Over the past week, the price of Bitcoin faced a significant setback in its goal of reclaiming the six-figure threshold. The flagship cryptocurrency has been hovering around the $90,000 mark, as the market can’t seem to make a decision concerning the next price direction.

As Bitcoin faced a mild sell-off, which, in turn, drove its price to fall from its recent highs, specific market participants were under severe pressure, including the miners. Interestingly, a recent on-chain evaluation has raised the possibility that miners’ stress might be ending soon.

Miner Financial Health Flashes Classic Reversal Sign

In a January 23 post on the social media platform X, market expert Axel Adler Jr highlighted that the Bitcoin miners might have started their post-capitulation recovery journey. The relevant indicator here is the Miner Financial Health Index (7D-SMA). 

For context, this metric tracks the balance between miner revenue and miner selling pressure. Hence, it reflects whether miners are net BTC distributors or accumulators. Simply put, the metric shows if Bitcoin miners are under pressure, stable, or even profitable. 

Capitulation events often reflect on the Miner Health Index as a negative value, as the amount of BTC spent surpasses the amount of BTC earned. On the other hand, miners are typically said to be in the recovery phase when the balance between revenue and spending starts to lean away from the negative.

From the chart shared by the analyst, it is apparent that the index has taken on an uptrend, targeting neutral levels on the metric’s charts. History shows that the index does not merely target the neutral mark when it trends upward.

Hence, if history were to repeat itself, the Bitcoin miners could be in for a rewarding ride, having survived the most recent capitulation event. Interestingly, the price of Bitcoin appears to have a directly proportional relationship with the Miner Health Index.

Bitcoin Price Gathers Momentum As Market Condition Shifts

In a separate post on X, Bitcoin Vector highlighted that Bitcoin might be garnering strength for a significant move in the near term. According to the analytics platform, this development coincides with the market exiting what was previously a “high-risk environment.”

Bitcoin Vector explained that this exit from a risky market environment was last seen in April 2025, just before the bull run resumed. The on-chain analytics firm explained that we could be witnessing the late stages of a classic momentum bottoming pattern, which historically leads to large rallies. 

Essentially, there has to be one last push lower in price and, at the same time, a momentum boost to the upside, for the bullish signal to be completely formed. As of this writing, Bitcoin is valued at around $89,830 with no significant movement in the past 24 hours.

On-chain data shows the Bitcoin mining Difficulty has seen a downward adjustment following the decline in the network Hashrate.

Bitcoin Blockchain Has Eased Mining Difficulty

According to data from CoinWarz, the Bitcoin mining Difficulty has gone through a decline in the latest network adjustment. The “Difficulty” here refers to a metric built into the blockchain that controls how hard miners would find it to discover a block.

The indicator’s value automatically changes roughly every two weeks in events called adjustments, based on how miners performed since the last such event. The blockchain follows one simple rule to adjust the Difficulty: miner blockchain production rate should converge to 10 minutes per block.

If miners find the average block in an interval greater than 10 minutes, then the network responds by raising its Difficulty just enough that these validators are slowed back down to the standard rate. On the other hand, this cohort performing slower than needed forces the blockchain to ease things up.

The latest Bitcoin Difficulty adjustment occurred on Thursday, and as the below chart shows, it resulted in a decrease for the metric.

Prior to the change, the indicator had a value of 146.47 trillion hashes. Now, it has dropped to 141.67 trillion hashes, indicating a decrease of 3.28%. This is the second-consecutive reduction in the network Difficulty.

In fact, the indicator has been in a long-term decline since November, with five of the six Difficulty changes that have occurred in the period leading to a drop in its value. Even the one adjustment that didn’t lead to a decrease in the metric had an almost neutral effect, so while the decline didn’t strengthen during it, it didn’t correspond to a change of direction either.

The reason for this long drawdown in the Bitcoin Difficulty lies in the trend witnessed by the Hashrate, a measure of the total amount of computing power connected by the miners to the network.

