Is Bitcoin Mining Still Profitable? Costs and Break-Even Math

Bitcoin mining is still profitable for operators who pay little for electricity and run efficient machines, and mostly unprofitable at household power prices. With mid-October 2026 numbers, each terahash per second of mining power earned about 3.6 US cents a day, so a machine using 15 joules per terahash broke even at roughly 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. That is close to the average US industrial rate of 9.77 cents and about half the residential rate of 18.31 cents, the July 2026 averages published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

• Revenue: the block subsidy of 3.125 BTC plus fees, shared among miners in proportion to their hash rate
• Main cost: electricity, set by the machine’s efficiency in J/TH and your price per kWh
• Moving parts: the network hash rate, the bitcoin price and fees change every day
• Next shock: the 2028 halving cuts the subsidy to 1.5625 BTC per block

How Do Bitcoin Miners Earn Money?

Miners compete to find the next block, and the winner collects the block subsidy plus the fees of every transaction in it (how Bitcoin mining works explains the process). The subsidy halves every 210,000 blocks, about every four years, and fell from 6.25 to 3.125 BTC in April 2024. Fees depend on demand for block space in the mempool and were small in late 2026: over the 1,008 blocks to 18 October, they made up about 0.55% of miner revenue (mempool.space).

A miner’s expected share of those rewards equals its share of the network hash rate. When more machines join, everyone’s share shrinks, and every 2,016 blocks the difficulty adjusts to keep blocks about ten minutes apart, so a bigger network does not mean more bitcoin to go around. Over time, the subsidy keeps shrinking and fees have to make up a larger part of miners’ income.

How Do You Calculate Profit and Break-Even?

Revenue per terahash per day, often called hashprice, follows from public numbers: the difficulty, the reward per block and the bitcoin price.

BTC per TH/s per day = reward per block × 86,400 × 10^12 / (difficulty × 2^32)
daily revenue        = your TH/s × BTC per TH/s per day × BTC price
daily power cost     = power draw in kW × 24 × price per kWh
daily profit         = daily revenue − daily power cost − pool fee

Here is the calculation for an example machine of 200 TH/s at 15 J/TH, which draws 3.0 kW, with the network figures of 18 October 2026:

At the industrial rate the machine roughly breaks even before pool fees and the cost of the hardware itself. At the residential rate it loses about $6 a day. Its break-even electricity price is about 10 cents per kWh, and an older machine at 25 J/TH would need power below about 6 cents. Every input moves daily, so rerun the numbers with current data and your own electricity bill; online mining calculators do the same sum, as long as they use the current difficulty and include pool fees.

What Makes Margins Rise or Fall?

• Network hash rate and difficulty. As more hardware joins worldwide, each machine earns a smaller share of the rewards.
• Hardware efficiency. Machines differ widely in joules per terahash, and electricity is most miners’ largest running cost, so efficiency decides who survives when margins shrink.
• The bitcoin price. Revenue is paid in bitcoin, so a falling price cuts income in dollars while the power bill stays the same. A rising price does the opposite, which is why mining margins swing with the market; what makes Bitcoin’s price go up covers the drivers.
• Fees. Busy periods in the mempool raise fee income; quiet periods leave miners living on the subsidy.
• Halvings. Each one cuts the subsidy in half overnight, which can turn a profitable machine into a loss-maker on the day it happens.
• Hardware cost. The purchase price of the machine has to be earned back before it wears out or becomes obsolete.

Is Pool Mining Worth It?

For almost everyone, yes. A 200 TH/s machine mining alone against a network of about 1,000 EH/s would find a block about once a century on average, so its income would be all or nothing. A pool combines many members’ hash rate, finds blocks often and pays each member according to the shares of work they submitted (Bitcoin developer guide).

Pool payouts are smaller but frequent, which makes income predictable. Pools charge a fee for this, which reduces income slightly; for most participants, the steady payouts are worth it.

Is Cloud Mining a Good Idea?

Some people rent mining capacity from a provider instead of running their own machines. That avoids buying hardware and finding cheap power, but it adds risks you cannot easily check: contracts may hide fees, performance guarantees are often vague, and you often have no way to verify that the machines even exist. US regulators have warned that fraudsters claim to invest customers’ money in “mining” farms while promising high guaranteed returns, for example 20 to 50%, with little or no risk (CFTC and SEC investor alert). Treat any guaranteed return as a red flag.

How Do Regulation and Energy Policy Matter?

Success doesn’t depend only on hardware and prices. Regulations and energy policy decide where mining is possible at all: some regions restrict industrial power use or mining itself, while others court miners with cheap or surplus energy.

The energy use of mining is also part of the public debate. The Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index tracks an estimate of the network’s power demand, and in response to the criticism, some miners are moving to cleaner power, stranded energy or waste heat reuse. These trends may shape where and how mining happens in the coming years.

Is It Worth Starting Now?

Start with the arithmetic above, using your real electricity price and a machine you can actually buy. Projections are estimates, not guarantees: the difficulty, the bitcoin price and fees will all change during the life of the machine, and the next halving will cut the subsidy in half around 2028. Keep your payouts in a wallet whose keys you hold, such as one of the hardware wallets, rather than leaving them with a pool or an exchange.

For people with access to cheap electricity and efficient hardware, mining can still generate positive returns. For most others, especially at household power prices, the numbers do not work. Today, mining resembles a long-term business with thin margins more than an easy way to earn cryptocurrency, and success depends on preparation and on adapting to change.