Bitcoin Hits $110K, CZ Wins Pardon, and Listed Miners' Shares Have Rallied Strongly

Weekly Bit Insight

Macro Drivers Dominate: The Bitcoin price broke above $110,000, registering a weekly gain of approximately +3.3%. This strong rebound was not driven by active on-chain transactions, but was buoyed by the upcoming CPI release and the expectation of two interest rate cuts this year, hinted at in the Fed's September meeting minutes. The market is repositioning Bitcoin as a primary beneficiary of liquidity expectations.

Hashprice Decline: Despite the rising coin price, the Hashprice, which measures the value of output per unit of computing power, dropped by 7% month-over-month compared to September. This clearly indicates that the speed of new hashrate influx (expansion inertia) has outpaced the gains from the price increase, posing an existential threat to high-cost miners.

Mining Zero-Sum Game Intensifies: Leading mining companies continue to execute aggressive expansion strategies, with Marathon's hashrate reaching 60.4 EH/s. CleanSpark announced a strategic transformation on October 20th. Bitdeer's stock price experienced an explosive surge in recent trading, with a single-day gain exceeding 28% at one point, demonstrating the market's positive response to the expansion prospects and strategies of these top-tier miners.

Institutional Entry Accelerates: European market access is speeding up, with the iShares Bitcoin ETP listing in London, featuring a management fee as low as 0.15%. Concurrently, the final ruling window for the U.S. SEC on altcoin spot ETFs (including LTC, SOL, XRP, etc.) is opening.

Binance founder CZ was granted a presidential pardon: On October 23rd, CZ was granted a presidential pardon regarding his prior conviction and sentence for violating anti-money laundering laws. This political decision has sparked widespread discussion about the regulatory environment of the crypto industry and CZ's future role in the crypto space.

I. Market Overview

BTC Price Performance

This week, the Bitcoin price continued its sharp volatility. It closed at approximately $106,469 on October 18th and at about $110,079 on the 24th, a weekly increase of approximately +3.3%; it briefly touched $111,000 during the session on the 24th. The steady rebound was primarily lifted by the market's positive expectations for macro data.

Network Hashrate and Difficulty

This week, the Bitcoin network hashrate fluctuated between 1.1 ZH and 1.16 ZH, generally remaining at historical highs. The current mining difficulty is approximately 146.7 T. The difficulty was adjusted down from 150.8 T at the beginning of October to 146.7 T on the 16th (approx. -3.9%) and remained stable until the 24th. The next difficulty adjustment is expected on October 29th, with the difficulty projected to increase to approximately 153.9 T (+4.9%). In the medium term, the 30-day difficulty increase has reached +3.07%, and the 90-day increase is +15.90%, indicating a general upward trend in hashrate recently.

Transaction Fees

Bitcoin blockchain transaction fees were low this week, accounting for 0.55% of miners' revenue, with the block-average transaction fee (in BTC terms) dipping below 0.02 BTC during the week. This confirms the current low level of network congestion and sluggish on-chain transaction activity, further indicating that the current price increase is not driven by on-chain demand.

II. Market Analysis

Price and Output

This week, the coin price consolidated between $106,000 and $111,000, while mining difficulty continued to hover around 1 ZH, keeping Hashprice under pressure. Hashprice has dropped to approximately $46.17/PH/day at one point, a 7% decline month-over-month compared to September.

This implies that although the total block reward has increased, the hashrate growth has been faster, leading to a dilution of revenue per unit of computing power. Analysts point out that current miner profitability is highly dependent on electricity costs and scale, with a viable profit margin maintained only in power environments where electricity costs are below $0.05/kWh. The drop in Hashprice is accelerating the industry trend from decentralization toward monopolization.

Listed Miners Hashrate

The long-term upward trend of the Bitcoin network hashrate remained unchanged this week, undergoing a minor adjustment after a period of rapid expansion. Among global listed miners, Marathon achieved an active hashrate scale of 60.4 EH/s at the end of Q3, maintaining its leading position; Bitdeer's expansion momentum is strong, having surpassed Riot to enter the top five. Concurrently, the total market capitalization of mining companies has reached approximately $90 billion, with the hashrate investment of key players continuing to climb rapidly.

Cloud Mining Market

This week, with the BTC price in a range-bound correction, sentiment in the cloud mining market was cautious. The median nominal quote for 180-day cloud mining on the market remains at approximately $0.0502/T/day (i.e., $50.2/PH/day). Taking the 180-day product as an example, if an investor purchases a 180-day cycle cloud mining product on the Bit platform, with a mining price of $0.0426/T/day, their effective acquisition cost for the BTC obtained through mining is approximately $99,000.

III. News and Events

This week, the biggest themes in the mining sector were strategic transformation and record capital raising, with mining companies actively leveraging their large-scale energy infrastructure advantages to move into the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and High-Performance Computing (HPC). Analysts suggest that investors are valuing Bitcoin miners almost entirely based on their HPC and AI potential.

Miner Strategic Transformation and Capital Wave

Listed miners are seeking higher-margin revenue streams, pushing the industry's valuation model away from pure crypto asset exposure toward digital infrastructure. During Q3 2025, leading miners collectively raised over $6 billion through debt and convertible bond issuances.

Bitdeer stock surged nearly 29% this week. The company announced that its Artificial Intelligence (AI) Cloud business has achieved an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) run rate of $8 million, with a GPU utilization rate as high as approximately 86%. This demonstrates to the market the feasibility and immediate profitability of its transition from pure mining to a high-margin AI infrastructure service provider. The company confirmed it has deployed 35.0 EH/s of self-owned hashrate and reiterated its goal of reaching 40 EH/s by the end of October, while improving operational efficiency by retiring older machines and deploying self-developed SEALMINER equipment.

On October 20th, CleanSpark (CLSK) announced its business would evolve from a pure Bitcoin miner into an enterprise that also includes AI computing services. This move, which includes introducing a Senior Vice President of AI Data Centers, marks the company's formal entry into the AI/HPC sector by leveraging its power infrastructure advantages.

IREN Ltd. completed a $1 billion convertible senior notes offering on October 17th, with the raised capital explicitly earmarked to fund its transition from Bitcoin mining to an AI/HPC cloud service provider.

Global Energy Policy and Regulatory Divergence

Globally, the energy consumption issue of mining is triggering stricter policy intervention, leading to increasing regional policy divergence.

On October 20th, British Columbia (BC), Canada, announced an energy amendment bill aimed at permanently banning new cryptocurrency mining projects. This move is based on the province's view that the cryptocurrency mining industry involves "disproportionate energy consumption and limited economic benefits."

BC's bill also restricts power allocation to emerging AI data centers, allocating only 300 MW for AI computing and 100 MW for data centers over the next two years. The province's Ministry of Energy explicitly stated that it will prioritize electricity supply to traditional industries (such as mining, oil and gas, manufacturing) that bring more local employment and revenue, in sharp contrast to which the power supply for these industries is "uncapped."

Industry Chain and Supply Chain Dynamics

Mining rig giant MicroBT (WhatsMiner manufacturer) announced the opening of an online store in the U.S., allowing customers to directly order American-made WhatsMiner machines. This move aims to eliminate import tariffs and international shipping costs, and provide fast pick-up and local after-sales support, in response to U.S. tariffs on Chinese-made mining rigs and shifts in institutional demand.