Bitcoin News Today: Bitcoin Mining Energy Surges 115% Amid Plunging Fee Revenue

Bitcoin mining is grappling with a growing divergence between rising energy consumption and declining fee revenue, as outlined in a recent report by GoMining Institutional. The Bitcoin network’s energy usage has surged to over 33 gigawatts (GW) by mid-2025, more than doubling in just 17 months from 15.6 GW in January 2024 [1]. This rapid expansion has been driven by a post-halving surge in mining infrastructure, despite a slowing on-chain transaction environment that has left miners increasingly reliant on block subsidies rather than user fees [2].

The report highlights that while individual mining hardware units have become more efficient, the sheer scale of new deployments has offset these gains, pushing energy consumption to “an unprecedented pace” [1]. Analysts note that the focus is now shifting from hardware innovation to how miners source and manage power [1]. Meanwhile, the network’s mining difficulty has remained relatively flat in early 2025, with a year-to-date increase of just 6.54%, compared to the average 4.48% growth in 2024 [1]. A brief spike to an all-time high of 126.98 trillion in late April was quickly followed by a sharp decline of -7.48%, marking the steepest drop since July 2021 [1].

On-chain activity has also weakened significantly. The first half of 2025 saw on-chain transaction levels fall to their lowest since October 2023, with the seven-day moving average of daily transactions reaching as low as 256,000 on June 1 [1]. Users have been able to send transactions at the minimal fee of 1 satoshi per virtual byte for much of the period, signaling a lack of blockspace demand [1]. This fee environment has led to the rare occurrence of a fully cleared mempool — the holding area for unconfirmed transactions — which emptied twice in 2025, the first such events in nearly two years [1].

The phenomenon underscores a key challenge for the network’s long-term sustainability: as block subsidies continue to halve roughly every four years, miners will increasingly depend on transaction fees to remain profitable. However, the current low-fee landscape, while beneficial for users, has limited revenue streams for operators already facing rising energy costs [1]. Industry observers warn that this imbalance — between infrastructure growth and economic returns — could persist for years, especially as the block subsidy continues its programmed decline toward zero by approximately 2140 [1].

Environmental pressures are further complicating the outlook. Extreme heat in key U.S. mining regions has already led to hashrate reductions, illustrating the vulnerability of the network to external conditions [1]. With energy consumption doubling since early 2024, the infrastructure is scaling faster than user activity or fee income, raising questions about the long-term economic model of Bitcoin mining [1].

Source: [1] Bitcoin Mining Faces Surging Power Demands and Record-Low Fees (https://coinmarketcap.com/community/articles/688c7fac8eaa8512bbd69c4f/)