As data from Blockchain.com shows, the 7-day average value of the Hashrate has been going down during the last few months.

On January 18th, the 7-day average Bitcoin Hashrate fell to 978.8 exahashes per second (EH/s), its lowest level since the first half of September. The indicator has observed a rebound since this low, but its value still remains notably lower than earlier in the month.

Miners’ pace tends to directly correlate with the amount of computing power that they possess, so a decline in the Hashrate usually results in a correction for the Difficulty. The continued downtrend in the former since October is why the latter has also plunged.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading around $90,000, down more than 5% over the last week.

On-chain data shows the Bitcoin Hashrate has continued to decline, with its 7-day average value hitting lows not seen since early September.

Bitcoin Hashrate Has Been Sliding Down

The Bitcoin “Hashrate” refers to a measure of the total amount of computing power that the miners as a whole have connected to the network. It’s denoted in units of hashes per second (H/s) or, more practically, in exahashes per second (EH/s). This indicator can be useful for gauging the sentiment shared by the miners. Growth in the network Hashrate can signal that this cohort is either responding to a period of profitability or expanding in anticipation of future price action. On the other hand, a decline can signal a weakening of sentiment.

As the chart below from Blockchain.com shows, the 7-day average value of the Bitcoin Hashrate has been following the latter kind of trajectory in recent months.

The Hashrate set a new all-time high (ATH) in mid-October, but miners moved to decommissioning power as the cryptocurrency’s price went through its bearish shift in that month. Recently, BTC has shown some recovery, but that doesn’t appear to have changed opinion among the miners, as the metric’s value has only continued to go down.

Currently, the 7-day average Bitcoin Hashrate is sitting at 978.8 EH/s, which is the lowest level since the first half of September. The recent low levels are on a path to affect another BTC-network-related metric: the Difficulty. The Difficulty is a feature built into the blockchain that controls how hard it is for miners to mine blocks. This metric automatically changes its value about every two weeks based on how fast miners have been performing their duty since the last adjustment.

Satoshi coded in a simple rule for the network to follow: block time should converge to 10 minutes. If miners take an average time faster than this to find a block, the chain raises its Difficulty in the next adjustment. Similarly, a decrease instead happens if the validators are slower at their job.

As miners have reduced their computing power over the last few months, their pace has been going down, and the network has been adjusting the Difficulty lower.

With the Hashrate decline only continuing recently, the network is once again moving toward another relaxation in Difficulty, as data from CoinWarz suggests.

The average Bitcoin block time has stood at 10.43 minutes since the last adjustment, which is notably slower than the standard rate. As a result, the network is estimated to reduce the Difficulty by 4.15%.

With the adjustment still being a few days away, however, this figure could change depending on whether miners expand or decommission in the coming days.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is floating around $93,000, up 2.5% in the last seven days.

Justin Bons, the founder and CIO of CyberCapital, has laid out a blunt and unsettling view of where Bitcoin could be headed over the next decade. In a detailed note shared on X, Bons noted that Bitcoin is moving toward total collapse within the next seven to 11 years, which is going to be caused by the way the network pays for its security and the continued fall of block rewards.

Reduced Miner Payouts To Cause Complete Bitcoin Collapse?

Bitcoin is known for its halving cycle, which reduces the block rewards given to miners by about 50% every 210,000 blocks, which comes up to about roughly four years. Bons’ critique focuses on this event as the reason why Bitcoin’s network security will finally fail and cause a complete collapse of the leading cryptocurrency.

As each halving cuts the block rewards further, Bons believes Bitcoin is drifting toward a point where it can no longer reliably fund the miners who protect the network, setting off a chain of risks that become harder to ignore with every cycle. 

Many Bitcoin proponents will argue that the Bitcoin network is still highly secure due to the rising hashrate. However, according to Justin Bons, hashrate can rise even while real security is weakening because advances in mining hardware reduce the cost of producing hashes. The most important thing is how much money is actually being made by miners, since that figure represents the profitability and the cost an attacker would have to match or exceed.

