The total working speed of Bitcoin mining devices has recently slowed down. Miners experienced a decrease in network difficulty for the first time since September. This situation signals more challenging market conditions, especially for small-scale miners. The total revenue from Bitcoin mining remained steady at $1.4 billion in January. However, there has been a noticeable increase in industry concentration. Public mining companies collectively own 99,000 BTC (approximately $9.7 billion), representing about 30% of the network’s hash rate. With intensifying competition among leading mining companies, smaller operators are increasingly exiting the market. Marathon Digital (MARA) continues to lead the sector with a hash rate of 41.65 EH/s, followed by CleanSpark at 34.77 EH/s. Meanwhile, Riot Platforms has reached a capacity of 31.27 EH/s through an aggressive growth strategy, positioning itself in the heart of the competition. The increasing rivalry among major mining companies… is further driving up the competition, widening the gap among 10 EH/s level miners like Core Scientific, Cipher Mining, and Bitfarms. This polarization indicates the growing difficulty for smaller players to maintain a presence in the market. Profitability is decreasing in mining. The recent halving event, which reduced Bitcoin mining rewards by half, has increased pressure on profitability. Even as the price of BTC approaches $100,000, profit margins across the sector continue to narrow. This scenario allows large mining companies to expand their market share by leveraging scale advantages, while seriously weakening the competitive power of small operators. Due to the declining profitability, many miners are turning to alternative sources of income. Providing hosting services for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) companies is becoming a new business model for these firms. Companies with large operations are investing in more advanced cooling infrastructure to increase mining efficiency, while small miners are struggling with rising operational costs. The slowdown in the import of mining hardware to the US in January is another reason for the slowdown in the growth of the hash rate. However, some major firms like Blockchain Power Corp and AcroHash continue to expand their operations by importing significant amounts of advanced cooling infrastructure from Bitmain. According to TheMinerMag’s forecasts, there is likely to be a further decrease in network difficulty in February due to the withdrawal of small mining operators from the market because of declining profitability.