Bitcoin mining on the road to 2028: three scenarios for the next halving cycle
With listed miners turning to AI and hashrate moving to new regions, we outline three scenarios for how mining could look before the 2028 halving.
MININGBITCOINANALYSIS
Daniel Hartley
10/28/20263 min read
The next Bitcoin halving is roughly 18 months away, expected around April 2028, when the block subsidy will fall from 3.125 to 1.5625 BTC. For miners, that date is the defining deadline of the cycle. The decisions they take now about hardware, power and how much capacity to rent to AI customers will determine who can still mine profitably once revenue per block is cut in half.
The industry enters this stretch in an unusual shape. Hashrate is close to record levels, but the mix behind it has changed. Listed companies in North America are releasing capacity, while private operators and new regions add it. Hardware is getting more efficient, and the software that runs it is becoming more open. Rather than forecast a single path, it is more useful to set out three scenarios and the signals that would point to each.
The forces already in motion
Geography comes first. Hashrate Index estimated that at the start of 2026 the United States held about 37.5% of global hashrate, followed by Russia at 16.4% and China, despite its ban, at 11.7%. Growth has been fastest where there is surplus hydropower or state-backed energy: in Hashrate Index's first-quarter figures, Ethiopia's hashrate rose 129% year over year, Paraguay's 54% and Oman's 28%. These markets offer cheap power but also political and regulatory risk, from tariff changes to sudden policy reversals. In South Africa, for instance, the utility Eskom is reviewing a tariff for mining loads, with a decision expected in December.
Hardware is the second force. The newest hydro-cooled machines advertise efficiency below 10 joules per terahash, and CoinShares expects rig prices to soften as such units ship in volume in the second half of 2026. Cheaper, more efficient machines lower the break-even price for anyone able to upgrade. The third force is openness. Tether's open-source mining operating system and its mining development kit, which this month won backing from Bitmain, Canaan and more than a dozen other firms, aim to reduce dependence on proprietary firmware and could make mixed fleets easier for small operators to manage.
Scenario one: a pre-halving build-out
If bitcoin's price recovers meaningfully from current levels near $80,000, history points to a familiar pattern. CoinShares notes that hashrate has tended to surge in the year before each halving as operators race to install new machines while rewards are still high. In this scenario hashrate would set new records well above 1.1 ZH/s during 2027, difficulty would climb steadily, and efficient newcomers in Africa, Latin America and the Gulf would gain share. Listed miners that kept some bitcoin capacity alongside their AI business would benefit, while those that exited fully would miss the upside.
Scenario two: a long grind
If the price trades sideways in a broad range, the squeeze continues. Hashprice would hover near this autumn's levels, and every upward difficulty adjustment would push older machines toward the edge. Consolidation would continue: more listed companies converting sites to AI, more second-hand rigs flowing to operators with the cheapest power, and more hashrate concentrated in a handful of low-cost regions. Network security would remain robust, but mining would look more like a commodity business run on razor-thin margins, with the halving acting as a hard deadline for the least efficient players.
Scenario three: capitulation
A sharp drop below most operators' cash costs would trigger a different dynamic. CoinShares put the weighted average cash cost of listed miners near $75,500 per coin in the second quarter and treated $70,000 as a key line for the sector this year. A move well below that would force many machines offline at once. The network has a built-in shock absorber: in June 2026 difficulty fell 10.09% in a single adjustment, restoring margins for those who stayed online. In this scenario, miners with low debt, cheap power and AI contracts covering fixed costs would come out stronger, while leveraged operators would face asset sales or restructurings.
A few indicators will show which path is unfolding. Hashprice and the size of fortnightly difficulty adjustments are the most immediate. Quarterly geography updates show whether growth keeps shifting away from North America. The pace at which listed companies energize AI capacity, rather than merely sign contracts, shows how much bitcoin hashrate they are likely to release. Transaction fees also deserve attention: once the subsidy halves, fees will have to carry more of the security budget, and this year they have provided only a small fraction of miner income.
None of these scenarios threatens Bitcoin's ability to produce blocks. What they decide is who produces them, where and on what terms. The 2028 halving will cut revenue in half for everyone at the same moment, and the operators best placed to absorb it will be those that use the next 18 months to lock in the cheapest power and the most efficient fleets.