Charts tracking block rewards and miner revenue show that, in economic terms, Bitcoin’s security is already lower than it was several years ago. Keeping security at current levels, he says, would require either transaction fees so high that users would simply stop using the network or the price of Bitcoin to double every four years at a pace that would quickly outpace the size of the global economy.

Bitcoin Miner Revenue. Source: @Justin_Bons on X

Prediction: Bitcoin To Plunge In Two To Three Halvings

The seven to 11-year timeframe Bons outlined for Bitcoin’s collapse is tied directly to its halving schedule. According to the industry expert, the cost of attacking the Bitcoin network for a sustained period could fall into territory that makes such attacks financially attractive within two to three more halvings.

If miner payouts are low enough, Bons believes the potential rewards from hitting multiple exchanges or protocols could outweigh the cost of carrying out the attack. The most realistic scenario for this to happen is through double-spend attacks against exchanges. 

An attacker controlling 51% of the entire mining power could deposit Bitcoin, trade it for another asset, withdraw those funds, and then roll back the blockchain to reclaim the original coins.

He also highlights data showing that Bitcoin’s security budget relative to its total market value has been trending downward for years. This means Bitcoin does not automatically become safer as it grows larger.

Bitcoin Security Budget as % of Market Cap. Source: @Justin_Bons

This leaves Bitcoin facing an eventual breaking point. From here, it is either the network increases its fixed 21 million supply cap to restore miner incentives, a move that would likely split the chain, or the entire Bitcoin ecosystem accepts the risk of double-spend attacks.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

On-chain data shows the Bitcoin mining Hashrate has declined to its lowest level since October as miners continue to decommission farms.

7-Day Average Bitcoin Mining Hashrate Has Declined Recently

The Bitcoin “Hashrate” refers to an indicator that keeps track of the total amount of computing power that the miners as a whole have attached to the blockchain. This metric may be used as a proxy for the behavior of the network validators.

When the value of the Hashrate goes up, it means new miners are joining the chain and/or old ones are expanding their facilities. Such a trend implies BTC mining is looking attractive to these validators.

On the other hand, the indicator observing a decline suggests some of the miners have decided to disconnect their rigs from the network, potentially because they are finding the cryptocurrency to be unprofitable.

Now, here is a chart from Blockchain.com that shows the trend in the 7-day average value of the Bitcoin Hashrate over the past year:

As displayed in the above graph, the 7-day average Bitcoin Hashrate set a new all-time high (ATH) around 1,151 exahashes per second (EH/s) back in October. Since this record, however, the indicator’s value has gone down.

What’s behind this trend? The answer to that question could lie in the miner revenue. Miners earn their income through two means: block subsidy and transaction fees. Out of these, the former contributes the largest portion to their revenue.

Block subsidy remains fixed in terms of BTC value (outside of Halving events, during which they permanently get slashed in half), but its USD value changes alongside the cryptocurrency’s price. Thus, miner revenue is more-or-less dependent on the asset’s price action.

Back in October, Bitcoin rallied to a new ATH, so miners responded by upgrading their facilities. When the bullish price action didn’t continue, however, the cohort started pulling back. As a result, the 7-day average Hashrate has fallen to around 998 EH/s, its lowest level in more than three months.

Interestingly, the latest continuation of the decline in the indicator has come despite the fact that the cryptocurrency has made some recovery recently. This may be a possible sign that miners aren’t yet convinced by a return of bullish momentum.

A potential consequence of the Hashrate decline may be a drop in the Bitcoin mining Difficulty during the next network adjustment. According to data from CoinWarz, miners have taken an average of 10.6 minutes per block since the last adjustment, which is notably slower than the blockchain’s target of 10 minutes.

