JPMorgan: Bitcoin miners below production costs for five months

According to a new report from JPMorgan, the Bitcoin mining market has been in dire straits for months. The price of Bitcoin has been below the estimated production cost of around $78K for five consecutive months, while the current price is around $62K, a decline of 2.9% in the past 24 hours. As a result, an estimated 20% of miners are making a loss on every coin mined.

Bitcoin is available at OKX and Bybit.

Miners selling more Bitcoin than ever

The deteriorating market conditions are forcing mining companies to take drastic measures. Listed mining companies are selling a combined total of more than 32,000 BTC in the first quarter of 2026 to finance their operations. That is more than the total they sold during the whole of 2025. The pressure on the sector is therefore greater than ever.

JPMorgan’s chart clearly shows how the market price (black line) and production costs (blue line) have moved closer together in recent years, with the market price now even falling below them. This pattern is putting further downward pressure on the Bitcoin price, partly because miners are forced to liquidate their reserves.

Volatile hashrate as long as price remains low

JPMorgan expects the hashrate and mining difficulty to remain highly volatile as long as Bitcoin trades below production costs. The bank expects larger and more frequent fluctuations. That makes the situation even more uncertain for smaller and less efficient miners, as they have smaller financial buffers to withstand prolonged periods of losses.

Meanwhile, the broader market remains tense. For example, Bitcoin ETFs show an outflow of $82 million and the Bitcoin price has been under pressure for some time. Yet there are also positive signals visible from large buyers who are entering at these levels. Whether that is enough to get miners out of the danger zone remains to be seen.