Bitcoin Mining Under Pressure: Renewable Energy and Solo Miner Successes Shape the Industry

Profit Margins Reach Record Lows

The Bitcoin mining industry is under increasing pressure: The network's hashrate continues to reach new all-time highs, while profitability for miners falls to historic lows. In April, the network hashrate exceeded the one zettahash mark for the first time ^[1].

One zettahash equals 1,000 petahashes ^[1]. The rising hashrate means that miners must deploy increasingly larger computational resources to remain competitive and successfully mine blocks ^[1].

The so-called hash price, a critical metric for determining profit margins in the industry, is currently moving near record lows. According to data provider Hashrate Index, the hash price stands at approximately $39.4 per petahash per second per day (PH/s/day) ^[1]. This metric measures the expected profitability of miners per unit of computing power used to successfully add a block ^[1].

Strategic Shift to Renewable Energy

In response to margin pressure, mining companies are increasingly turning to renewable energy sources. Sangha Renewables, a Bitcoin miner and renewable energy company, commissioned a 20-megawatt (MW) solar-powered mining facility in Ector County, Texas, on Thursday ^[1].

The Phoenix Group, a mining and digital infrastructure company, announced in November that it had launched a 30-megawatt mining operation using hydropower in Ethiopia ^[1].

In September, hardware manufacturer and Bitcoin miner Canaan partnered with digital infrastructure company Soluna to deploy a mining facility at a wind-powered site in Briscoe County, Texas ^[1]. Canaan is also developing an adaptive mining rig to maximize energy efficiency. The hardware balances electrical loads and uses AI to adjust power consumption ^[1].

Solo Miners Defy the Odds

Despite the dominance of large mining companies, solo miners in 2025 are notably managing to solve complete Bitcoin blocks with striking frequency ^[2]. A solo miner recently solved block 927,474 and received a reward of 3.133 Bitcoin worth approximately $285,000 ^[2].

The miner operated with a hashrate of approximately 270 terahashes per second and used the CKpool solo mining software ^[2]. According to CKpool developer Con Kolivas, the statistical probability of such a block find at this hashrate is approximately one in 30,000 per day ^[2].

The successful miner had three mining devices, each with around 90 terahashes per second, comparable to standard Antminer S19 models ^[2]. They represented only about 0.00002 percent of the total BTC network hashrate, which most recently stood at approximately 1.15 zettahashes per second ^[2].

Exceptional Year for Solo Mining

According to data from Mempool Space, 13 blocks have already been found by solo miners via CKpool since the beginning of the year ^[2]. Just last month, a solo miner with only 6 terahashes per second solved a block and received a reward of approximately $265,000 ^[2].

The frequent successes of solo miners demonstrate why solo mining Bitcoin is often compared to a lottery ^[2]. While the mining industry as a whole struggles with declining margins, such individual successes continue to provide incentives for smaller players in the network.