To correct for this, Bitcoin could be forced to decrease its Difficulty by 5.6% in the next biweekly adjustment. However, something to note is that there is still about a week to go until this event, so the network’s response could change depending on how the Hashrate behaves in the coming days.

BTC Price

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is floating around $95,500, up more than 5% over the last seven days.

According to on-chain data, companies have piled into Bitcoin at a pace that now outstrips new supply. Corporate treasuries held by public and private firms rose from about 854,000 BTC to roughly 1.11 million BTC over the past six months, an increase of around 260,000 BTC — roughly 43,000 BTC per month.

This adds close to $25 billion in value to corporate balance sheets and points to a growing appetite among firms for holding the coin, on-chain analytics provider Glassnode disclosed, Tuesday.

Corporate Treasuries Swell

A single firm dominates that pile. Strategy now controls the largest share of corporate Bitcoin, holding 687,410 BTC after a fresh buy earlier this month. The company disclosed it acquired 13,627 BTC between January 5 and January 11, its biggest purchase since last July. Reports have highlighted how this concentration means a few big buyers still shape the corporate treasury picture.

Over the past 6 months, Bitcoin treasuries held by public and private companies have grown from ~854K BTC to ~1.11M BTC. That’s an increase of ~260K BTC, or roughly ~43K BTC per month, highlighting the steady expansion of corporate balance-sheet exposure to Bitcoin.… https://t.co/hHXjcSDDj4 pic.twitter.com/oluVGO2bGD

— glassnode (@glassnode) January 13, 2026

Smaller, but still significant corporate holders are visible on the list. MARA Holdings, for example, holds about 53,250 BTC. That makes it one of the largest corporate holders after Strategy, and shows that miners and mining firms are also choosing to keep a chunk of the coin they create.

ETF Demand Could Tighten Supply

Exchange-traded funds are part of the story. Spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US pulled in more than $20 billion in flows during 2025, with some funds taking the largest share of those inflows. Analysts say ETF buying can soak up fresh supply and, if consistent, might remove available coins from the market for long periods. That dynamic has been flagged as one reason corporate accumulation could matter more now than in past cycles.

Miners Are Producing Less Than Corporates Are Buying

Over the same six months, miners are estimated to have created about 82,000 BTC. That means corporate buying has outpaced mining issuance by roughly three to one. In plain terms: more Bitcoin is being added to company balance sheets than is coming out of the ground, which tightens available supply if buyers continue to hold rather than sell.

Price Action And Macro Watch

Bitcoin has been trading in a narrow range near $92,000 ahead of key US inflation figures, with the $90,000 level seen as a psychological marker for traders. Safe-haven interest has stayed firm amid geopolitical noise and questions about central bank policy, leaving prices supported but range-bound. Short-term moves will likely reflect both ETF flows and whether existing holders keep selling into demand.

Featured image from Unsplash, chart from TradingView

Bitcoin Magazine

Unregistered Bitcoin Mining in Russia May Soon Come With Up to Two Years of Forced Labor

Russia is preparing to escalate its crackdown on unregistered cryptocurrency mining, proposing criminal penalties that include forced labor and prison sentences, little more than a year after formally legalizing the industry.

The Ministry of Justice on Monday published draft amendments to the Criminal Code that would reclassify many forms of illegal crypto mining from an administrative offense into a criminal one. 

The proposal comes amid widespread noncompliance with the regulatory framework that took effect in 2024, following President Vladimir Putin’s signing of mining legislation last summer.

Although mining was legalized to bring the fast-growing sector out of the shadows, authorities say most operators continue to avoid registration and taxation. Deputy Finance Minister Ivan Chebeskov said in June that only about 30% of miners had registered with the Federal Tax Service, leaving the majority operating in what officials describe as a “gray zone.”

Harsh penalties for illegal mining in Russia

Under the draft law, individuals who mine cryptocurrency without proper registration could face fines ranging from 500,000 to 1.5 million rubles, or up to two years of forced labor. Courts would also be allowed to impose up to 480 hours of compulsory labor in less severe cases.

