Thirteen years after Bitcoin’s first halving event slashed block rewards from 50 to 25 BTC, the mining landscape is unrecognizable. With four halvings now complete, rewards have dwindled to just 3.125 BTC per block, transforming the industry into a high-stakes arena where large-scale miners are consolidating and even diversifying into AI to stay profitable.

Amid this industrialization, however, a counter-trend is gaining traction. According to analysts at Bitfinex, a new wave of solo and hobbyist miners is re-entering the market, armed with new strategies and technologies that are challenging the notion that small-scale mining is a thing of the past.

An Industry Under Pressure

The Bitcoin mining sector has become fiercely competitive over the last year. The global hashrate soared past the one zetahash per second (ZH/s) milestone in August, a testament to massive investment and the deployment of hyper-efficient hardware like the Antminer S21 series. This technological arms race has made the market of 2025 more advanced and geographically diverse than ever before, but also more volatile.

Despite the escalating competition, mining output has fallen sharply. Between November 2024 and November 2025, approximately 155,000 BTC were added to the circulating supply—a 37% decrease from the 245,000 BTC mined in the previous year. Kristian Csepcsar, chief marketing officer at Braiins, noted that 2024 was already a difficult period, with miners deploying hardware at a record pace.

The situation has only intensified. “2024 was difficult. Today is worse,” Csepcsar explained. “Miners are in the most competitive environment the industry has ever seen.” Even with higher BTC prices, revenues have been squeezed as the hash price—a key metric for a miner’s return per unit of computing power—plummeted to historic lows amid the relentless competition.

The Surprising Return of the Hobbyist

While industrial players battle for dominance, individual miners are staging a quiet comeback. Bitfinex analysts report that improvements in mining pool technology have been a key catalyst. Platforms like CKPool, known for their low latency, have made solo mining more accessible and viable than it has been in years.

This resurgence is also fueled by a viral social media trend celebrating “lottery wins” by solo miners who successfully find a block, often using efficient and quiet devices at home. The availability of low-cost ASICs, combined with clever strategies like using off-peak electricity, recycling heat, and optimizing efficiency with custom firmware such as BraiinsOS, has revitalized the hobbyist mining scene.

Still, it’s important to maintain perspective. Bitfinex analysts clarify that while the trend is notable, it doesn’t pose a threat to the dominance of large-scale operations. In a scenario where major miners capitulated, mid-size industrial farms would likely become the new leaders, with solo and hobbyist miners remaining far behind in terms of capacity. “It is an interesting pattern,” the analysts concluded, “but it is far from competing with the larger and more industrial operators.”

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