growth in the global hash rate. And this is while the Bitcoin price was around $88 thousand at the end of December.

When asked why interest in mining remains high, Haipo Yang noted several factors, where the main driver remains the long-term growth in the value of Bitcoin, the expectation of which stimulates the industry. And the legalization of the industry in various countries is complemented by growing institutional demand. At the same time, by around 2035, 99% of all Bitcoin coins will be mined, which enhances its value as a scarce asset.

"The combination of these factors allows the average payback period for investments in Bitcoin mining to remain at 2.5–3 years—an indicator that still remains attractive to traditional investors," Yang concluded.

How to Increase Mining Profit

Under these conditions, the key issue becomes increasing the efficiency of all mining processes. Huge interest and growing competition raise questions about radical changes in the business models of participants. Experts, including the head of one of the largest Bitcoin mining companies, MARA Holdings' Fred Thiel, speak of an inevitable transformation of the industry, where only participants with access to ultra-cheap energy or those who have managed to diversify into other areas will survive.

The seriousness of the changes has reached the point where some large or even the oldest mining companies are completely abandoning cryptocurrency mining. For example, the Canadian company Bitfarms announced plans to switch to developing artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. And Bitfury, which has been engaged in mining since 2011, abandoned it in favor of investment activities.

But if the miners themselves are seeking salvation in increasing efficiency and diversification (for example, through artificial intelligence), then infrastructure projects in the form of mining pools are also forced to evolve, offering users comprehensive solutions for work.

One example is the ViaBTC pool, which has shifted its focus from a single service to creating an ecosystem of products:

• Mining Pool: One of the largest in the world (top 4 by hash rate in Bitcoin) and a leader in mining coins such as Dogecoin (DOGE), Litecoin (LTC), Kaspa (KAS), and others.

• Cryptocurrency Exchange CoinEx and a non-custodial wallet of the same name, integrated with the pool, allowing for the withdrawal of mined coins without fees. It also provides asset storage and management functions within the same ecosystem.

• Crypto Loans. This product allows miners to obtain liquidity at 9.9% annual interest in stablecoins, using crypto assets (e.g., BTC) as collateral. This allows covering operational expenses without selling the asset, maintaining exposure to market growth.

Other pools also offer their own versions of additional products within a single ecosystem. For example, the fourth-largest pool, f2pool, offers staking functions for cryptocurrencies other than Bitcoin through the Stakefish service in networks such as Ethereum, Solana, Starknet, and others.

The second-largest pool, AntPool, offers interest rewards for Bitcoin deposits with rates up to 1%, which is several times higher than in major protocols of the decentralized finance sector, according to Defillama.

The American mining pool Foundry, which is the largest, has expanded its services to the equipment sales market, lending services, and data center management. Simultaneously, it is a major provider of hardware solutions for institutional clients.

Incidentally, a similar trend of expanding functionality and the range of services is developing in other sectors of the crypto market. Against the backdrop of falling revenues, trading volumes, and overall user activity in the meme coin sector, more and more platforms are integrating each other's solutions, creating a more developed infrastructure for consumer applications.

And a steady growth in revenues for platforms providing services specifically for aggregating crypto services, including analytical and trading tools—which is conceptually similar to what is happening in the mining market.