Harsher penalties are reserved for large-scale or organized operations. Mining that generates “significant” or “especially large” income, or that involves coordinated groups, could result in fines of up to 2.5 million rubles, forced labor for up to five years, or prison sentences of similar length. 

Equipment confiscation and additional financial penalties would remain possible.

Russia’s current framework distinguishes between small-scale and commercial miners. Individuals consuming less than 6,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month are classified as private persons and may mine without entering the special register, though they must pay personal income tax on mined cryptocurrency. 

Larger commercial miners and infrastructure operators are required to register in Russia, submit monthly production reports, and comply with regional restrictions.

Authorities say enforcement has proven difficult. Illegal mining operations, often linked to electricity theft or activity in restricted regions, have continued to strain local power grids. 

Regions in Russia have reported outages tied to unregistered mining, prompting temporary bans during periods of peak winter demand. Officials estimate that illegal operations consume billions of kilowatt-hours annually.

Previous measures, including fines of up to 2 million rubles and equipment seizures, have failed to curb the activity. Law enforcement actions have included arrests of utility employees accused of facilitating illegal mining and the shutdown of large-scale farms.

The draft amendments were published on Dec. 30 and are open for public consultation. 

This post Unregistered Bitcoin Mining in Russia May Soon Come With Up to Two Years of Forced Labor first appeared on Bitcoin Magazine and is written by Micah Zimmerman.

 

Interview transcript:

 

Carlos Colon The C-124 mishap found on Colony Glacier was a plane that crashed into Mount Gannett in 1952, carrying 52 service members on board that were PCS-ing from McChord Air Force Base to Elmendorf. They encountered weather that they couldn’t navigate and ended up crashing into Mount Gannett. The Department of Defense at the time initiated search and recovery efforts, which they continued for several weeks, but eventually had to abandon because they were not finding any remains. They made it to where they believed the crash happened, but they did not encounter any remains. Then fast-forward to 2012, the Alaska Army National Guard was flying some training missions in their Black Hawks when they encountered what they thought looked like aircraft debris on Colony Glacier. They were able to identify some of the aircraft debris to the missing C-124, and that is when Operation Colony Glacier started. It was originally started by the DPAA, then the authority was transferred to the Armed Forces Medical Examiner in 2015. So AFMES has been involved in the DNA identification of remains since the beginning of the mission. And then in 2017, we started conversations about integrating medical-legal death investigators onto the search-and-recovery teams to help with identification of remains versus debris and helping streamline the search-and-recovery process to support the way we are doing DNA testing here at AFMES.

Terry Gerton Kate, Carlos mentioned that the crash happened 73 years ago. It’s a tough environment there on the glacier, but I imagine there have been advances in identification technology and processes since then. What are you using today to identify the remains?

Kate Grosso Since the recovery operation began, we’ve relied very heavily on DNA identification for the remains that have been recovered. The Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory was established in 1991, and they support our current-day operations in addition to the Defense POW Accounting Agency’s past accounting. So they have a tremendous amount of experience in working with remote recovery environments in which we may have remains that may be difficult to identify. We’ve also utilized fingerprint technology, bridge comparisons, in order to do a number of the identifications. Colony Glacier is a very unique preservation environment, and so we are able to get positive DNA and fingerprint identifications on the remains that we’ve been able to recover. So obviously, very different than the environment that we were dealing with in 1952. The advent of these technologies have made it possible for us to be able to do these identifications by DNA and fingerprint.

Terry Gerton Carlos, you’ve been on the glacier. Tell us a little bit about what it’s like there and what’s happening now that has driven acceleration of the mission.

