Bitcoin’s mining landscape is showing clear signs of stress as network 
difficulty records its largest downward adjustment since 2021. The sharp drop 
reflects a wave of miners shutting off machines or exiting entirely, squeezed 
by declining profitability, higher operating costs, and prolonged price 
pressure. As inefficient miners step aside and difficulty adjusts lower, the 
stage is set for consolidation across the mining sector. What Miner 
Capitulation Says About Near-Term Bitcoin Sentiment One of the most telling 
signals in the market is happening right now. The CEO of Coinbureau, known as 
Nic, revealed on X that Bitcoin mining difficulty just experienced its biggest 
drop since 2021, which means a meaningful number of miners are either shutting 
machines off or exiting the network entirely. At the same time, some miners 
are actively pivoting away from BTC and moving into AI and hyperscale data 
centers. Related Reading: Retail Dumps, Bitcoin Inflows Surge: On-Chain Data 
Flags Capitulation Bitfarms is a clear example, as its stock surged after 
announcing it is no longer positioning itself primarily as a BTC mining 
company. It&#8217;s not just that mining is harder, but because prices are down, and 
margins are tight. Instead, markets are actively rewarding miners for leaving 
BTC and reallocating into AI infrastructure, signaling that capital sees more 
returns outside BTC mining. A Statistical Outlier In Bitcoin Price Action 
Bitcoin has just printed a 5.65 standard deviation move, an event so extreme 
that it has occurred only 13 times in more than 5,000 trading days. According 
to Front Runners on X, Standard deviation measures how far a price move 
deviates from the average daily change. Most daily BTC moves fall within ±1 
standard deviation, which is roughly 70% of the time, and any moves beyond 3 
standard deviations are already considered rare. Related Reading: Is Bitcoin’s 
Reset Complete? BTC Steadies Above $70K as Markets Debate the Next Move A 5+ 
standard deviation move sits at extreme territory. Historically, BTC has seen 
similar moves of volatility in January 2015, December 2018, and March 2020, 
all periods that closely aligned with major cycle bottoms. This doesn&#8217;t mean 
it is a reversal recovery to the upside, as BTC could still consolidate 
sideways for months. However, this is the kind of volatility move that tends 
to happen near exhaustion, not mid-trend. This fast and aggressive crypto bear 
market is likely closer to a bottom than a top. Analyst Scient has highlighted 
that for Bitcoin and high-quality crypto assets, this is not the environment 
to chase trades. Instead, it&#8217;s the phase to plan buys using a structured 
Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) strategy over the coming weeks and months. There 
is no reliable way to time an exact bottom outside of pure luck. As prices 
trend lower, downside targets will continue to shift lower, creating 
frustration for anyone trying to trade every move. Scient emphasized that a 
simple spot accumulation using dollar-cost averaging in BTC and strong alts 
will outperform gambling on leverage for most participants. Featured image 
from Pixabay, chart from Tradingview.com

Bitcoin Miners Exit As Difficulty Suffers Largest Drop Since 2021

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The post Bryan Pellegrino: Blockchain scalability is hindered by storage layer constraints, node computation inefficiencies drive up costs, and the shift towards centralization threatens decentralization | Unchained appeared first on Crypto Briefing.

Bryan Pellegrino: Blockchain scalability is hindered by storage layer constraints, node computation inefficiencies drive up costs, and the shift towards centralization threatens decentralization | Unchained

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