Navigating Post‑Halving Hashrate Growth

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• They contain (1) a summary of podcast content, (2) potential information gaps, and (3) some speculative views on wider Bitcoin implications.
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Summary

The April 22 2025 episode of The Mining Pod features researcher Valentin Rousseau forecasting that Bitcoin network hashrate will climb to roughly 989 EH/s by December 2025 and 1,700 EH/s by December 2027. He attributes the rise to public‑miner expansion, improving ASIC efficiency, and large‑scale power‑site build‑outs, while warning that U.S. import tariffs and funding constraints could temper deployment. Policymakers, investors, and grid operators must track these forces to gauge future network security and energy demand.

Take-Home Messages

1. Tariff Impact: New U.S. duties cut about 60 EH/s from 2025 plans, pushing miners toward foreign assembly and alternative sites.
2. Public‑Miner Peak: Listed firms may exceed 40 % of hashpower next year, elevating concentration risk and regulatory scrutiny.
3. Efficiency Mandate: Achieving a 19 J/TH fleet average by 2027 is crucial; slower chip gains would squeeze margins and stall growth.
4. Dilution Fatigue: Equity‑heavy funding models face backlash, accelerating adoption of Bitcoin‑backed loans and structured debt.
5. Power Bottlenecks: Securing hundreds of low‑cost megawatts emerges as the chief gatekeeper for post‑2026 hashrate expansion.

Overview

Valentin Rousseau aggregates expansion targets from twenty publicly traded Bitcoin miners, adjusts each by past execution success, and scales the sum by public‑miner market share to build his forecast. This bottom‑up approach places year‑end 2025 network hashrate near 989 EH/s—a downgrade from earlier estimates after tariffs removed roughly 60 EH/s of anticipated U.S. capacity. He adds that supply‑chain rerouting or delayed energization could further widen the projection band.

Public miners now control about 37 % of global hashpower, and Rousseau expects their share to crest near 42 % in 2025 before easing to 39 % by 2027 as private and international operators catch up. Such concentration, he argues, exposes the network to correlated financial shocks if listed firms face simultaneous funding stress or restrictive policy moves. Monitoring public‑miner leverage therefore becomes a governance priority.

Efficiency gains underpin the entire outlook. Rousseau projects an industry‑wide average of 19 J/TH by late 2027, assuming steady ASIC advances and rapid retirement of legacy hardware. Failure to hit this benchmark would compress margins, dampen reinvestment capacity, and slow overall hashrate growth.

Capital structure is the final lever. Many miners still rely on equity issuance and convertible notes—strategies that dilute shareholders and weaken balance‑sheet resilience. Rousseau highlights emerging alternatives such as Bitcoin‑backed loans, stressing that credit conditions will dictate how quickly new capacity can be financed and energized.

Stakeholder Perspectives

• Regulators: Watching for systemic risk as public‑miner share rises and tariff‑driven equipment flows shift jurisdictions.
• Public Miners: Balancing aggressive build‑outs with investor pressure to curb dilution and diversify financing.
• Private Miners: Eyeing tariff‑driven openings abroad but constrained by longer site‑development lead times.
• Grid Operators & Utilities: Evaluating large‑scale power requests amid concurrent AI and HPC demand growth.
• Institutional Investors: Tracking efficiency milestones, balance‑sheet health, and policy moves to gauge long‑term ROI.

Implications and Future Outlook

Tariffs create immediate volatility, forcing miners to consider foreign assembly, secondary markets, or deployment delays. If supply‑chain adjustments proceed smoothly, Rousseau’s 2025 target remains plausible; if not, security growth could undershoot and amplify block congestion risk. Continued policy uncertainty therefore merits close monitoring.

Public‑miner dominance intensifies governance debates. Enhanced transparency rules, concentration caps, or coordinated disclosure standards may emerge to mitigate correlated‑failure scenarios. Overly restrictive regulation, however, could trigger rapid relocations and undermine local tax revenues.

Beyond 2026, power‑capacity availability becomes the binding constraint. Jurisdictions that streamline permitting, provide firm renewable supply, and clarify energy‑use classifications are poised to capture the next investment wave. Regions that delay risk capital flight and missed economic spillovers.

Some Key Information Gaps

1. How will sustained U.S. equipment tariffs alter global allocation of new hashrate? Quantifying relocation paths is vital for assessing network resilience and national energy planning.
2. Which financing structures let miners scale without continual equity dilution? Identifying durable funding models supports shareholder value and broadens institutional participation.
3. What grid‑expansion policies could alleviate power‑capacity bottlenecks for large sites? Practical solutions can unlock stranded renewables and stabilize regional grids.
4. How sensitive are miner profit models to a potential slowdown in chip‑node improvements? Understanding this exposure refines ROI forecasts and guides procurement timing.
5. What standardized reporting can illuminate private‑miner capacity and location data? Enhanced transparency strengthens policymaking and research accuracy.

Broader Implications for Bitcoin

Monetary‑Network Resilience

Tariff‑driven geographic shifts could diversify hashrate across jurisdictions, reducing regulatory capture risk and enhancing global fault tolerance. A wider distribution complicates unilateral policy attempts to curtail mining, reinforcing Bitcoin’s sovereign characteristics. Governments may respond by courting miners with tax incentives to retain influence.

Energy‑Market Integration

Large‑scale site builds align miners with utility‑scale renewables, providing flexible baseload demand that monetizes otherwise‑curtailed generation. Successful integration encourages investment in transmission upgrades and storage, potentially accelerating decarbonization efforts. Regions resisting mining may forfeit grid‑balancing revenue streams and renewable deployment momentum.

Capital‑Market Evolution

Investor pushback against dilution is steering miners toward structured debt and commodity‑linked instruments, spurring financial innovation around Bitcoin collateral. Widespread adoption could normalize Bitcoin‑denominated lending and deepen liquidity in adjacent markets. This trend, however, amplifies systemic exposure to price volatility, requiring prudent risk oversight.