Analyst Highlights Discrepancy Between Bitcoin Hashrate and Price

The Bitcoin hashrate (14 DMA) has reached a record high of 838.7 EH/s, while the cryptocurrency is trading about 25% below its ATH. This concerning trend was noted by senior analyst CoinDesk James Van Straten.

It is forecasted that the next network difficulty adjustment will increase the figure by more than 3%, setting a new all-time high. This will intensify pressure on the mining economy, the expert noted.

“For miners to remain profitable and cover operational expenses and capital costs, a high Bitcoin price, full blocks, and high transaction fees are important,” he emphasized.

Cryptocurrency miners’ income consists of block rewards (3.125 BTC after the April 2024 halving) and network fees. However, the latter is extremely small—averaging about 4 BTC per day.

According to Coin Metrics, in the first quarter, the share of fees in the miners’ total income was only 1.33%.

“As the block reward continues to halve every four years, sustained or increasing on-chain activity will be crucial in maintaining mining incentives,” Van Straten stated.

Empty Train

Meanwhile, Mempool developer known as mononaut noted that Foundry USA pool mined the emptiest non-empty block in the past two years, containing only seven transactions. Fewer were recorded in January 2023—four.

Foundry just mined the emptiest non-empty block in over two years, containing only 7 transactions and weighing just 5369 units. pic.twitter.com/L4Oad11xVR

— mononaut (@mononautical) April 2, 2025

The issue was also noted by other experts.

“In other words, while the rising hashrate paints a picture of a rapidly developing network, nearly empty blocks resemble a powerful train speeding along the tracks but without passengers,” Van Straten commented.

Expressing concern about the trend, Mercury Layer creator and former Nasdaq board member Nicholas Gregory spoke out.

Empty blocks.

At some point, I hope Bitcoiners realize this space is more than just podcasts, X Spaces, and the ‘number go up’ digital gold narrative. If we don’t get people using Bitcoin for real commerce, it’s game over. pic.twitter.com/Xg8caDz0eb

— Nicholas Gregory (@gregory_nico) March 31, 2025

“I hope Bitcoiners understand that this space is more than just podcasts, audio rooms in X, and the ‘number go up’ digital gold narrative. If we don’t get people using Bitcoin for real commerce, it’s game over,” he concluded.

Back in February, the capitalization of 14 public miners in the US fell by 22% due to the increase in network difficulty and the decline in the first cryptocurrency’s rate. Bernstein reduced target prices for some companies’ stocks for 2025.