Mining one Bitcoin now costs about $93,700 — roughly $12,000 more than the coin itself sells for near $81,500. That gap is why traders are watching miners closely: if high-cost miners switch off or sell coins, the pressure lands straight on the price.
Key points:
- Mining one BTC costs about $93,700 in the chart Vitalik Buterin shared on Oct 17 — above Bitcoin's price near $81,500.
- Electricity is about $43,000 (46%) of the cost and mining machines about $37,600 (40%) — power is the miner's biggest fight.
- AI work spends about 76% on chips and only about 5% on power, so AI firms can pay more for electricity than miners can.
The breakdown Buterin shared splits the $93,700 almost in half. Power fed directly into the machines costs about $40,600 per coin, plus about $2,400 in other electricity. The machines, cooling and power gear add about $37,600, while labour, rent and other costs make up the rest. The total also sits above JPMorgan's recent production-cost estimate of about $85,000 per coin.
Read also: Bitcoin's New Buyers Stack 570,000 BTC — Is $75,000 the Floor?
AI tells a very different story. Running trained AI models costs about $26,260 per GPU a year in the same estimates, and about 76% of that is the chips themselves. Electricity is only about $1,260 — near 5%. So an AI company can accept far higher power prices and still make its numbers work, while a miner paying more for power quickly falls underwater.
Can miners win the fight for power?
The fight is already visible on the ground. Core Scientific has begun converting its Pecos campus in Texas — a site with about 300 megawatts of power capacity used for Bitcoin mining — into an AI data centre, with the first capacity expected in early 2027. Many miners hold exactly what AI builders need most and cannot build fast enough: permitted sites already connected to the grid.
For traders, the message is simple. Bitcoin near $81,500 is below the full cost of mining a new coin, which squeezes miner profits and can force weaker miners to sell their Bitcoin or their power sites. If more miners choose AI deals, mining power could concentrate in fewer, cheaper hands — and every power-price rise will hit Bitcoin's cost floor harder.
Read also: Bitcoin to $10,000 If Stocks Crash 20%? One Analyst Says No
— Crypto News Daily News Desk
This post is news only, not financial advice. Always do your own research before buying or selling crypto.
Sources: BeInCrypto, TradingView, CryptoBriefing, Crypto.news