Bitcoin's network hashrate has recovered 11.7% from the low recorded in August, according to a COINOTAG report published on Oct. 23, 2026, even as publicly listed mining companies redirect a substantial share of their machine fleets away from Bitcoin mining toward artificial intelligence computing.

Update 02:27 UTC: CoinShares estimates that at least 35 EH/s dropped off from listed operators' rigs as a result of the pivot.

Hashrate as a Network Gauge

Hashrate measures the total computational power committed to securing the Bitcoin network and is one of the most closely tracked indicators of miner participation. One exahash (EH/s) equals one quintillion hash computations per second. Network hashrate is estimated from block production data, and the protocol's difficulty mechanism retargets roughly every 2,016 blocks, or about every two weeks, to keep average block intervals near the 10-minute. This design allows the network to keep operating normally whether machines come online or go offline. Because these readings are derived from the probabilistic timing of block discovery rather than measured directly, hashrate figures are generally interpreted over periods — such as the recovery from the August low — rather than as exact point-in-time measurements.

Read together, the rebound and the reported withdrawal of listed operators' capacity show the scenario this design accounts for: rigs going offline or coming online while block production stays on schedule. With retargets arriving roughly every two weeks, each upcoming adjustment window serves as a recurring checkpoint for how the protocol recalibrates as machine fleets shift between Bitcoin mining and other workloads.

The AI Pivot

The capacity withdrawn by listed operators reflects a broader industry trend that has been widely documented in recent years: publicly traded miners have repurposed data-center sites, hardware, and power arrangements to serve artificial intelligence and high-performance computing (HPC) workloads, which are typically secured through longer-duration hosting contracts. In practical terms, capacity committed to those longer-duration contracts sits outside the Bitcoin mining fleet for the life of each agreement.

This content was first published on COINOTAG: https://en.coinotag.com/bitcoin-btc-hashrate-recovers-11-7-from-august-low-despite-miner-ai-pivot