What Bitcoin Did · Nov 4, 2026 · 1h 3m · 55m saved
With Harry Sudock, Chief Business Officer of CleanSpark
Bitcoin's global hash rate is down "a little less than 10%" even as the biggest public miners race into AI, which Harry Sudock calls the only real bear market in hash-rate history outside China's 2021 mining ban. The common fear is that this pivot starves Bitcoin's security budget. Harry, chief business officer of CleanSpark, one of the largest public Bitcoin-mining companies in the US, told Danny Knowles on What Bitcoin Did that the opposite is happening.
"Hash rate's only down a little less than 10%... it's probably the only actual bear market we've had in hash rate ever." — Harry Sudock
Harry runs business strategy at a company mining Bitcoin across Georgia, Tennessee, Wyoming and Mississippi while it also builds out power infrastructure for AI data centers, putting him on both sides of the trade the episode is about.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 1 hour 3 minutes of audio, 8 minutes of reading.
Here are the 7 takeaways that matter.
Key Takeaways
Global hash rate is down nearly 10%, the only real bear market outside China's mining ban
Harry expects hash rate to keep growing, just more slowly than the last decade
Existing global compute built from 1990 to 2024 "completely sold out" at just 1-2% AI penetration
A $45 million Bitcoin mine paying back in 11 months beats an $8 billion AI data center in risky jurisdictions
States with the most data centers saw electricity prices rise the slowest, Harry says, citing a cross-sectional study
Noise is perceived logarithmically — a drop from 55 dB to 45 dB is a 50% reduction in loudness
Bitcoin miners can curtail instantly for grid balancing; AI data centers use contractual mechanisms instead
1. Cost Basis Wins
Danny Knowles opened on anxiety in Bitcoin circles that miners pivoting to AI puts hash rate and the network's security budget at risk. Harry said two structural factors determine which miners stay profitable on pure Bitcoin economics: their cost basis on land and infrastructure, driven largely by the "vintage" of their ASIC purchases, and their ongoing run cost, which is 80 to 95%-plus indexed to the price per kilowatt-hour.
Owning a cheap site is the difference between surviving and not, Harry says
"It's better to own your site at a million and a half a megawatt than it is at 8 million a megawatt." — Harry Sudock
He put current breakeven power costs in the "sixes," in cents per kilowatt-hour, at this halving epoch's $60,000 to $85,000 Bitcoin range, with 4 to 8 cents still achievable in Texas.
Texas miners can still find 4-to-8-cent power, Harry says
"If you're in Texas, anything from 4 to 8 cents for a miner is totally realizable." — Harry Sudock
He said comparable rates hold across CleanSpark's Tennessee, Wyoming, Georgia and Mississippi sites.
