Bitcoin hashrate retests 1 ZH while price goes nowhere — the energy miners hedge

Bitcoin’s network hashrate pushed through 1,000 EH/s — the round-number mark the industry calls a zettahash of annualized computation — while spot price traded in its tightest month-long range in two years. The divergence is the energy miners’ answer to a flat coin: when the price won’t move, secure more of it. Stranded-gas and flare-gas operators, the ones who built out during the blockade, are running flat out because their marginal cost is fuel that would otherwise be vented for nothing. They mine through the boredom. Price is a market; hashrate is a vote. And the network just voted, in joules, that this range is a floor — not a ceiling.