Monthly Bitcoin production drops as miners fight rising hashrate

Bitcoin Mining Update: January’s Declining Production and Riot Platforms’ Rise

Key Takeaways:

• Bitcoin mining production declined across major mining companies as network difficulty surged.
• Riot Platforms bucked the trend with a 2.1% increase in Bitcoin production.
• Rising mining difficulty has forced companies to upgrade their equipment and optimize operations.
• Riot Platforms’ new Texas mining facility and a larger 1-gigawatt project have contributed to its growth.

Bitcoin Mining Faces Rising Difficulty in January

January 2025 marked a tough month for Bitcoin miners as the network difficulty surged. Mining difficulty refers to the computational power required to verify Bitcoin transactions and mine new blocks. As difficulty increased, most major Bitcoin mining companies, including Hut 8, Marathon (Mara), and Bitfarms, reported a decline in their Bitcoin production compared to December 2024.

In contrast, Riot Platforms stood out by reporting a 2.1% increase in Bitcoin output, defying the broader trend. This highlights the company’s strong growth and ability to adapt to challenging mining conditions.

In January, Bitcoin network difficulty approached an all-time high of 110 trillion (T), making mining operations more challenging. Since the Bitcoin halving event on April 20, 2024, mining difficulty has risen by 27.8%, and miners are feeling the pressure to upgrade equipment and streamline operations to stay profitable.

Compared to December 2024, Hut 8 experienced a 27% drop in Bitcoin production, mining only 65 BTC in January. Marathon (Mara) saw a 12.5% decrease, and Bitfarms suffered a 4.7% decline in Bitcoin production.

Riot Platforms: Maintaining Growth Amid Rising Difficulty

While most Bitcoin mining firms saw their production decrease, Riot Platforms managed to maintain its Bitcoin output through a new mining facility in Corsicana, Texas. This new facility is part of a larger 1-gigawatt development aimed at scaling up their operations. According to Riot’s CEO, Jason Les, the new facility reached a hash rate of 15.7 EH/s by the end of January. This improvement in hash rate and deployment of new miners and immersion systems have played a significant role in maintaining and increasing production.

“The Corsicana Facility reached a deployed hash rate of 15.7 EH/s towards the end of the month. We continue to see strong results from newly deployed miners and immersion systems, reflected in the significant improvement in our operational hash rate and utilization rates,” said Jason Les, CEO of Riot Platforms.

On the other hand, Hut 8 announced that infrastructure upgrades are almost complete and are expected to enhance their mining capacity in the coming weeks.

How Bitcoin Mining Works and Why You Should Get Involved

Bitcoin mining is the process by which new BTC is created and transactions are verified. Miners use high-powered ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits) to solve complex cryptographic problems and validate blocks in the Bitcoin blockchain. Mining difficulty, which adjusts to the total computational power of the network, determines how challenging it is to mine Bitcoin.

Due to the network’s increasing difficulty and halving events (which reduce block rewards), Bitcoin miners need to continually upgrade their hardware and optimize their mining strategies. This requires state-of-the-art mining equipment and a reliable power source. Companies like Riot Platforms that continue to innovate and build new facilities are more likely to maintain profitability even when faced with rising difficulty.

If you’re looking to start your own mining operation, it’s crucial to choose the right hardware to ensure profitability. Discover our most profitable Bitcoin miner , the Bitmain Antminer S21 XP Hydro