Carlos Colon So the glacier — it’s cold and icy. It’s one of the more challenging and remote areas I’ve had to work in. We get dropped off in the morning, conduct recovery operations all day and then get picked up in the afternoon. It can be pretty dangerous. There’s a lot of crevasses, a lot running water. A glacier makes its own sounds; some are scarier than others. I’ve noticed that it’s been changing a lot throughout the years. At the beginning when I started going, which my first time on the glacier was 2017, there was a large flat area that led to the toe of the glacier. And as time has gone on, it’s slowly receded. And in the past two years, I’ve noticed that it’s no longer there. So it’s a pretty challenging environment to work in. It’s also very beautiful, very peaceful. It is that dichotomy of it being a dangerous place to work and also one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to.

Terry Gerton I would imagine that the constantly changing nature of the glacier and the fact that, as you just said, some of it is disappearing adds a sense of urgency to this recovery mission.

Carlos Colon Yes, we’ve definitely seen the glacier has been changing at a rapid rate, which has led to us taking this on with a little bit more expediency. We’ve really focused on streamlining the way we’re conducting search and recovery, what we prioritize, how things are collected and bagged in order to really take advantage of the time we have on the glacier for for that recovery period. But also, we don’t know how much time we would have left to recover on the glacier. So we’ve really focused on expediting the recovery efforts, which has led to expedited DNA sampling and testing.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Kate Grosso and Carlos Colon. They are medicolegal investigators with the Department of Defense. Kate, let me come back to you. I think we’ve laid a picture here of how complicated this operation is, but it also involves multiple agencies. What does coordination look like between the medical examiner system and recovery teams and other DoD components? How do you keep everybody on the same sheet of music in this really challenging environment?

Kate Grosso Well, to be frank, it’s collaborative. There are a number of players involved in these recovery operations. We work very closely with our partners at Air Force Mortuary Affairs operations, with the Alaska Air National Guard, and with the folks that are provided for us who provide force multiplication for our recovery operations on the glacier. It requires a tremendous amount of communication, education and training. And we’ve been very grateful to have excellent support partners, because you’re right, this is a very complicated recovery mission and it requires a very complex and multidisciplinary approach.

Terry Gerton And Carlos, let me come back to you because you mentioned being on the glacier, being on the scene in terms of recovery operations. What about the human dimension? How important is this for the families of the service members that were lost in the crash?

Carlos Colon These family members have been waiting for their loved ones for 73 years. So it’s very important. A lot of them are very active on social media. They communicate with each other. They follow up with AFMAO and with AFME. So we know the importance this has to family members. Another thing about this mission that I’ve noticed is how important it is to the service members that are on the recovery teams. For them, a lot of these team members, or most of them, have not seen human remains or done anything in the mortuary affairs field. They’re selected for the team because of their mountaineering experience. It’s been kind of gratifying to see how involved they get with the mission and how proud they are. We talk a lot about it when we’re out there. It’s kind of a living reminder of, we never leave any of our fallen behind, and them being young service members, it’s been really nice to see them see that in action.

Terry Gerton Carls, I really appreciate that perspective and the impact that this operation has had. How close are you to completing the operation?

Carlos Colon We are currently at 50 out of the 52.

Terry Gerton Wow. And with the urgency that you mentioned earlier, because of the environmental change, those last two must be pretty tough to find. Along those lines, Kate, let me come over to you. We’ve talked about how complex this operation is, how unusual, how technology has advanced. What lessons does the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System take from this to apply to other sorts of recovery operations?

Kate Grosso It’s a really good question. AFMES and the medicolegal investigators at work here, we have a worldwide area of responsibility. So we’re looking at various different environments with lots of different airframes in different circumstances. Working in a glaciated environment has really helped us hone our cold weather response for aviation mishaps. Carlos and I specifically have been all over the world responding to mishap investigations and recoveries, from Norway to Australia. And using the lessons that we’ve learned in a glaciated environment has really given us new perspectives on our current-day operational recoveries.

The post On a remote Alaskan glacier, a 73-year mission of recovery and respect first appeared on Federal News Network.

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